A Glass of Cremisan with the Priest

In Holy Mass, wine is used. But, especially in the Latin rite back then, hardly a whole bottle at a time. Only the priest communicates in the species of wine, and he is not supposed to get drunk on it. So, sometimes a priest has to finish a bottle over the table which he began using for the Eucharist. To share the mass wine is considered a great honour, and Susan was invited over a glass with the priest and his housekeeper - an aunt of his. It was Cremisan - the wine from a Salesian monastery close to Jerusalem and Bethlehem. And, as Israel had already been voted into existance a few years ago in United Nations, Cremisan Vinyards as sooner or later menaced by Jewish settlers came into the conversation.

"But cannot one at least understand them? I mean, according to the Bible it is their land!"

"Is it?"

"God gave the land to Abraham and his descendants for ever."

"Christ is the seed of Abraham."

"Well, but Jews lived here till after the Destruction of Jerusalem. Then the Romans came, then the Arabs with Islam."

"And we Christian Arabs, where do we come from?"

She was just going to say "with the Arabs" when she recalled that Muslims hardly tolerated even individual conversions to Christianity, still less the defection of a whole countryside or half of it.

"Weren't you Arabs in part converted by the Crusaders?"

"We were here before the Crusaders, guess again."

"Did the Arabs from Arabia bring along Christians in their troops?"

"Hardly."

"So, you are Romans ..."

"In a sense, yes."

"And after year Seventy you came here and took the land of the Jews, right?"

"In a sense, yes."

"Why do you keep saying 'in a sense'? You weren't here before year seventy, were you?"

"We left shortly before, as the Lord had commanded us. We fled when the Roman troops came."

"Wait ... that is what happened to the Church of Jerusalem!"

"We lived here in the time of David. We were known as Israelites and the tribe of Judah back then. We accepted Jesus as the true Christ, the promised Messiah, when St Peter preached to us. And when Titus arrived, we fled to Pella. There we founded the Church in Jordania. After the destruction of Jerusalem, we who had not been part of the rising, came back and we were known as Romans. So was St Paul - as nomadic a tentmaker as you could wish for. And we remained speakers of Aramaic, the language of Jesus. It is pretty close to Arabic, so I suppose it was no harder for us to learn Arabic under Omar - and some of us were forced to become Muslims - than it was for Scots from the Lowlands to learn English under industrialism. Aramaic as well as Latin are our liturgic languages, but Arabic our daily language."

"So Palestinians are really Christian Jews?"

"We say Galileans, rather than Jews, because, first of all, it was not just Jews, but Jews, Samarians and Galileans, second, Jews and Samarians had been used as names for rivalling factions the last thousand years of the Old Testament. But third and most important: Christ was called a Galilean."

"Why do Jews not recognise you then?"

"They decided in Jamnia not to recognise Christians as Israelites."

"Oh, I did not know that ... sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for, most English do not know that. And it is Christmas, not a Season for sorrow, even if one is worried. Let us thank God for the good cheer as long as it lasts!" said the priest with a defiant smile.

And Susan could not help thinking of Father Christmas, back in Narnia.

"Let us do that!" she said and they lifted their glasses.

Susan reads Lucy's essay on Astronomy

You may think Lucy was stupid to write essays on Narnian topics. But she did not write them in the English alphabet. Which is really the Latin alphabet with a few extra letters. Nor in Greek or Russian alphabets. Nor in Arabic or Hebrew letters. Not in any cuneiform or hieroglyphics either. She had spoken to a man called Mr. Tolkien and he knew a thing or two about writing. He had also invented alphabets - unless he had found them somewhere in Elfland. We are talking about a writing called tengwar.

Her mother had seen her notebook, and laughed.

"If you cannot show your own parents what you write about, I won't spy on you!"

"Thank you, ma! I am sorry I cannot right now. Hope there will be a time for it though"

Now she was buried on the graveyard. Like the other six: Peter and Edmund. Eustace and Jill. Mr Kirke and Miss Plumber.

Susan felt it was time to open the notebook.

Am I worthy? she wondered. Well, even if I am not, I hope she would have wanted it.

She had tried to get used to the tengwar by reading an extra booklet, with the tables (tengwar do not go in a row, but in tables of rows and columns: p, b, f, v, m, w are a column, t, p, ch, k are a row) where also the Glory, the Creed, Our Father, the Hail Mary (yes, Lucy was clearly Catholic) and a few nursery rhymes like "Mary Had a Little Lamb" were noted. If you think she could have read the cover on the books by Tolkien, that is not the case, they had not appeared yet.

Now she was in for it: and yes, there was an index page at the back of the notebook:

• 1) Ramandu and Galileo
  
• 2) Aslan and the Eucharist
  
• 3) What do they teach them in these schools? (Thank God we abolished the Witch's law about enforced attendance!)
  
• 4) ...
  
• 5) ...

She was in for Aslan and the Eucharist, but waited till another time when she would be more devout. She took Ramandu and Galileo. It must be about stars, somehow, she said to herself as she started reading. And here followeth Lucy Pevensie's essay on Ramandu and Galileo.

And Friedman looked for Su in the wrong office ...

"Excuse me, I might be coming in the wrong moment" said Friedman as he saw Tolkien dressing up in some odd attire which he presumed to be historic.

"Hwæt sigestu?" he asked. He was right tightening his belt.

"Wait - you do speak English right?"

"Ic spræce Merce. Ald Merce." Both shoes on. He started tying the lacets around the right leg.

"Are you pulling my leg? We have no time for joking! There is a psychotic young lady around, and she may be dangerous for someone. Herself at least.

"On Isengearde help seggeþ wræcing ond frendescæp seggeþ þraldom!" he sighed to himself, as he finished the lacet around the left.

"Ok, what are you up to?"

"Helm eac ic ceas" he said as coolly as a cucumber as he took one Anglosaxon Helmet and quickly fastened it under the chin.

"I am not sure I was looking for the right person!" said the the poor shrink, as he growled at the odder and odder spectacle. Meanwhile Tolkien had taken a shield.

"Hwæt sigestu?" he asked blithely as he took the battle-axe.

"You are mad! You belong in a mental hospital!"

"Ga þe ut! Nu!" shouted Tolkien and started swinging the battle-axe.

The man ran. He turned as whitish grey as whey and fled. Tolkien ran after. He got out of the office. Tolkien ran after with the battle-axe. He got out into the yard. Tolkien ran after. And everyone was laughing. Friedman somehow missed the point of the mirth. He just ran. Tolkien ran after, swinging the battle-axe.

"Ut of ure hahscole!" Tolkien bellowed.

Friedman ran out of the porch. He stopped to pant, but Tolkien was behind him. The axe swung down just five inches from his arm. So he ran again. Down the street and Tolkien after. At last Tolkien got a little behind, but Friedman took no risk. He ran. He had not run as much since ... well, he had been chased by bullies on a schoolday. But this was somehow worse. He enjoyed cutting brains but when it came to spilling his own ... he was not quite delighted. He got into a side street. Tolkien stood still, laughing heartily.

Poetry - Poësie - Gedichte - et c.

English:
With lights and loud music
Dúnadan's Vigil
Luddite's Lament
In Burgos
The Pilgrim's Padreen
My enemies etc.
Tylko zdrugimi (This is not a drinking song)/Silny pront w Rodanie
On Rail Putters and Preacher Men
The Railroad Worker and His Descendants
Both these written on a hypothesis I still suspect that "rale" comes from "râler" rather than from "railler" and is therefore distinct in spelling from "rail"="les rails".
The therapeutic heresy in penal law and administration
Oh the Sunshine on the dewdrops ...
And His Word Went Marching On
To a Russian Young Lady
Français:
Les ondes sur la plage
Mon fils encore non conçu (trois strophes de sarcasme, une strophe de palinodie)
Sponsorez mes vacances d'été, s'il vous plaît ...
Si Dieu reprend mon âme demain
Chants de Salon (collection, un en Espagnol)
Penser n'est pas tristesse
À trois connaissances très musicales
Clarté éternelle donne à cil
On ne peut pas interdire ...
Et tout le blog - dont deux poëmes ont occasionné de le classer comme contenu adulte - HGL - haiku
Deutsch:
Sinngedichte - Sammlung.
Svenska-Danska:
Fjortis Bröllop
När ska' psyket släppa morsan?
Vadhelst på denna jord du mött
Kort är vårt liv
Christiania
Hvordan er det nu der arkæologer updager hvordan de levet under stenalderen?
Romance:
Demasiado
I curuniri vogliono mutare
Corona Galaeciae

Story-telling - Racontars

English:
Chronicle of Susan Pevensie - story of several completed chapters.
Conversations in a Scottish Krak
Google the hamster
Français:
Beaubourg, près d'un collège, 2050, si le monde durera?
Yvetotiade, intro
En Italiano:
Una Storia che dovrebbero avuto scritta nel anno 1968

Helpers of the Holy Souls

The rest of the day she devoted to finding out as much about Lucia da Narnia as possible. She came across Lady Georgiana Fullerton's little work about her*. It lay open in the Cathedral on the tomb of St Lucy. It was part of her work The Life of Saint Frances of Rome, of Blessed Lucy of Narni, of Dominica of Paradiso, and of Anne de Montmorency but of course opened on the page of St Lucy.

Reading this was not without a pang of guilt for Susan:

Blessed Lucy was about twenty-nine years of age. The honour in which she was held, and the public celebrity she enjoyed, were a continual source of sorrow and humiliation to her; and with the desire to escape from something of the popular applause which followed her, she ceased not earnestly to implore her Divine Spouse to remove from her the visible marks of the sacred stigmata, which were the chief cause of the veneration which was paid her by the world. Her request was in part granted, the wounds in her hands and feet closed; but that of the side, which was concealed from the eyes of others, remained open to the hour of her death. Whether the withdrawal of these visible tokens of the Divine favour was the cause of the change in the sentiments of her subjects, we are not told; but we find shortly after, that some among them, disgusted at her refusal to allow the community to become incorporated with the second order, rose in rebellion, and even attempted her life. The scandal of this crime was concealed through the exertions of Lucy herself; but on the death of her great protector, Duke Hercules, in 1505, the discontented members of the community recommenced their plots against her authority and reputation. Then - designs were laid with consummate art; and at length they publicly accused her of having been seen in her cell endeavouring to re-open the wounds of her hands and feet with a knife, in order to impose on the public. Their evidence was so ably concocted, that they succeeded in gaining over the heads of the order to their side.

Hasty and violent measures were at once adopted; every apostolic privilege granted by Pope Alexander was revoked; she was degraded from her office of prioress, deprived of every right and voice in the community, and placed below the youngest novice in the house. She was, moreover, forbidden to speak to any one except the confessor, kept in a strict imprisonment, and treated in every way as if proved guilty of an infamous imposture. Nor was this disgrace confined within the enclosure of her own monastery; it spread as far as her reputation had extended. All Italy was moved with a transport of indignation against her; the storm of invective which was raised reached her even in her prison; her name became a proverb of reproach through Europe; and the nuns who had been professed at her hands made their professions over again to the new prioress, as if their vows formerly made to her had been invalid.

One can hardly picture a state of desolation equal to that in which Blessed Lucy now found herself. It was as if this token of deep abjection and humiliation were required as a confirmation of her saintliness. If any such proof were indeed needed, it was furnished by the conduct which she exhibited under this extraordinary trial. During the whole remaining period of her life, a space of eight-and-thirty years, she bore her heavy cross without a murmur. Perhaps its hardest suffering was, to live thus among those whom she had gathered, together with her own hands, and had sought to lead to the highest paths of religion, compelled now to be a silent witness of their wickedness. Her life was a long prayer for her persecutors, and we are assured that no sorrow or regret ever seemed to shadow the deep tranquillity of her soul. So far as it touched herself, she took it as a more precious token of her Spouse's love than all the graces and favours He had ever heaped on her before. But it is no part of saintliness to be indifferent to the sins of others; and we can scarcely fathom the anguish which must hourly have pierced her heart, at the ingratitude and malignity of her unworthy children.

"Wonder what Lu ..." she started. Should she admit or not? She tried to get to the priest who had preached, but he was not around. And after all: she had lied, but she had not called her sister names of outrage or treated her as an outcast. She had caused her trouble, but not quite as much trouble as all that. But maybe it would have been even worse, if she had not died in the railway accident. Poor Lu ... or poor herself. She was afraid of admitting to anyone what had happened. And it was getting harder and harder not to admit - without lying again.

When she got back to the inn, she asked the landlady about Lady Georgiana Fullerton.

"A very devout woman - after her Catholic Conversion - and who knew how to write. Apart from her book about a few saints including our Lucia, Lucy as she called her in English, there is also the novel 'Helpers of the Holy Souls' - I have an example for you, if you like."

"Indeed, I would be very grateful. Do you have a separate text on St Lucy too? After all it is her city."

"We do, I will give it as part of the belated Christmas present. It will all be packed into your luggage before getting home. Down here Christmas presents are often brought by the three Magi, so opening it back in England will not be a bad idea."

*BLESSED LUCY OF NARNI
by Lady Georgiana Fullerton

St John's Feast in Narnia

Ad ostendendam quandam veritatem

On december 27, Tuesday, Susan was still in Narni.

She went to the mass, and a sermon was spoken on the subject.

It was a sermon on St John the Gospeller. He had under Domitian been martyred by boiling in oil, and when that miraculously failed to kill him, he was exiled on Patmos. There he had the visions known as the Apocalypse. Emperor Nerva "who was from this very city, which back then was called Narnia" released him from the exile. He became bishop of Ephesus, where he wrote his Gospel because the three Gospels already written were being abusively interpreted by Ebionites (there were still a few around, they claimed to be Jews and Christians at one and same time although this was when the Rabbinic Synod of Jamnia - the priest pronounced it Giamnia in Italian - had excommunicated from the "people of Israel" or "Church of Israel" - Church really means people or people's assembly - everyone who wanted to be a Christian). Then he went on to speak about the Apocalypse a bit closer:

There are people who say that visions are part of nature, like dreams. Always, like dreams are always part of nature too. Visions would be part of human nature when challenged by great fatigue and other kinds of exhaustion. Just as dreams are part of human nature when sleeping or at least when sleeping certain periods of the night. But this is not true. Even for dreams it is not true, since dreams have been given inerring messages from God, like the dreams of Pharao or of Nebuchadnezzar, which Joseph and Daniel interpreted. So even for dreams this is not true, but still less of the vision of St John. This is reducing the vision of St John to a traumatic reflex, which it was not.

At least it was not only that, although after being boiled in oil, he had reason to be traumatised in body and soul. But if we believe he was boiled in oil and survived by miracle, we believe also that he was spared traumatism and that his visions were a gift of God, that they were without any error. Now, we also do not know whether he was taken in body to another world created by God for that purpose or to another dimension of this world, where his visions were physical reality, or whether only his mind was given the vision. But there are indications his body was or might have been concerned too.

Like when he tried to bow down to an angel - and since he was a priest the angel recognised him as a superior and refused to recieve his honour, as I already said on Corpus Christi a few months ago. Whether it was the one or the other, we know that it was for the showing forth of certain truths. Receiving a vision is not utilitarian as it is utilitarian to see the toasted bread you want to eat or the fire you do not put your hand in. But it is not a pathology, or not always, and in this case it was a rare gift of God.

You may guess who was listening extra intently in the benches to these words.

The priest went on to cite Sister Lucy from Narnia whose relics had been transferred to Narni in 1935. She was visited by another saint through bilocation, while isolated in a cell on penance - during 39 years, from 1505 to 1544. Also San Simeone della Colonna - "Stilita" in Greek - visited or was visited by Santa Genoveva di Parigi, and San Francesco di Assisi (Saint Francis of Assisi, thought Susan, quite correctly) and Santa Chiara (Saint Clare, whoever that was, equally correctly) met through heavenly intervention.

But this is supposed to remind us - said the priest - of the Eucharist. So does another miracle of St John: when he lay down in the grave he had digged for himself, on the day His Lord - who is in fact Our Lord - had told him so, there shone a light through all the room, and when it passed, the grave did not contain his body, but manna, the nourishing substance which during the Old Testament had prefigured the Eucharist.

And he set forth, after mass, the Sacrament, and it was adored. And Susan whispered: "Is that you, Aslan?" and somewhere in her heart, she heard a clear yes.