Insight II - The Holy Flame and Prophecy

[Fleeperpriest 261]

A thousand years,

 

A thousand years I spoke to you, that you and yours have not known it, seen it, heard it, felt it, lived it, been with it, danced with it, with Him. Him, I had ought to say, He, as it always was. He who bathed you, and made you, and freed you, and saved you, who kept you pure in the worst of times. I said to you one thousand years, to now, that any from Malin's folk had known Him, but this is a generous estimate. In truth, I do not know the last time, only that it would not be any sooner than that. It could be more, it could be one thousand five hundred, one thousand six hundred, or even more still. That would be a more appropriate estimate. I do not know when the exodus from 'Malinor' began, nor, come the security of the children of Malin from the the Satanail, when the Malinites had left Him again. In my last letter, I had spoken briefly on that daughter of Malin who had known, and had, by His will, led her people, your kin, to the place of their refuge, and it is this that I refer to, which I shall some day reveal to you, in the fullness of the truth.

 

For us, for Horen, it was much shorter a time ago. I would say that it had been five hundred years-- certainly, five hundred years ago, come Siegmund, it had gone. But I know that He was with us, who could bear us, when we had called unto Him. When we had been pure, even seldom pure, and when we had been faithful, even if but with the few. So perhaps it had been sooner, much sooner than Siegmund that we had truly scorned Him. Johannesburg. The Great City. The Holy City. That was the end of it, the great horrible tragedy of it, the manifest, incredible magnificent damage of it, when the Church was so violently accosted by Empire, once again, as it were by Siegmund's kith and kin.

 

Only the torch, only the little flame, waiting, watching, on the outskirts. Passed from one, to the next, to the next, and to the next, down from Horen, through Owyn, through Clement and Evaristus, and unto the body of the True Faith, Horen's Hope, Owyn's Flame, Godfrey's Empire. But I see that I ramble, I digress.

 

It is this Power that is in our charge, this Hope, this Flame. It is this that has seen you, heard you, spoken of and to you, guided you, touched your flesh and healed it. Do you see, now, why I have bid you to rise, as Lector? If I had not asked this of you, I should have, on that day, payed far greater a price for the crimes we had done in His Presence. It is good that you have gone and taken leave for this, good that you have embarked upon your pilgrimage. Only the pure-- of faith, of heart, of body, of all impurities, who may come upon that power and live, that by all accounts should render unto us the swift justice we are due. Except, if this were so, how at all could it be? Would this Flame not wash over all the world, so poor, so rotten, so abominable? I say to you, it is so, but that it has not done so is not at all to us disheartening; you see by this the mercy we are afforded, the hope, that for the love of us, He could permit us our failures. We may NEVER forget the gravity of the charge put to us, if we are to succeed in that which we have set out to do. That which we have been called to do. That which Horen and Harren and Owyn and Godfrey were called forth to do. 

 

I write these things to you, and know, these insights that I give you are not put plainly, nor described adequately. They are but glimpses, little glances at a whole truth known well to the both of us, written upon our hearts. But they should suffice you, by way of a serving of hope, by the wonder and the awe our Lord affords us in even knowing a sliver of that which He has planned, and set to be. 

 

Write, write write! Write, you call to me. Proclaim it, announce it, explain it! Show to them, to all of them, what I have done, what He has done, what we have seen, you call to me! But so daunting a task; and where to begin at it? With you, perhaps, with Serwa, Daughter of Malin, a hope that, for Malin's, there is a way, a future. That they are not forever condemned. Or, perhaps, with Raguel, who has been a herald; it is known, the Lord sends forth Angels, always, to herald the coming of prophets, and of the coming of His glory. Perhaps, there would be the start-- fore it was he who gave to us the cup, by which we shall one day pour fourth the Spirit upon the heads of you, and yours, and mine. The cup, then, I should write of, perhaps? The cup, so ancient, so old a charge, so steeped in mystery. Of Harren, who had wielded it, of Horen, who had by it done his worship, as it were in the tabernacle of the first days. Of Harren, who rejected it, who neglected it, who did as I had done, and done nothing at all, and said nothing, led nothing, guided nothing, inherited nothing, and permitted rot to be, where a Preserver was promised. There, I should write-- and I have done atleast, with you, what Harren had failed to do with all of us. I have drank. 

 

Then, if not Serwa, or Raguel, or the cup, something older still? What aulder could be than a thing from so near to the dawn time, the first days of our days, of the world? I should write, then, of the Flame, Him, the Tabernacle, the Holy Holy Holy, the Ruach HaKodesh, 'O King, the King of Kings, Shekhinah HaOlam. Him-- where it had begun, who had set it to be, who was behind each and every miracle, each and every word. He who was present, again, in the Tabernacle of the temple which had brought forth to us Raguel, and the cup, and this hope-again, his sanctum, and our charge. It need not be about the Kos, then, nor Raguel, nor you, nor who shall come, or any that has yet to be, but the journey, the Fire. 

 

It is Brandt I must put to the pen, and that day in the temple, when He had come down to Him, set a Vicar out for Himself, fought with that man. Struggled with him, wrestled with him, battled him; I had seen the wrinkling of his face, as I preached, as I told to them that THE PRESERVER WAS COMING, that he had to be, that God had promised him, that Siegmund were like Saul, an invader, a perverter, a deceiver, atleast, the Siegmund we had known, who was not a man, but the fable of a man, an icon of heresy. It was he who listened first, Brandt, where the rest had condemned, where the Malinites did not listen, where Horen turned his head and feigned deaf. He and I, on that day, were like Clement and Evaristus. Two tools, two blades, to staves, two arms of one mission, one master, one God. Vicars, shepherds, PRIESTS, we were, and prophets, and I had not before that time known that I should ever see one in the flesh. 

 

It was he, who, succumbing to the Spirit of the Lord, put forth that prophesy to us, which would take us into the depths of the wilderness, by way of rocky-mountains and cedar forests. It was he, who, in the Temple, restless, seeing that something was BROKEN, that SOMETHING was WRONG, had to DO, had to ACT, as I had called a hundred times-- but even I could do nothing. He took to the problem like a man made mad, a Mad One, shouting, would He want His Children to stand around idle, fools, and do nothing, while He..?

 

It was he, then, who set the Flame. And upon the blade, we took it. Danzen- Arch-Lector. It was always his mission to tend to the Tabernacle. It was his heart sworn duty to tend to Him, wherever he had made his presence known, as Owyn had done. And, like Owyn, he took Him, gently, and placed him upon his blade, ethereal, smokeless, roaring, gentle, holy, ineffable, indescribable but that Man may throw a word at anything and hope it could stick, in his desperation to know anything at all. We walked the Path of Owyn, as Owynists had recited countless times before, since the day Owyn had done it himself. We lived his prophecy, direction by direction, word for word, and all was true, down to the very last. Fore but that it was spoken by a Human tongue, the Word was not of Human make, but God breathed, theopneustos. That man, who was a prophet, who spoke for the Spirit of God, who I have called Brandt Barclay, is today His Holiness Caius the First, and he is the Vicar of God, a prophet alive.

 

He did not himself see what we had seen, where we had gone, where we were drawn. But, then, of course, he had prophesy to us that we would not, but that only I would know the resting, where He had bid us go. It was a stubborn Spirit. Uncanny, in that, it was native, it had felt native, it had felt that it was, but all the world seemed shout that it wasn't, seemed to reach out and fight it, smother it, evict it from where it had made itself incarnate, but had not the power to do it. Wherever the Light of the blade had touched, was set to order, and those little bits of land, of trees, of grass, of dirt beyond us seemed to brace itself to be judged, changed, set right, or burnt away. We had met no resistance on our pilgrimage. You and I have walked that path, some, together, Serwa, in our footsteps. You marked on that route a site that was holy-- that was about the half-way mark, when we had come to see the first of the cedar trees.

 

Brandt had left us, when we neared exhaustion. He had duties at home, and I later found that his son, by the time that I had returned, had passed, and that his leaving had permitted him the time to rejoin his Kingdom in the wake of this. It was spoken by his own lips that he should not see the end, but he had set us on the path. We had reached the end of it. Jurkha, the Arch-Lector and I. The details of the journey, nor the prophecy, have I ever put greatly to the pen. But it was here that we had begun our work in earnest. I could claim that, for myself, it had begun long ago. But to tell a tale from who had begun it, I should have to begin at the time of Godfrey, and chronicle to now. I do not know that I could.

 

What we had found upon that mountain, I could not begin to put to words. The things that I had seen-- the horror I had felt, no, the tragedy. It was pure clarity. So daunting a task, so great an ask it is, Serwa, to command a man to put to pen those things he knows that were not made for pens, nor words. Things that are felt, learnt, seen and heard, spoken of but never really truly verbalized. Ineffable things-- ineffable names. I had learnt a Name, then. I had it burnt into my mind. I had seen patterns, indescribable, but so perfect, so clean, and so right, so true, that the heart could not deny them. To see in every way how every thing had come to be, intertwined, dare I say interlinked, in every conceivable way, held together by a Will, insi--

 

To detail all that I had seen that day, felt, heard, learnt, and am still learning, I could not so easily do. And in that way, I am like the little Sorvian, stuck in his loop, in the processing of his thoughts, battling to comprehend a thing put to him by a thing orders of magnitude above him. The sort of dilemma begotten by the interaction between Creator and Created thing, bridging the gap of that irreconcilable difference between the two, in wisdom, in being, in understanding. When I do, I shan't write so silly as this, but I know that I shall, and that I must, in as much as I am the son of Horen, and called to do it. Because He had called me to do it, then, when He had showed me. I still will kvetch for the weight of it. A thing like this you do not so easily articulate. Better to sing, better to show, better to feel.

 

It could not bear a moment longer to be with them, in that Temple, among those people. We had to bring it to the shelter of the wilderness, where none had gone before, and where all things were pure, and as they were supposed to be. And for a moment, I think, we had been in perfect, total grace. I remained there for many months. For over a year, I suspect, though the others had left on the day we had arrived, ill-equipped to remain in the middle of nowhere for so long. When I had returned, with me I brought Him, and set Him into the tabernacle of the Cathedral of Saint Arpad. When no longer I could battle for Him in this place, keep holy that nation which battled and wrestled with Him in every way one could conceive-- but honored Him and longed for Him-- I had moved Him again, to the Monastery of Santa Juli'el, where you had this past year encountered the Flames.

 

Never shall I permit it to come to pass that, for the error of Man, He be ever disgraced. I know well that this task is by all accounts an impossible one, but I must, for Him I must, we must, for no other reason than that we are called to do it. And we shall. What Canonius had done, to defile a Holy Place-- to drag a thing dead into the House of Life, this was a crisis. One, for which, we had both dearly paid the price. Not while this Flame burns may we, who are the bearers of the Torch of Hope, ever permit, by our laziness, by the frailty of our bodies, this Presence ever to be defiled. To fail to act is to fail Him, we may not do it. And that it had been nearly done was crime enough, so, we paid the price, to keep it holy. 

 

Canonius knows the Law very well, he has himself made sacrifices for the Law, for love of his people. He took upon his own back the scorch of the whip, that was to be afforded Sister Grace. We took upon our bodies the Flame, made living torches of ourselves, to pay, the burn for it, to burn away the iniquity of it. He did not understand, could not understand. Nor could any of them. But we had made a great sacrifice, in that moment, in our duty to the Lord. We kept His House Holy, and we honored His Presence, and we paid the price. This, you must always be prepared to do. This, for this, I have made you Lector, thanks be to God, that you could in this endeavor aid me, split with me the burden of the burns of the sin and folly of Man.

 

The Temple was rendered impure, and so, I had removed the Flame, for love of Him, and doused the tabernacle. Again I say, it is good that you should pilgrimage. May this journey be offered up to Him, that you be rendered pure, able, ready, in spirit and in body, to serve Him, to keep the Flame. These responsibilities, in so dark a world, we shall only come to see grow. What we take upon ourselves very willingly, in the spirit of love, for love of Him, for sacrifice to Him, is in the nature of our duty to carry out without prompt, without a question asked of us, without a command to do it. That is what keeps it at all burning. That is what keeps Him with us, and affords us the Grace to fuel that Flame, make it grow, make it roar. Seize, for the Master, for the King, His Kingdom which has for so long felt better off without Him. These responsibilities, I mean to say, shall only grow, grow more grave the more we hope to do. Love in Sacrifice.

 

I pray this insight satisfies you, and I hope your journey is well. As for your task to me, I shall try. I shall try as always I have ever tried to declare such things. But I know, that, when you return, what I must bid you to do. I shall train you, and raise you up a proper Lector, a proper Priest, and put you in the robes of purity, and keep kosher you who my brothers know is not. Not, I say, for that they are wicked, but, simply, for that they are a flepir, and know not. But you listen, hear, and teach more clearly than the best among my brothers. For you, I have great hope. That you are, I have no doubt. We shall see to your ordination, soon enough. 

 

I shall detail to you this last great news. I have found another. Another of our Heavenly kindred, the servants of the Lord. Two for our age, and God willing, many more. More, and more, and more as the Crown is wreathed in Glory, all Glory that we may afford by our purity, by our faith, by our own love. And we grow nearer by the day to the Kingdom in our Presence. To the Preservation, and to the Reconciliation. To the Triumph of the Children of God, and the Pantokrator, their King, in a world-rebellious, over a Heaven at War. 

 

All for the Glory and Love of the King,

O' King of Kings, 'O Melech, Abba, sweet Father!

Pantokrator, King of the Universe, 'O God, of all things Great and Glorious!

Preserve us, Your children of Spirit, deliver us, your promised people!

Edited March 14 by Fleeperpriest