Fifth Gospel(147)

‘Become fishers of men!’

But the vision of Christ Jesus walking and talking among them began to fade. He seemed to be ascending to a place beyond their ken and they began to fear they would never again see Him and so they lost sight of him. Only Lazarus-John, Magdalena, and the Mother of God could sense how he hovered over them in blessing.

Full with despair, Jacob, stepbrother of Jesus, knelt in prayer from dawn to dusk. So intensely did he beseech with his questing heart to know the One whom he had not recognised until the very end that Christ Jesus appeared to him in the fullness of his glory.

He said to him, ‘Remember the bread and the wine, my brother? You who did not eat and drink of it must do so now in memory of me. I entrust this sacrament to your care – remember, where two or three are gathered in my name, I will be in the midst of them.’

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‘And so it was, pairé, that in that cenacle, Jacob celebrated the first sacrament with the disciples and it affected him so deeply that in lives to come he would find the strength to suffer martyrdom time and time again to protect Jerusalem – that sacred place where he had celebrated the sacrament.’

‘So is this is why Crusaders go to the east and feel so much kinship with Jerusalem, Lea?’ I asked.

‘Yes, for every Crusader senses in the depths of his soul that in the soil and air and water of Jerusalem there remains a memory of Christ Jesus, and for this reason to them it is the centre of the world.’

All things were making sense.

‘And the Pentecost?’ I asked.

‘Well, pairé, as you know, on the tenth day after the Lord’s ascension His disciples were assembled again at the cenacle to observe the ancient festival of Pentecost. The celebrations had lasted all night and it was near sunrise when a wind entered the city. This was that ancient wind called Ruach and it moved again over the colossal bridge, sweeping through archways and forcing its way through the streets until it made a rise to the upper room where they were gathered.

‘Ruach, Elohim, Aur! Breath, Elohim, Light!

‘This is the Holy Spirit!’ I said.

‘Yes, pairé, and the disciples had heard the roar of it before, on the night of their Lord’s sacrifice. Now it entered the room and swept over the mother of the Lord and she became a pillar of fire before their eyes; a fire whose cool flames swathed them in good will.

‘Yes Lea! This is like our consolamentum, this is the consoler!’

‘It came through the mother because it was her task to unite even those who were not kin by blood…this is the community of the future, pairé, which Christ Jesus had said Peter would lead.’

‘I remember now! How the water had tasted of wine at the marriage of Cana where the husband and wife were not kin! I remember now what He said about the fish swimming together as one!’

‘You remember well, pairé, but do you know what it means? It means, that it does not matter what blood a man possesses, what nation or race he belongs to, if his soul has married the spirit then he can unite with others who have done the same.’

I took a moment to understand it. ‘Why does the church of Peter not recognise this spirit of the Pentecost, then? Why do they persecute us? Is it because we have a reckoning of it?’

‘Because they fear it, pairé.’

‘Why do they fear it?’

‘Because if all men believed they could come close to God without a priest or a church they would fall into error.’

‘Perhaps this is the same reason the church of Rome does not allow the translation of the bible into the vernacular; why only priests can own a bible without incurring punishment?

‘But listen now, pairé,’ she continued, ‘for I will tell how a mighty awakening was experienced by the disciples and they went into the world to proclaim the good news to those who would hear it. They were not welcomed by Rome or by Israel and many of them suffered horrible martyrdom and yet knowledge of Christ Jesus survived despite Roman and rabbinic hate. It survived because of their suffering, which engendered love.’

‘And what of the women?’

‘They lived on. Some of them grew old and died far from Jerusalem. But they all returned, whether in body or in spirit, to be at the side of the mother of their Lord and to see her taken by the spirit of Mary to the bosom of the great mother in the heavens.’

‘Oh my, Lea! This is a beautiful picture!’

‘Yes, that is how each, in their own way, drank from their master’s cup and surrendered their lives for the One who had always been worshipped by men and had been called by different names; the God who lived and died like a man – Christ Jesus.