Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time
Surely, they must know the gospel here; probably it is committed to memory many times over. For them, it wouldn’t be a strange story I have to tell. I could understand this amazement if they were Pagan and the earthly signs of Jesus were not already known to them.
“Surely, you already know. It is as it was specifically told in John 11.”
The monks turn back to the front of the room expecting the abbot has plotted me here as a clever start for his homely on spiritual life. He could have played my interruption so well, but no. He looked to the two young novices, just learning the routines of this community.
“Is this a prank?” the abbot asks. “You brought this stranger with you from the mainland and kept him hidden all this time just to make a joke of it?”
The young monks are mortified. I speak on their behalf.
“No, the new brothers had nothing at all to do with me here. I was brought from the dregs of the sea by Brother Timothy, the hermit, and for all the weeks of my healing he cared for me, as he does other wounded things clinging to life.”
Now the abbot casts accusations on Brother Lugh.
“So, you lied, when you confessed that you’d lied, when you said you found a dead man on the shore!”
“Your Holiness, I thought I’d seen a dead man, and then there was no one to bury, so I thought the devil had tangled my thoughts so I would think I saw what wasn’t, so I confessed that I had spoken a falsehood in reporting a dead man.”
The abbot failed his monks several times over here, blaming them, then revealing a confession, and now the missing homely is left for me to speak. I have everyone’s full attention.
“My friend and teacher knew that his own death was eminent, murder by cross was plotted by Roman henchmen against any outspoken Jew. Jesus knew of his likely, earthly death. He wanted us, his beloved followers and friends to know that we would still have the Spirit of him with us, as he is still with us to this day. So, Jesus gave an earthly sign, raising a physical person from the dead, to gift us with an earthly simile to describe the invisible spiritual truth of heaven. And here am I, always healing in body as the sign of the heavenly truth of spiritual life unfettered by death.”
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 