dream?
Stranger still was this line: You must awaken while in this body, for everything exists in it. Peter knew the context of that sentence immediately. It was from one of the controversial Gnostic Gospels that were discovered in Egypt in 1945. He knew with certainty that it came from the Gospel of Philip. He was even more certain which line came next within the ancient text: Resurrect in this life. He had participated in a number of heated debates over the meaning of these lines while living in Jerusalem in the earlier days of his Jesuit studies. Part of the controversy over the Gnostic material came from this very idea that life on earth, here and now and with an emphasis on this body, was as important as the afterlife. Perhaps more important. This was a concept not generally embraced by orthodox Catholicism for obvious reasons; some would assert that it was heretical. Yet it was key in the Gnostic texts. Peter had long been fascinated by the Gnostic perspective, and he argued with his more conservative brethren that the fact that these gospels had not been altered, dissected, edited, and translated to death over the last two thousand years made them pure and ultimately worthy of serious consideration. The opponents of the Gnostic material took the position that they were written too many generations after the life of Jesus to be considered valid, given that some of them were dated to the mid-third century.
Peter thought it was unfortunate to the point of tragic that the Church had taken such a harsh position against the importance of the Gnostic codices. Why was it always black and white, either/or? Why did the Gnostic Gospels have to stand in opposition to the canon? Could they not be read together, as complements to each other, to see what greater learning they might take us to about who Jesus was and what he was trying to teach us?
Maureen was dreaming about Jesus again, and the Lord himself was quoting from both the canonical and Gnostic Gospels. Fascinating. And given her history, it was very likely significant in ways he could not even dream of yet.
And now, there was a pair of medieval scrolls to consider.
Peter wouldn’t have time to consider them much longer. Maggie waddled into the room, flustered as she always was when a high-ranking member of the clergy had business with Peter.
“Father Girolamo rang. He says he needs to see you in his office immediately on business, something regarding Cardinal DeCaro and an ancient document.”
Confraternity of the Holy Apparition
Vatican City
present day
F ATHER G IROLAMO DE P AZZI was tired, with the kind of bone-weary exhaustion that comes from a very long life given in service to something more important than one’s own comfort. In his case, that service was to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary through his tireless dedication to the Confraternity of the Holy Apparition. His public work focused on understanding the visions and visionaries who had been sanctified by the Church as authentic over five hundred years.
But his private work had a different focus. Behind closed doors, he was preoccupied with another, more intriguing kind of prophet—or more accurately, prophet ess . This was a lineage of women, connected by blood and birth rights, who through time had experienced visions of exceptional clarity and power. They had been called by different titles through history, some more heretical than others. They were known alternately as Magdalenes, shepherdesses, black madonnas, popesses, and Expected Ones. Father Girolamo studied the details of their biographies; some of them were scant in their antiquity, like the elusive Sarah-Tamar and Modesta; others were well documented, like Teresa of Ávila. He combed through their lives in search of the answer to the questions that burned within him:
Why? Why was it that these particular women were gifted in such a way by the Lord?
And what? What was it that they knew that was out of the reach of
Stranger still was this line: You must awaken while in this body, for everything exists in it. Peter knew the context of that sentence immediately. It was from one of the controversial Gnostic Gospels that were discovered in Egypt in 1945. He knew with certainty that it came from the Gospel of Philip. He was even more certain which line came next within the ancient text: Resurrect in this life. He had participated in a number of heated debates over the meaning of these lines while living in Jerusalem in the earlier days of his Jesuit studies. Part of the controversy over the Gnostic material came from this very idea that life on earth, here and now and with an emphasis on this body, was as important as the afterlife. Perhaps more important. This was a concept not generally embraced by orthodox Catholicism for obvious reasons; some would assert that it was heretical. Yet it was key in the Gnostic texts. Peter had long been fascinated by the Gnostic perspective, and he argued with his more conservative brethren that the fact that these gospels had not been altered, dissected, edited, and translated to death over the last two thousand years made them pure and ultimately worthy of serious consideration. The opponents of the Gnostic material took the position that they were written too many generations after the life of Jesus to be considered valid, given that some of them were dated to the mid-third century.
Peter thought it was unfortunate to the point of tragic that the Church had taken such a harsh position against the importance of the Gnostic codices. Why was it always black and white, either/or? Why did the Gnostic Gospels have to stand in opposition to the canon? Could they not be read together, as complements to each other, to see what greater learning they might take us to about who Jesus was and what he was trying to teach us?
Maureen was dreaming about Jesus again, and the Lord himself was quoting from both the canonical and Gnostic Gospels. Fascinating. And given her history, it was very likely significant in ways he could not even dream of yet.
And now, there was a pair of medieval scrolls to consider.
Peter wouldn’t have time to consider them much longer. Maggie waddled into the room, flustered as she always was when a high-ranking member of the clergy had business with Peter.
“Father Girolamo rang. He says he needs to see you in his office immediately on business, something regarding Cardinal DeCaro and an ancient document.”
Confraternity of the Holy Apparition
Vatican City
present day
F ATHER G IROLAMO DE P AZZI was tired, with the kind of bone-weary exhaustion that comes from a very long life given in service to something more important than one’s own comfort. In his case, that service was to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary through his tireless dedication to the Confraternity of the Holy Apparition. His public work focused on understanding the visions and visionaries who had been sanctified by the Church as authentic over five hundred years.
But his private work had a different focus. Behind closed doors, he was preoccupied with another, more intriguing kind of prophet—or more accurately, prophet ess . This was a lineage of women, connected by blood and birth rights, who through time had experienced visions of exceptional clarity and power. They had been called by different titles through history, some more heretical than others. They were known alternately as Magdalenes, shepherdesses, black madonnas, popesses, and Expected Ones. Father Girolamo studied the details of their biographies; some of them were scant in their antiquity, like the elusive Sarah-Tamar and Modesta; others were well documented, like Teresa of Ávila. He combed through their lives in search of the answer to the questions that burned within him:
Why? Why was it that these particular women were gifted in such a way by the Lord?
And what? What was it that they knew that was out of the reach of
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