what hewanted to tell Pedro so urgently, why heâd made all those phone calls, as the other two soon found out.
âNow the guy says heâs a priest, Pedro! Can you imagine?â
âNo, I canât imagine,â answered Pedro. âYou couldnât make this stuff up. Did you manage to print out the message?â
âOf course!â said Matt. âAfter everything you have been saying, how could I let this pass? I printed everything out. Iâve got the page right here in my hand. Want me to read it out for you?â
âYes.â
Matt read it, and then Pedro asked Matt to email the document to him.
By now, Carol had got interested in all this as well. It really bugged Sonia, but her younger sister wouldnât go away, so there the three of them were, all curiosity, standing around the computer. Sure enough, the message came through, and soon they were reading on the screen:
Although you have an evangelistâs name, you do not seem to apply yourself much to the written word, which is a shame. Especially during an epoch in which there is such ease to learn to read .
There were times when almost all people in a society were illiterate. Only a few had access to written pages. Books were rare and precious, andnone but the very rich could afford to own them. It is no wonder that it was so, as each volume demanded painstaking and intensive work from all of us, who dedicated ourselves to copying so that the texts could multiply and perpetuate themselves .
In the West, in monasteries such as the one where my companions and I worked in our scriptorium in teams of five at a time, only the Church and the universities could claim to gather people skilled in reading and writing. Even kings and emperors were illiterate .
Fortunately, I had the opportunity, years later, to experience different realities. Even when fate brought me to your continent centuries later, as a member of the Jesuit company, so many among us had this skill that we even managed to assemble a small compilation of the vocabulary of the peoples found on these shores .
The written word of some of my companions managed to reach a larger extension, to go beyond the immediate surroundings and the people who were close to them and defend poor locations from the cruelty and evildoings of those who thought only of enslaving them, as if they were not human and had no soul. In a way, this written word had an effect, by influencing our society so that it would not accept that the peoples found in the New World were reduced to captivity and treated as animals.However, such protection ultimately directed the cruelty to other peoples, and the sad fate of slavery fell upon the shoulders of our African brothers, who were for centuries victims of this atrocity .
Therefore, one cannot help observing that humanity only walks in slow and short steps, on a path with abundant setbacks and detours. Even if sometimes one has the impression that there have been improvements, we are soon obliged to note melancholically that there are other aspects to consider .
At any rate, it seems doubtless that without the transmission of wisdom and knowledge from other generations through the art of the written word, our situation would look grimmer still. Each individual would be forced to start from the beginning and reinvent it all. And Our Lordâs work would move in circles, condemned to repetition throughout the centuries, as the pagans would tell with the story of poor Sisyphus .
As this poor scribe who, try as he might, can never succeed in finding a kind soul to free him from his sorrows, woe is me!
It ended just like that. Suddenly. No goodbyes. They rang Matt again, asking if there was anything missing. There wasnât, he said. But he couldnât contain his excitement any more and wanted to meet them.
âCan I come over?â he pleaded.
Of course he could. Soon they were all gathered, rereading the printouts of the message that Matt
âNow the guy says heâs a priest, Pedro! Can you imagine?â
âNo, I canât imagine,â answered Pedro. âYou couldnât make this stuff up. Did you manage to print out the message?â
âOf course!â said Matt. âAfter everything you have been saying, how could I let this pass? I printed everything out. Iâve got the page right here in my hand. Want me to read it out for you?â
âYes.â
Matt read it, and then Pedro asked Matt to email the document to him.
By now, Carol had got interested in all this as well. It really bugged Sonia, but her younger sister wouldnât go away, so there the three of them were, all curiosity, standing around the computer. Sure enough, the message came through, and soon they were reading on the screen:
Although you have an evangelistâs name, you do not seem to apply yourself much to the written word, which is a shame. Especially during an epoch in which there is such ease to learn to read .
There were times when almost all people in a society were illiterate. Only a few had access to written pages. Books were rare and precious, andnone but the very rich could afford to own them. It is no wonder that it was so, as each volume demanded painstaking and intensive work from all of us, who dedicated ourselves to copying so that the texts could multiply and perpetuate themselves .
In the West, in monasteries such as the one where my companions and I worked in our scriptorium in teams of five at a time, only the Church and the universities could claim to gather people skilled in reading and writing. Even kings and emperors were illiterate .
Fortunately, I had the opportunity, years later, to experience different realities. Even when fate brought me to your continent centuries later, as a member of the Jesuit company, so many among us had this skill that we even managed to assemble a small compilation of the vocabulary of the peoples found on these shores .
The written word of some of my companions managed to reach a larger extension, to go beyond the immediate surroundings and the people who were close to them and defend poor locations from the cruelty and evildoings of those who thought only of enslaving them, as if they were not human and had no soul. In a way, this written word had an effect, by influencing our society so that it would not accept that the peoples found in the New World were reduced to captivity and treated as animals.However, such protection ultimately directed the cruelty to other peoples, and the sad fate of slavery fell upon the shoulders of our African brothers, who were for centuries victims of this atrocity .
Therefore, one cannot help observing that humanity only walks in slow and short steps, on a path with abundant setbacks and detours. Even if sometimes one has the impression that there have been improvements, we are soon obliged to note melancholically that there are other aspects to consider .
At any rate, it seems doubtless that without the transmission of wisdom and knowledge from other generations through the art of the written word, our situation would look grimmer still. Each individual would be forced to start from the beginning and reinvent it all. And Our Lordâs work would move in circles, condemned to repetition throughout the centuries, as the pagans would tell with the story of poor Sisyphus .
As this poor scribe who, try as he might, can never succeed in finding a kind soul to free him from his sorrows, woe is me!
It ended just like that. Suddenly. No goodbyes. They rang Matt again, asking if there was anything missing. There wasnât, he said. But he couldnât contain his excitement any more and wanted to meet them.
âCan I come over?â he pleaded.
Of course he could. Soon they were all gathered, rereading the printouts of the message that Matt
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