The Omega Factor(77)



Something John had not been so willing to give.

Now I will tell of the death of Mary. It happened in year fifty-two after Christ’s birth. There was great grief and mourning in her house. The local women came and dealt with her final needs. She lay still, as though near death, completely enveloped in a white coverlet. The veil over her head was arranged in folds across her forehead. In the last days of her life she took no nourishment except a spoonful of juice which one of the women pressed from berries into a bowl near her bed. She lay pale and still. Her gaze was directed intently upwards. She said no words to anyone and seemed in a state of perpetual ecstasy, radiant with longing, which seemed bearing her upwards. My heart longed to ascend with hers to God.

On the final day I anointed her face, hands, and feet with holy oil. The women recited prayers. Her face was radiant with smiles, as if in her youth. Her eyes stayed towards heaven in holy joy. I imagined a marvelous vision where the ceiling of the room disappeared and I saw through the sky into the heavenly Jerusalem. Two radiant clouds of light sank down, out of which appeared angels. Between these clouds, a path of light poured down upon Mary. I wanted to see her arms stretched out in infinite longing, her body, all wrapped up, rising so high above her bed that one could see under it. I wanted her soul to leave her body, like a little figure of infinitely pure light, soaring up to heaven. There, the angels would meet her soul and separate it from her body. My gaze would follow her soul as it entered the heavenly Jerusalem to the throne of the most Holy Trinity. There she would take her place with God and her Son, who would receive her with divine love. They would place in her hands a scepter with a gesture towards the earth, as though indicating the power which He had given her. But that would be only a dream. Instead, when I once more looked I saw the body lying still on the bed. Her eyes were closed, her arms crossed on her breast. The women knelt round praying. She had died just after the ninth hour in the nineteenth year after Christ’s death.

She was laid to rest nearby, about a half an hour’s journey through the trees. The cave was not as spacious as Christ’s tomb and hardly high enough for a man to enter upright. The floor sank at the entrance, and then one saw the burial-place, like a narrow altar with the rock-wall projecting over it. A hollow had been made in the shape of a wrapped-up body, slightly raised at the head.

Inside Mary’s house the women prepared the body for burial. They brought with them cloths, as well as spices to embalm. They all carried little pots of fresh herbs. The house was closed and they worked by lamplight. The women freed Mary from her deathbed and laid her body inside a long basket piled up with thick, roughly woven coverings. Two women then held a broad cloth stretched above the body, while two others removed the head-covering and wrappings, leaving the body clothed only in a long woolen robe. They cut off Mary’s beautiful locks of hair to be kept in remembrance. Then two women washed the holy body with sponges. They carried out their task with great respect and reverence, washing with their hands without looking, for the cloth which was held over the body hid the dead flesh from their eyes. A fifth woman wrung out the sponges in a bowl and then dipped them into fresh water. Three times the basin was emptied into a hollow outside the house and fresh water brought in. The holy body was dressed in a new robe, then reverently lifted onto a table where the grave clothes and swaddling-bands had been arranged for use. They wound them tightly around the flesh from the ankles to above the breast, leaving the head, hands, and feet free.

She looked like a child in swaddling clothes. A transparent veil was folded back from the face, which shone between bunches of herbs. On her breast was laid a wreath of white, red, and sky-blue flowers as a token of her virginity. The women gazed on the beloved face once more before it was finally covered. They knelt, shedding many tears in farewell as the lid was placed onto the wicker coffin. Dusk had arrived by the time they left the house and headed for the tomb.



He lay in the bed, staring at the iPad, the room illuminated only by the light from the screen. The Testimony of John had long been translated into Latin, Italian, and English. It had also been suppressed, locked away in the sealed archives, accessible only by permission of the pope. Which had been granted to a precious few. All inside the Vatican. Himself the sole one at the moment so privileged.

With all his heart he knew that every word of the account was true.

Those early church fathers had not been overly bothered by what the masses thought. They were blessed with a largely illiterate and frightened populace that could, and was, easily controlled. A healthy mixture of fear and fantasy worked wonders. If anyone questioned anything they were branded a heretic, tortured, then burned at the stake. Needless to say, opposition voices were few and far between.

That was not the case today.

Opposition had a multitude of tools available to it that could wreak havoc. Radio. Television. Texting. Social media. The internet. The press in general. You name it. All bad. And uncontrollable. Which made him wonder once again. What would he do if he truly found what he sought?

His cell phone vibrated.

He lifted the unit and recognized the number. He’d been waiting for a report. He answered and listened for a few moments.

Then made a decision.

And issued orders.





Chapter 50



Vilamur opened his eyes.

Someone was knocking on his bedroom door.

He glanced at the nightstand. The clock read 2:07 a.m. He’d been asleep for nearly three hours. After he and Fuentes returned from dinner and their walk, they’d both retired for the night, the cardinal in one of the guest rooms on the third floor. No staff stayed over in the rectory. Once they left each evening he was alone in the spacious house, which had been home to the archbishops of Toulouse for nearly half a century.

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