Third out of my four personal pieces for Passiontide and Easter.
Major spoilers follow for Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle's Mystery-Solving File, along with implied ones for Dual Destinies and Azran Legacy.
Eleven years of longing.
In
Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle's Mystery-Solving File, it's so awesome to see the Professor and Luke adventuring together again, but so shocking and sad what happens to them.
And
it wasn't till I had thought about it for a while, not in fact until I
realized that I have planned a similar thing for the precise sake of
such a symbolic image, that it hit me. I plan in one of my stories for
there to be king under a sleeping spell in a chapel, and one of his men
remaining by his side in vigil, and I meant it as an image of visiting
the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle. They went further and actually
had them locked in boxes! If you still don't get it, know that there are
a multitude of old prayers and holy cards that depict Christ in the
Blessed Sacrament
chained and caged as
Prisoner of Love.
As
always, I know that this was likely not intentional, but that doesn't
matter at all. Depicting Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, and most of all
especially in this case Love, will make your art reflect Christ.
I've
written about the Eucharistic imagery of the other half of this story, that is
Ace Attorney.
Phoenix and Apollo are the Christ figures there: Phoenix is associated
with bread and wine when he can't show forth his own attributes; Apollo
uses his body to save his beloved in such a way that reflects the
practice of purposing to console Christ in one's reception of Communion.
So on the
Professor Layton half, while the Professor and Luke, especially in the climax of
Azran Legacy, have the sacrificial part of Christ-figuring down, there wasn't a particularly Eucharistic aspect. Until now.
Like
Jesus the Prisoner of Love, they let themselves be enclosed in a casket
in a church, silent and mostly alone, for the sake of a beloved: Luke's
wife, Marina, which is perfect, as marriage is an image of Christ's
relation to the human soul. This is the best thing about stories. They
can yield not only intellectual but emotional understanding of the truth
of God. If it doesn't mean much to hear that God loves you, engage with
a story that contains an immense, moving example of sacrificial love,
like Hershel Layton's love for Katrielle, Claire, Luke, etc., and it
will give you a hint, a glimpse of a smidgen of what that Love is like.
God
makes Himself helpless so He can be imprisoned in churches all over the
world, just so He can be available for us to love. He submits Himself
to irreverence and desecration, just as He submitted Himself to
scourges, thorns, and nails. And right now, right now, this image of the
imprisoned Blessed Sacrament has more relevance than ever.
In
2013, Pope Benedict XVI stated he was resigning the ministry (not the
office, as canon law requires) of the papacy, and Jorge Bergoglio was
elected to succeed him in a conclave that has been revealed to have been
heavily influenced by a cooperating group, also against canon law.
Benedict retains his papal name and vestments and still gives papal
blessings. But most obvious of all indications that something is gravely
wrong, putative pope Francis has endeavored to make the heretical
precepts of: God willing all religions, states having no right to
execute criminals, and worst of all and most relevant of all,
unrepentant mortal sinners being encouraged to receive Communion; part
of universal Catholic practice. Only one out of all the bishops is
saying that something must be done about the
entire mess: Henri Gracida, retired bishop of
Corpus Christi.
I
wrote about the events of 2013 back at the time, and like now, I was
using fiction to help me make sense of it. I know now I was wrong about
many things. I wasn't one of those folks who had a bad feeling as soon
as they saw Bergoglio, but that makes me all the more sure of his ill
effect now. I had to be
convinced he was a bad pope or even an
antipope, and I certainly was convinced. But I can still use what I
thought then and learn from it. And I still think fiction resonates
around the spiritual realities. Thus:
Once, I would have been upset by the inclusion of an evil bishop in
Professor Layton.
Even though that one would've been Anglican, not Catholic, I would have
seen it as an anti-Christian message and been distressed. But now I
know better. Look at McCarrick, Cupich, Marx, Zanchetta, Gregory,
Fernandez, Tobin, Kasper, Dolan, Paglia, Coccopalmerio, Wuerl. Almost
all the bishops
are doing evil. So many are sexual perverts,
Modernists, or, often, both. It isn't "a few bad priests." It is an
organized, intentional infiltration. They are persecuting good priests
-- Kalchik, Dwyer, Rynne, and my own pastor, who even once said I was
like a daughter to him, has been taken away and treated cruelly; heck
yes I relate to Katrielle -- and they are holding Christ captive in a
further sense.
Donatism isn't true. Even when clergy are evil,
they still hold the power to confect the sacraments. That's a good
thing, because otherwise most people couldn't get valid sacraments, but
it means wicked clergy are hurting Christ through the sacrilege of
confecting the Eucharist while in mortal sin. Many of them don't care
because they don't actually believe in Him, but some do and do care
because hurting Him and encouraging others to hurt Him is exactly what
they want. They subject Him to irreverence and abuse through refusing to
genuflect to Him, adulterating the liturgy, encouraging sacrilegious
Eucharistic reception, abusing the faithful in every possible sense,
even such horrors as in the Pennsylvania report: directly desecrating
the Blessed Sacrament along with their victims in acts of Satanic ritual
sexual abuse.
And He endures this, as a continuation of His
Passion, for our sake! He will act, He will judge, but first He gives us
the chance to, spurred on by love and longing, solve the puzzle of
what's going on, stand up for Him, and help ultimately to rid the Church
of these evil bishops and deliver them to justice.
Protestants
tell us to leave, that all you need is the Word of God in scripture, not
the Bread of Life that is the Word made Flesh. Just as a Kasperite
priest might have told Marina to leave and to remarry, that nothing more
could be expected in her harsh circumstances. But a true bride does not
leave her bridegroom, even when he is imprisoned and she is a hostage.
The Catholic Church is the Bride of Christ.
I am so grateful for stories like this that point towards the beauty of love like unto His.