Perpetual Vigil

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.