St. Paula Among the Marigolds, and: A Letter from the Abbess Paula the Younger, and: St. Jerome's Lost Diaries, and: The Vision

Abstract

(Bethlehem, 399 C.E.) St. Paula Among the Marigolds She's forsworn the life of daughter, wife, widow, and mother; she's savored the role of Christ's bride, of servant to the poor- Now, within the matrix of her convent, Paula enjoys the solace of celestial stirrings, as she moves in orbit among chaste sisters, those numinous, meek creatures who drift along the corridors like thistledown - whose silences signal a silken renunciation. [End Page 106] Their hymns' sweet notes ring in her ears, syncopating time; so, her months and years pass, a parade of spiritual devotions. One morning, as she weeds the convent garden, she looks up to see a sky of cirrus uncinus - a backdrop of mares' tails spun from delicate white filaments, curling into hooks, tufts- and suddenly, mid-breath, she feels Christ's touch upon her cheek and an abundance of grace expands her lungs until she gasps, seeing shimmering before her a dark-eyed man smiling down at her crouched form, his body so translucent, that the clouds radiating behind him permeate his fluid form- He floats before her in empty air and she is poised in rapt amazement - O stunned, O dazzled, O glorious reward- O watcher - now look - be open-eyed - be undiminished, for joy, joy! trumpets through her veins - blows her open- A Letter from the Abbess Paula the Younger The days of man are but as grass; for he flourisheth as a flower of the field. For as soon as the wind goeth over it, it is gone: and the place thereof shall know it no more. - Psalm 103 Dearest Cousin, I have found among our deceased spiritual grandfather's effects several codices bound in twine and goat leather, and greatly damaged by the hungry meanderings of white ants, by inclement storage, and - I suspect - by secreted tears. [End Page 107] I am shocked by the stark revelations from these tawdry looking, embattled, filth-covered, embittered diaries. Apostasy threatens their author; a barbarism of the mind overcomes his wisdom, and a crucified spirit's tortured ravings infiltrate their pages. We thought we knew the man: we did not. Could not have. So much within our hearts howls for forgiveness, withers us, while Lucifer stands ever ready to entice us, to harvest our sins. Jerome's private pen stuttered and raged self-calumny, even as his public letters proved him righteous. There is too much mystery in man, as in the Eternal. Too great a hydra, this person to whom our grandmother wed her life and her soul. In them both, earthly love- that euphoria, that dread which ravishes - vied with divine love. I grew up in the humid greenhouse of their devotion. What to do with these diaries? I believe their famed author would have me burn them. Indeed, I've taken the liberty of destroying three pages which alluded to our Elder Paula serving as an agapeta to Jerome - yes, believe it! - as his priestly mistress! I also put to flame several salacious pages recounting how he lay with two licentious nuns - a triangulation of orgiastic fumblings worthy (you'd remind me) of those oversexed tales of Bacchus and of Sappho's sultry lovers on Lesbos- Scandalous such outpourings. His fantasies saddened me. [End Page 108] So the scales have fallen from my unworldly eyes. I see now, Cousin, how futilely we strive against our natures: we desire what is alien to us, otherworldly, other than ourselves- and such yearning tonsures our souls' wings. God lurks behind and beyond our mirrors- We struggle like flies to escape this vortex of sins. We live in exile from our physical bodies. Slumbering bears, we hibernate inside our deaths, dreamless, waiting to be reborn again. We stand facing God, our mouths agape. Assyrian, African, Jew and Egyptian, even the loin- clothed Brahman and chanting Buddhist of whom Jerome spoke in his letters - anchorite or centurion, Essene or harlot - what...