The Lost Cause

Chapter One

Aden was a young Priest, a rising star of the Jesuits. He had shown great skill with Latin and the reading of the Holy Word. It wasn’t just the skill Aden showed but he was given many accolades along the way as a young student. The promised priest was a star, a protégé. A young priest with promise garnered much attention, gifts and presence of older priests looking to relive the glory of their youth.

In this day priests were kings, simply put, the elite of society. Some were famous warriors, others skilled politicians, still others were famous for gathering wealth for the great and golden cathedrals being erected.

This was Christendom. The Holy Roman Empire.

Not your brown robed barefoot monks and esoteric peace loving priests. The Empire had power, real power and that power required keeping.

The Empire had the largest army in all of Christendom. Larger than the fiefs, the Lords and the warring kingdom families of the north.

Splendor and fear. They brought the fear of God into people through one simple thing: Wrathful fear. Intimidation, control and punishment were the tactics of the empire and it was these tactics that led us to Aden and his journey.

To the Glory of God

The engraved letters were clearly marked in the side of a machine that stretched a man or woman’s limbs out of socket one crank at a time. Crank, click and crack you would hear as bone tore and flesh ripped and agony was brought to the ‘guilty’ party.

It was the first of the machines built. There was an uprising in the country and people questioned their belief in the Pope, supreme leader and hand of God on Earth. Others were questioning the tactics and methods of taxation and the local church. People had stopped reporting to their priests regularly. According to the empire this must be stopped. Power needed keeping.

‘God’s wrath was coming and we must scourge the heretics and eliminate those who would betray the empire and defy God, Himself.’

Aden did nothing; standing in shock, he had been invited to be part of purifying the land for God’s Glory. He hesitantly crept down the rough stone steps to the rank dungeon below. He’d heard rumours of these methods but thought them merely fear mongering stories and threats. He entered the dark, frigid and damp cellar. He observed the room, as he did, his spirit seeming to leap out of His body. He imagined himself floating over top of the body that lie in the middle of the room; The man was stretched out arms out to the sides as if reaching to the far walls and legs tied together straight out. He was screaming and crying out to God, about 30, bearded with long hair, severely beaten, and alone.

In this vision, Aden only saw one thing.

Jesus.

Stretched out dying, in agony.

This was the vision that haunted Aden. It was also the one that guided him and moved him and inspired him. As a child he met Jesus at the front of the Cathedral, bleeding and dying, alone, hanging on the cross. Crucifix. It had meant so much. God’s son came to die for us.

Aden, in this moment thought ‘for what…’

‘The ancient Roman Empire knew torture, they knew control,’ Aden thought, ‘and now we are living out the very punishments of the empire that killed our Lord.’

‘This just can’t be.’

Aden left the room and vomited profusely until his stomach was wretched dry.