The Donation of Constantine: A Vision at the Roman Church & the World in the 21St Century

By Frederick Martin-In-The Fields

A story of Youthful pride, yearnings of the flesh, moments of doubt... this is a story about a man that was once and is fated to be Gods representative before millions of devoted believers.
With the courage of conviction, he faces all the travesties and terrors that the world throws before him, as they all come to play during a decades-long struggle, from the priesthood to his election as supreme, sovereign pontiff.
What of the world he faces in the new millennium? With spirit as his ally, he stands before the issues of pederasty in the priesthood, homosexuality, abortion, racism, war, widespread terrorism, and the ever present shadow of Fear. He stands to wrest the very survival of the Church from the jaws of extinction.
It is a tale of sacrifice and enduring hope, imbued with emotional power and humor. Presented as a great tale of the future, it leaves the reader asking, what shall become of us in the decades that to follow as the irresistible forces of history come to play with the cycle of human life?
The adventures, struggles, and compassionate personalities that molded the life of Cardinal Mangasha, destined to become Constantine, the first pope from Africa, are vividly brought to life in this compelling novel. The aftermath of terrorism economic depression, war and social change ushered in a new age, but he clung to a vision, and with determination and faith, he found the will and spirit to toss the burdens of the past to the ash heap of memory, and fulfill the role Fate had planned out for him. This is a story of Faith in a World that no longer believes in anything!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 7, 2005
• ISBN: 9781469113838

Frederick Martin-In-The Fields

Fred is a native of California, and studied at UCLA and LAVC. He achieved a BA in Humanities at CSUN. He is currently occupied as a teacher of ELT studies while editing his second anthology of verse meditations, and a new novel based on one man’s experiences during the first Gulf War. He feels this story will add to the literature of American lore, due for publication in 2005.

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Copyright © 2005 by Frederick Martin-In-The Fields.

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Contents

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I

The Pendulum Swings

CHAPTER II

One for the History Books

CHAPTER III

The Realm of the Popes

CHAPTER IV

The World, the Devil and a Pontiff’s Character

CHAPTER V

Revelations of the Heart

CHAPTER VI

Historical Perspective of the Church in the 21st Century

CHAPTER VII

Meeting Criticism

CHAPTER VIII

The Round of Devotion

CHAPTER IX

A Man from a Fabled Land

CHAPTER X

The Legacy of Protest

CHAPTER XI

The Slings and Arrows of a Secular World

CHAPTER XII

The Realm of Dreams

INTRODUCTION

The Donation of Constantine

refers to the legendary bequest of Emperor Constantine the Great to Pope Sylvester in the early 4th Century C.E. Therefore, this book takes its title therefrom in fitting recognition that the Roman Church, after 2,000 years of upholding the legacy of Classical Civilization, fights on for its legitimacy, as terrible modern forces tear at the fabric of its institutional structure world-wide. They further bring into question, in radically modern terms, the Church’s continuing viability in this era of new enlightenment and comprehension between the races of humanity.

But this is a fictional story that binds all of history to bear on the question of what shall become of the Christian World if the whole basis of faith, which underlies the reason for the Church’s existence, collapses upon its own implausible contention: some day their Christ will return to bring salvation to the just and meek and punish the wicked and proud, as well as upon the burden of its bloody history. What direction shall the prelates of this new millennium take to make sure the Keys of Saint Peter guarantee entry into the Kingdom of God for the faithful millions? What sort of leadership shall the Church provide in order to bring hope to the wretched and dissolute now that all humanity faces a new age of high-tech struggle? What sort of lessons will it throw up now that it no longer counts the terrors of Nature and ignorance as the enemies in the guise of a devil? But, it must fight against it’s own foibles and fallibility if this miraculous age of technology is to continue and provide the necessities of survival. It must give meaning to the marvels and miseries that make up the experience of humanity as a separate and special species bestriding the pyramid of terrestrial life.

This is the story of a once and future spiritual leader who will inaugurate the next chapter in the story of Mankind, and make sense of the evolution of civilization, if not of Mankind in general.

The continuing relevance of the stated mission of the bishops of Rome, from the fourth century C.E. to the present, has not shown the church at her best, and there is always someone lurking in the shadows of doubt to inaugurate the next round of scandals~all meant to rock the ancient church to its foundation. All subsequent popes have depended on the amenability of the faithful to the belief that their Christ would return someday with salvation for their souls, thus they must accept papal authority as a guide that will show them the ultimate realization. Hence, Pope Sylvester earned the credit for converting Constantine, and pious belief represented him as receiving from the Emperor in the Donation of Constantine the spiritual authority necessary to dominate souls, as well as most of Western Europe. The latter had always been the bastion of Roman Catholicism, but the power that supported it had been eroding for the previous two centuries. In order to maintain their hold over the souls of their flock, the donation was regarded as spiritual power, even if the right to property was deemed a fraud. Such men as Julius I strongly affirmed the supreme authority of the Roman See, but the events that created history over the subsequent centuries made of it an unsupportable claim.

According to the history of the respective donations, much was made from the legitimacy of either, particularly of the Constantinian, but it is important to understand the ACTUAL treaty, which led to the establishment of the Papal States after the 8th Century C.E.

As the Roman See lost authority, the repeated humiliations to the papacy by the eastern emperors, the weakening of their position due to Turkish-Moslem expansion in Asia, Africa, and Spain, by Moslem control of the Mediterranean, and by the inability of Constantinople or the rest of the Western powers to protect the people and estates in Italy from Lombard assaults, drove the popes to turn from the declining empire and seek aid from the rising Franks. Specifically, Pope Stephen II, fearful that the Lombards’ capture of Rome would reduce the Papal See to a local bishopric dominated by Lombard Kings, thenceforth appealed to the Emperor at Constantinople; but, no help was forthcoming, and the pope, in a move frocked with political consequences, turned to the Franks, ruled by Pepin. In a short time they subdued the Lombards and enriched the papacy with the so-called Donation of Pepin, getting all of central Italy in the bargain. So was established the temporal power of the popes! This brilliant papal diplomacy culminated in the coronation of Charlemagne by Leo III, and thereafter no man could be an accepted emperor in the West without an appointment by the pope. The harassed bishopric of Gregory 1st had become, ironically, one of the greatest powers in Europe. When Charlemagne died in 814 C.E., the domination of the church by the Frankish state was reversed; step-by-step the clergy of France was subordinated to the Kings, but when the empire of Charlemagne collapsed, the authority and influence of the church increased.

At first it was the Episcopal See that profited most from the weakness and quarrels of the French and German kings. In Germany the archbishops collided with the kings, enjoyed ownership of property, and bishops and priests of feudal power that paid only lip service to the popes. Apparently it was the resentment of the German bishops, irked by this heart-shaped episcopal autocracy, that generated the famous false decretals; this collection, which would later fortify the papal see, deemed first of all to establish the right of bishops to appeal from their metropolitans to the popes. The collection also included decrees and letters that were attributed to pontiffs from Clement I in the first century to Melchiades in the fourth century. These early documents were designed to show that by the oldest traditions, in the practice of the church, no bishop might be deposed, no church council might be convened, and no major issue might be decided without the consent of the pope. Even the early pontiffs, by these evidences, had claimed absolute and universal authority as vicars of Christ on earth.

Pope Sylvester I, to reiterate, was represented as having received, in the Donation of Constantine, full secular as well as religious authority over all Western Europe; consequently, the Donation of Pepin was but the halting restoration of stolen property. To many contemporaries as well, the restoration of the imperial title in crowning Charlemagne was seen as a remedy by the pope and appeared as the long-delayed reassertion of the right derived from the founder of the eastern empire himself. Unfortunately, many of the unauthentic documents quoted scripture and the translation of Saint Jerome, who was born 26 years after the death of Melchiades. The forgery would have been evident to any good scholar, but scholarship was at a low-ebb in the 9th and 10th centuries. For eight centuries the popes assumed enough authenticity from these documents, and used them to prompt their policies.

Pepin recognized the difficulty of governing without the need of religion; Ergo, to bolster his own office, he then restored the property, privileges, and communities of the church, and rescued the See from the Lombard Kings, and established temporal power in the Donation of King Pepin.

The popes felt themselves thoroughly justified in claiming a degree and area of temporal power. As the heads of an international organization they could not afford to be the captives of anyone’s state, as they had been, in effect, in Avignon. So trammeled, they could hardly serve all peoples impartially, much less realize their majestic dream of being the spiritual governors of every government. Though the Donation of Constantine was a palpable forgery, as Nicholas of Cusa admitted, the donation of central Italy to the papacy back in 755, confirmed by Charlemagne in 773, was a historical fact.

So, even though the Donation of Constantine was the only document taken as a grant of imperial power, the Lateran Palace and rule over Rome, from the Emperor to the Pope, each at either end of the Western world, before Pepin’s era, the popes acted as though the grant was derived from, or implied in the Gospels. Constantine supposedly made the cause in gratitude for his baptism and his miraculous cure, but the famous Donation was only a state fabrication afterall. The latter, incidentally, was not proved a forgery until the 15th century.

Sylvester I, who reigned from 314 to the year 335, is oddly obscure despite his long tenure. Indeed, he is most notable for his absences. He did not attend the first council of Nicaea in 325 C.E., in which was promulgated the Nicene creed and the condemnation of the heretic Arius. What sort of world would a pope in the 21st Century inherit, if, from its inception, the Church’s leaders had relied on fraud and political machination to achieve their aims? What sort of legitimacy has supported the Church for the last 17 centuries, if Emperor Constantine never in fact legitimized it, and all the decrees that were supposed to favor the church were naught but forgeries? Whatever the motivation, Catholic Christianity spread its influence over the centuries throughout the civilized world by the teaching of the belief that they alone possessed the favor of God, who thus gave them the spiritual power over the souls of the converted and their children, who were given no choice in the matter, and in so doing, over all aspects of their lives. This is a form of totalitarianism that, having weathered many wars, social and political storms, has survived unto the new millennium. As a faith, it has stood its ground against many gods, many changes wrought by history, even against states founded on godless philosophies. But now, in the present age, it would face its greatest challenge from the very concept of love, and the spread of learning, which the Church, over the centuries, did much to promote. People, therefore, educated and considerate of other cultures, could no longer be so easily controlled, let alone convinced, by an overbearing and contemptuous clergy. A god that did not embrace all peoples was seen as false, while other religions filled the void that existed between ignorance and despair.

This would be the reality the new pope for the new epoch would have to face.

The consequences of Constantine’s fictitious donation would still be suffered in the eras to come.

CHAPTER I

The Pendulum Swings

Open Letter

As Sahle Cardinal

Mangasha was preparing to embark for Rome, to participate in New Year’s festivities, the ailing John Paul III took time to consider who would follow him in the hard tasks of leading the next generation towards guardianship of the Church. It was Christmas Eve, 2019, right after the pontiff had celebrated Mass with a group of Armenian pilgrims, when Cardinal Mangasha’s name was first suggested by the pope himself; it was such a radical suggestion that many within the Curia openly questioned the prudence of trusting such a man of obscure, non-European origins. It was not known that John Paul had maintained regular correspondence with him for years. In this exchange of letters they covered many topics, and through them the pope was able to gauge his attitudes and strengths and weaknesses of character, which would determine whether he would make a viable candidate for supreme pontiff. Though he kept Sahle’s letters in petto (to his breast; secret), John Paul relished their confidences, but he had made up his mind about him after appraising his first letter; therein the circumspect Sahle laid out his personal foundation for his faith and how he viewed his mission within a church he too, privately, viewed as obsolete with respect to its dogma and theological teachings. With a man like Sahle in charge, nevertheless, the tired and disillusioned pope found new hope for the Roman Church~it would survive and flourish in the harsh and brutal world of the 21st Century to prepare the saved for the Second Coming.

Sahle was not so idealistic, nor did he expect the apocalypse or Revelation to occur during his watch. He simply worried about doing his part to prevent a new global catastrophe by moral guidance, education of the masses, finding new and creative ways of involving the youth of the world in what he was glad to term a new crusade, regardless of what Jews and Muslims felt about the word and its connotations; it would be a true crusade, by which supporters of Christ would NOT be motivated to take up arms against the heathen armies, but to take up their own cross and be worthy of the Christian promised land. 20th Century popes had sought to emphasize reform and reorganization amongst the laity and clergy both, in order to meet the threat of totalitarianism and increasingly secularized societies and atheistic cultural movements. If Sahle would be touched to lead the Church in this new era facing the same old challenges, then he would try this radical approach to a recycled idea, and thus redefine in the process his vision for his pontificate, and of the papacy in the modern world in general. The question for the moment was, had he convinced the current pope of his qualifications? Or, would he, by his candor and eloquence, reveal his belief that the Second Coming and the concept of salvation would come about by ways that Catholicism was ill-equipped to address? Nevertheless, his deep feelings about Christ’s example would carry his conscience and confidence, and would resolutely meet the endeavor if only to check Islam, spreading secularization, newly popularized Animism amid sophisticated groups in the First World, fundamentalism in other less threatening religions, as well as atheistic democracy at every opportunity. Fortunately for a man like Sahle, the Catholic Church was just the instrument he hoped to wield against all the said contestants vying for the soul of Mankind.

In a letter dated October 10, 2018, Sahle sent a copy to John Paul III of what he termed a dreamer’s encyclical, or open letter, he had first sent to his predecessor, the legendary John Paul II. He was still a diocesan priest at the time {circa 1985}and therein he described a conversation he conducted mostly with himself, and thus revealed all that the wistful pope wanted to know about what constituted the character of this obscure man from Africa:

"Your Holiness,

What an honor and a privilege it is for me to have this opportunity to write to you at last! My name is Sahle Wosen Mangasha, am an aspiring priest, anxious to serve My God, and have been a member of the Catholic Action Union since December 1978.

I feel I have grown to know you personally over the last couple of years because of my acquaintance with your books and writings in the Catholic Daily. Therefore I feel I can confide to you some of my introspections about life and the propagation of the Christian faith.

First of all, I should like to share with you my experience of faith and devotion as well as my concerns regarding the direction of the Church in Europe and America.

Just before I joined the Ethiopian College and adopted the monastic discipline, I was in a state of spiritual turmoil, unabated by assurances that hope was to be found in tomorrow’s light. I was weak emotionally, and by betrayal and humiliation found myself in dire economic straits. The humiliation was at the most intimate level, and despair had overtaken my conscience. My own brothers had robbed me of what few material possessions I had, and could turn to no one for help, not even my parents, who themselves are traumatized by life’s outrageous fortunes. Life in Ethiopia is as precarious as it has always been, and since the fall of the Solomonid dynasty, village is set against village, and one could find himself fighting his own brother for imported philosophies that are supposed to wrench our medieval society in to the modern world, while the Muslim majority oppresses the religion that made our nation. We, as a people, have lost the name of compassion to cruelty and greedy brutality at the most primal and sadistic level.

In such an environment I had lost all sense of purpose and of myself. Nothing seemed to matter by the time I arrived to finish my studies in Rome, and despite my yearnings for a higher purpose, and an angry defiance of temptation for some escape in to, I thought at the time, a realm free of any kind of pain or obligation, such as drug abuse, sexual licentiousness, and not to mention violence against oppressive authorities as my brothers had, all I reaped in the end was anguish and shame. Our Lord Christ, I believed in my youthful weakness, had forsaken me. I fell into the abyss only a few years ago when I went to bed one night and nearly never awoke again.

Suicide seemed the reasonable and honorable solution. I courted death, but she would heap scorn upon my intention; death courted me, but somehow the strength of a will I did not know I possessed resisted and would not relent before her entreaties. After suffering such great tribulation and crises of intellect and spirit, I would not relent my life to what seemed like, to my waking conscience, an inevitability. My moral constitution had collapsed upon the corrosive doubt that now had sustained my lingering faith. Despite all struggles for a decent life, only misery doggedly pursued, and misery at last defeated me in my youth. Like the proverbial wretch in a tale of woe, I lost all sense of propriety, sought to lose myself in the streets of oblivion, and ate out trash cans or collected aluminum cans just to survive, even whilst maintaining a room in the college to give the illusion of normalcy. My brothers in Christ never suspected my desperation. My moral guides ever trusted in my honesty and simplicity. I deceived them as well as myself, and during the darkest hours I forgot even that I possessed an immortal soul.

I do not mean to give the impression of finger pointing, but my own people, my own brothers, whom, ironically, had guided me on the path to God years before, were at the root of nearly all of my misfortunes and the illness that tormented my soul. To me, they represented the hidden enemy, ready to accuse me at every turn, betray me at a whim and bring about my ruin. To me they were the agents of Satan, and forgiveness could not enter my heart.

Regardless of the very real role they played in my destruction as an individual, I cannot deny the causes I made which effectuated its realization.

The hope of tomorrow at last arrived, and, after years of resisting hypocrisy, humiliation and the ‘drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams,’ if I may borrow from Richard III, fed to me by some hidden evil calling me ‘friend,’ only a sincere homage paid to the perfect truth of the mystic law of God’s creation paved the way toward my waiting salvation. Therein waited the opportunity to construct a new life, and based on inner strength and faith in the Word of Our Lord. It took me a long time to recover my faith. It took me a long time to find the beauty in life again. Only in this perfection of truth existed the road towards the inner revolution that made possible the transforming change in my psyche, reflecting, then, on to the outer world for the better of those around me.

Despite my definitive triumph over the forces of darkness, however, I am troubled over the present state of affairs. The fear I had nurtured before ultimately bowing to the entreaties of one who was to become my mentor {a devoted and compassionate soul of the earth, Reverend Shenouda Idowu, a onetime Coptic priest, and now head prior of the Monastery in Axum), was that I had missed my true calling, and in the vacuum of spiritual yearning, I could easily have succumbed to a cult that promised anything. In Ethiopia, where so much animism lives side by side the Bible, there is ever the temptation to seek refuge in the graces of nature spirits. Indeed, after reading about the persecution of clerics in Egypt and in my homeland, and the subsequent viciousness and vituperative attacks upon ancient monasteries by fundamentalist radicals, and censorship of the good name and character of the national patriarchs, which I had learned about through my friends in Addis Ababa and elsewhere, was most disturbing. Years later, too many among the faithful do not concern themselves with those lessons of life that effect the inner revolution for Christ, and guarantee the propagation of faith, but instead dally with petty and frivolous personal attacks upon unseen demons they feel are lurking about, and fear will drag them, like Hades did to Persephone, into a hell of their own choosing, and all in the fanatical interest of defending the honored dignity of a church they have no real belief in, and devotion is left to languish in the fallen tears of their spiritually devoid progeny.

Though I have made my sentiments known to my superiors, and have insisted upon intellectual persuasion to turn the few I have exerted some positive influence over away from such a course of hatred, which has blinded so many that I can see from the difficult issues that deal with having to build a moral society from the ruins of our ancestors’ ideals, I feel I am losing this elemental battle, an have run out of ideas from sheer frustration over this irredeemable situation. At such times the Gospels, the Psalms, and the meditations of saints together have been a source of comfort as well as an ever giving well-spring of new ideas.

But, I have so many obstacles to overcome in my own life that, as to and for the latter, I cannot but bear to stand as a helpless witness, while my fellow Christians give themselves to self-righteous ranting about the sins of their neighbors, and all the while using missionary or parish outreach work as tools to advance their own controlling interests, whatever they may be, within the body of the Church.

At the crux of this exasperation that plagues me, which has proven a constant source of disillusion, there has been a zealous insistence that we should regard the physical evidence that supports our faith, even by some of those closest to me, as idols upon which to justify our actions and indulgences, no matter how morally questionable. They confuse a personal god for this idolatry. That is to say, a clear expression of confusion over the meaning of metaphors and symbols, of hope and faith, is evident and thriving among the laity, not only in my superstitious homeland, but even in ultra-modern Euro-American societies. Matters of true worship are left ignored, and bogus issues are debated by able-bodied and clear-minded persons of resolve, which have nothing to do with matters of spirit and the diffusion of the blessings of peace and prosperity, disavowing the truth that the crucifix represents, or to fructify in the heart of Mankind.

Each new child baptized unto the care of the Church is all but asked when comprehension touches his awakened conscience to countenance idolatry, at its most irrational forms, in the name of Christian universality. At the same time hope languishes and the proud and resentful, some of whom have devoted decades to the proposition that the profession of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is the key to the world’s salvation, are left to confusion, and question the right of existence for this ancient institution; does the Roman Church serve the individual? Or must the individual subordinate himself not to the greater good, but to the abstract designs, as they are perceived, of the Church? Ultimately, what is most reprehensible to me, Holy Father, is the invocation of Your Holiness’ respected name by some Lay leaders as well as national prelates with more ambition than humility, more greed than dedication to God’s work, as some kind of cult-hero to justify their own sense of authority, which is exerted, not to uplift the course of spiritual leadership, but to humiliate with the perceived intention to instigate some new kind of caste-class system within the hierarchy of leadership, at the lowest levels.

Narrow-minded obscurantism is rampant, and warnings of heresy regularly hamper attempts at open propagation of faith and the expediential exchange of experiences between the baptized and saved. Truly, old habits die slowly, and memories of a pre-council church that gloried in rituals and exclusion run rampant among many reactionary and bigoted persons all over the Catholic world.

Yet, in spite of my hyperbolic descriptions of the perceived state of our world, the most ponderous impediment against progress is stifling apathy, counterbalanced by the aforementioned zealotry and intolerance at its most insincere and self-serving. Omens of moral decay are all about as I listen to my fellow practitioners as they slander or criticize each-other, just after having recited sacred liturgy or a rosary to the Mother of Our Lord. Sometimes I have found myself playing the hypocrite’s role by engaging in such idle yet damaging conversations. And, worse, sometimes those petty grievances have flared into vindictive rancors and have provoked hurtful confrontations. What moral posture can one take, once recognizing the sorrows incurred by such irresponsible egotism, after having compromised oneself by immoral or unethical behavior on such grounds? Alas, the answer escapes me (except to chant Benedictine songs, and to try and make things right), and resignation to the obviousness of God’s plan for every living soul proves to be an unsatisfactory solace.

The Church, so vital to the message of God’s love, is dwelling in the past while having to function every moment in the future, and in deed and fact the reason for my resurrection to a life brimming with possibility and expectation in His plan for me, is ceaselessly under threat from those whom purposely or unintentionally confuse the nurture of each precious individual soul for recruitment into the army of Christ, and compounds the dilemma that we, who feel challenged, must face; whether to escape the sense of forced isolation or exile and follow a solitary practice and risk losing touch with the human dimension; or submit unquestioningly to a misdirected authority and risk losing our individual identities, and thus forfeit the inner revolution for Christ.

The answer may exist in the merits of the very question proposed, but by summoning the powers of Heaven itself in search of answers to why we all must journey through suffering and disappointment, the meaning and vindication for my own life have been revealed before the judgment of the ages. Specifically, I have sought to serve my fellow humanity in whatever capacity opportunity permitted me. But, after having been weakened by years of poverty, years of brooding in hope of an opportunity to be called by Our Lord, chances denied to rectify my circumstances, political persecution justified on the flimsiest of grounds, poor health, and near-mortal illnesses, I questioned the very scientific miracles that restored life to me, not once, not twice, but 5 times in the course of my lifetime. Why place such a desire for the beauty of life and the treasures of enlightenment in my heart, only to thwart my every sincere and living effort, at almost every turn, by betrayal and creeping fatality, and bitter despair? Was I to stand for Job and face my whale, in the guise of despair, in this present reality? Nay, they served no purpose but to forge my character, for better or for worse, in the fires of anguished misery, and demons of fear provoked me to hurl myself into the void of hopelessness. That was Calvary, but I could not rejoice in the realization until the suffering had done with me.

After years of following the sign-posts of promise, I found I could, in my own humble, peasant way, serve my God by devoting myself to my fellow human beings and enter into the service of the Church, to serve as a model of moral rectitude, to take vows, and to relinquish the desires of the flesh for the demands of the spirit. I sought to contribute to the uplift of Civilization, the meeting ground of angels and souls in need of salvation, to elucidate and inspire the generations of the hereafter. Have I been successful? The answer is relative, and yet unnecessary. In God there is vindication. I had to learn this truth the hard way.

I am constantly surprised, however, since taking vows by persons I had never met who then would come up to me and relate their appreciation for the small role I played in bringing new resolve, and new meaning to their faith in Christ’s example!

Since taking vows I have learned and felt the poetry that resounds in the silence that underlies this natural world. It is the song of the universe. It is the voice of God. I am moved to pursue the cause of peace and understanding between peoples around the world. I am motivated to lay down my sword and take up my cross in defense of the Truth. But, it is a truth that the Church cannot interpret for me. It is a truth that will live on though I die, or am condemned for heresy.

As I recovered from the ills that tormented me though years of privation, and convinced that lightening could not strike twice, within months I found myself on the path to fulfillment. Something happened to me though the world I grew up in collapsed after the fall of Haile Selassie, and Socialistic turmoil gripped our impoverished society. Months of wandering in the streets of Addis Ababa tested my mettle to the breaking point. Resilience did not favor me while I faced starvation as others died in defense of the old regime. My spirit ached with the isolation that follows when panic grips our comprehension of the present. Strangely enough, I found consolation in poetry; while hunger left me emaciated and delirious, I discovered new beauty in the written word, and for weeks nothing but my own verses sated my incessant yearning. I believe it was this same muse of fire that restored courage to my heart, and so I fled to Rome, to the bosom of the Church, and I could fulfill my obligation to Our Lord.

There were times when I felt I had betrayed my people. My relatives in Axum and near Gondar faced persecution as I filled up on Italian generosity. How ironic, for my own father and uncles recollected vivid horror stories of their fight with Mussolini’s armies in the mid-1930s, how they were defeated at the Battle of Adowa . . . little more than a collection of mud-huts, as invading troops pounded them with modern artillery, and we fought back with bayonets and 19th Century rifles. The Shame of Adowa, they called it, and the Italians would never forget their humiliation there . . . It must be God’s plan. A plan I dare not question, since it makes no sense to me, and cannot change it for the life of me. There is or must be so much more to ancient causes for which we presently suffer the consequences. There must be some Providential hand behind all this carnage and corruption, otherwise neither faith nor illusion have any meaning.

Tired I am of asking, what does all this mean? But all the years of rejection, repudiation and deprivation served only as the primeval muck so that the rose that grew from the blood of Jesus might flower in this, the garden that is a human lifetime. Ah yes . . . then it was all worth the wretchedness: If Our Christ is life personified, and life must undergo this horror in order to achieve immortality, then there is so much more to the Cosmic plan than we puny humans can ever comprehend.

The mission of my life, in the face of menacing unhappiness, has been made clear by the Providential mystic law that binds all Creation to form the ultimate mystery that we are and turn as one in the heart of the Cosmic Christ. The first step has been taken, and all possibilities are laid before me, and I am ready to serve the higher cause. I am here to serve my fellow Man and serve the cause of peace and harmony amongst nations, in my own very humble way.

Let my voice join the chorus of the faithful for all to hear: devotion to the message of Love, the living force of Our Lord that transcends all realities, is the essence of unconquerable power, against all elements, for happiness, and the tinder that illuminates all truth when each one of us is called to meet Our Maker in the closing moments of our final hour. I have a long way to go, and many obstacles impede my way, but hope has been restored unto me, faith drives my way towards fulfillment, and the power of