Chapter 282 - 220: The Spiritual Monk (Part 2)

In the drunken days that followed, he gambled on cockfights and horse races, losing more and more Money.

One night, he lost a bet he couldn’t pay and tried to cheat, which sparked a vicious brawl. He was beaten half to death and thrown under a bridge. It was three days before anyone found him.

In his delirium, on the brink of death, images of St. Peter’s Cathedral spun in his darkness.

Satan danced to the melody of Christ. Then Christ, wearing a crown of thorns, summoned Jesuade and asked him to help lift his Cross.

Jesuade reached for it, but found his hand on the hem of the Virgin Mary’s purple robe. He tried to kiss her, to feel the body beneath the robe, to pull the robe away.

Demons fought with Angels, the fires of Hell licked at the gates of Heaven, and Jesuade was trapped in the middle.

He saw God and Adam, their fingertips almost touching, and Noah, who vomited gargoyles from his drunkenness.

Jesuade saw his own flayed face in the hands of Saint Bartholomew, the Saint’s knife dripping with the blood of his sins. He saw Charon, the personification of death, with horns and monstrous, bulging eyes, and Minos, judge of the Netherworld. Yes, it was he—Jesuade—rowing the boat of the damned on the Nether River as the torrents of Hell pulled him down, down into a vortex of fire...

He awoke screaming for a Priest: "Priest, forgive my sins!"

This time, there was no ulterior motive, only the sorrowful cry of a truly repentant man.

He spent three weeks recovering and praying. He emerged from this experience with his heart full of purpose, his eyes shining with the glorious path to salvation.

Bernard Revaudon, the profligate son of a nobleman, decided to become a Cultivator and dedicate the rest of his life to God.

He took a new name, Jesuade, for he would now walk with Christ.

He entered Saint Mark’s Monastery in the foothills near Milan. It was the first truly passionate experience of his life.

For the first time, he found a side of himself completely free of cunning; his Devotion was as sincere as his former depravity had been. He threw himself into his studies with great zeal, quickly mastering theology and deeply impressing his tutors.

He found joy in the simple life at Saint Mark’s Monastery. His room contained only a small bed, a washbasin, and a Cross. He became the Shepherd for the monastery’s flock, a job no one else wanted.

Carrying only a prayer book and a flask of water, wearing sandals and a woolen habit, he would wander the Peloritani Mountains with his flock for days on end, fasting and meditating.

He felt the biting cold of the night and the scorching sun of the day, immersing himself in his closeness to the Creator. He made camp on a cliff near a spring, where at night he could gaze up at the vast, starry sky, and by day look out over vineyards stretching to the sea.

Sunrises and sunsets passed one after another. He watched his sheep graze, prayed, and lamented how his former life had been spent in utter ignorance of the true beauty of God’s world.

He was diligent and obedient, considered a model Cultivator by all who knew him. Of noble birth and well-connected, he seemed destined for great things within the Church. The Bishop told him that his character, integrity, and family background made him perfectly suited for such a role.

Yes, he was ambitious. He yearned for a place in the Church’s hierarchy.

He believed that this was how he could better serve God. He was convinced there was a reason God had begun the miracle of his transformation in St. Peter’s Cathedral; perhaps it was God’s will for him to return to the Vatican, which was undergoing great reforms.

Just as he himself had been transformed, so too would the Church. He wanted to be a part of it. The Bishop promised to put in a good word for him on his next visit to Rome.

His companions also loved and admired him. They all believed their monastery would produce a devout Saint and unanimously nominated him to become the abbot. This trust and warmth made him feel, once again, as if he were sensing the will of God.

However, a matter decided unanimously by the Cultivators was rendered meaningless by the decree of the powerful. (According to canon law, the abbot is decided by a vote of the Cultivators, but in reality, secular Lords and Bishops have great influence.)

His rival won the position of abbot by relying on Money, not on scholarship and Devotion.

This was a blow to his dreams, and his ethereal, wonderful impression of the Vatican plummeted.

He discovered that the life of a Cultivator was not as pure and holy as he had imagined. In fact, there was no less cunning and greed there than in the secular world.

After losing the election, he almost immediately wanted to write to his father, but in the end, he gave up. ’If it could all be solved so easily, then why did I even come here? If the Holy Office isn’t holy, if the spiritual is still worldly, then what is the point of its existence? What value does it have?’

In the end, he left the monastery, ignoring the pleas of his brothers.

The moment he stepped out of the monastery, he felt no pain, but rather a sense of release. ’I don’t think I’ve stopped being a Cultivator,’ he thought. ’I’ve simply walked out of a worldly monastery and into a vaster, more magnanimous, spiritual one.’

He was still cultivating, and now he had even more time for it than before.