The farthest corner of the room is divided by a curtain and forms Mary抯 oratory. In the center of the wall is a niche in which has been placed a receptacle, like a tabernacle, which can be opened and shut by pulling at a string to turn its door. Inside lies a cloth which has the impression that it was the one with which blood was wiped from all the wounds in Our Lord抯 holy body after it was taken down from the cross. At the sight of the cloth I can see the manifestation of the Blessed Virgin抯 motherly love in her eyes.
Fuentes stopped reading the account.
He抎 read it many times before but, given what was happening, he felt a refresher was needed.
The Testimony of John.
Dated to the fifth century. A copy of a far older original from the first century. Being a copy immediately raised questions of reliability. Was it complete? Edited? The document had been part of the Vatican archives for a thousand years. Several investigations had occurred into its authenticity and each one had stamped it real. But the time lapse between the events themselves and the surviving copy had always cast a shadow of doubt. So much so that the church had ignored it, and forged ahead, creating its own Mariology and bestowing upon Mary an untarnished life and a magnificent end.
Something John had not been so willing to give.
Now I will tell of the death of Mary. It happened in year fifty-two after Christ抯 birth. There was great grief and mourning in her house. The local women came and dealt with her final needs. She lay still, as though near death, completely enveloped in a white coverlet. The veil over her head was arranged in folds across her forehead. In the last days of her life she took no nourishment except a spoonful of juice which one of the women pressed from berries into a bowl near her bed. She lay pale and still. Her gaze was directed intently upwards. She said no words to anyone and seemed in a state of perpetual ecstasy, radiant with longing, which seemed bearing her upwards. My heart longed to ascend with hers to God.
On the final day I anointed her face, hands, and feet with holy oil. The women recited prayers. Her face was radiant with smiles, as if in her youth. Her eyes stayed towards heaven in holy joy. I imagined a marvelous vision where the ceiling of the room disappeared and I saw through the sky into the heavenly Jerusalem. Two radiant clouds of light sank down, out of which appeared angels. Between these clouds, a path of light poured down upon Mary. I wanted to see her arms stretched out in infinite longing, her body, all wrapped up, rising so high above her bed that one could see under it. I wanted her soul to leave her body, like a little figure of infinitely pure light, soaring up to heaven. There, the angels would meet her soul and separate it from her body. My gaze would follow her soul as it entered the heavenly Jerusalem to the throne of the most Holy Trinity. There she would take her place with God and her Son, who would receive her with divine love. They would place in her hands a scepter with a gesture towards the earth, as though indicating the power which He had given her. But that would be only a dream. Instead, when I once more looked I saw the body lying still on the bed. Her eyes were closed, her arms crossed on her breast. The women knelt round praying. She had died just after the ninth hour in the nineteenth year after Christ抯 death.
She was laid to rest nearby, about a half an hour抯 journey through the trees. The cave was not as spacious as Christ抯 tomb and hardly high enough for a man to enter upright. The floor sank at the entrance, and then one saw the burial-place, like a narrow altar with the rock-wall projecting over it. A hollow had been made in the shape of a wrapped-up body, slightly raised at the head.
Inside Mary抯 house the women prepared the body for burial. They brought with them cloths, as well as spices to embalm. They all carried little pots of fresh herbs. The house was closed and they worked by lamplight. The women freed Mary from her deathbed and laid her body inside a long basket piled up with thick, roughly woven coverings. Two women then held a broad cloth stretched above the body, while two others removed the head-covering and wrappings, leaving the body clothed only in a long woolen robe. They cut off Mary抯 beautiful locks of hair to be kept in remembrance. Then two women washed the holy body with sponges. They carried out their task with great respect and reverence, washing with their hands without looking, for the cloth which was held over the body hid the dead flesh from their eyes. A fifth woman wrung out the sponges in a bowl and then dipped them into fresh water. Three times the basin was emptied into a hollow outside the house and fresh water brought in. The holy body was dressed in a new robe, then reverently lifted onto a table where the grave clothes and swaddling-bands had been arranged for use. They wound them tightly around the flesh from the ankles to above the breast, leaving the head, hands, and feet free.