Page 26, Line 26 by Jo Page.
Inspired by Line 26, Page 26 of ‘I Don’t – The Case Against Marriage’ by Clementine Ford.
What Would Jesus Do?
Despite all the fanfare, the Kingdom of God didn't appear to be arriving anytime soon.
The soon-to-be-inaugurated Pope cradled his head, crumpled against the pillar and slid to the Basilica’s floor. Everything he’d held true was as fragile as the wisp of smoke that had announced his promotion.
The sacrosanct aroma of incense which used to lift his spirits suddenly felt like a toxin infiltrating his pores to render him nauseated and defiled.
No, now he knew the unthinkable, he understood the Kingdom of God wouldn’t be arriving anytime at all.
Only that morning he’d lifted a meticulously preserved document from the vault and read it alone in his room before replacing it for his successor as instructed. It held information passed from Peter to Linus, then to Anacletus, right down the line of leaders of the One True Church.
Even then, he, a man of faith whose life was rooted in believing the unseen, didn’t want to accept the testimony it proclaimed. So, he had ventured to the grottoes beneath St Peter’s and, resting peacefully where they’d been relocated centuries before, he found the very human remains of the Nazarene.
Millennia of wars had been waged in Christ’s name. The poor exploited. Forgiveness peddled to the rich. It was meaningless. All because Peter, jilted by Mary Magdalene and fuelled by jealousy, had staged a resurrection and appointed himself leader, simply to prove she’d chosen the wrong man.
Realisation dawned; his life’s purpose was a complete lie. The question now was would he uphold the secret, or reshape the world?
Jo Page