The room was dimly lit, a traditional urban front room illuminated with two floor lamps, its furnishings unremarkable. A few extra chairs had been brought in from the dining room to add seating in addition to the sofa and rocking recliner. They were arranged, as usual, in as close to a circle as the space and furniture would allow.
It was nothing like the bright space of their public worship, but the house church setting was one that Thomás loved all the same. Like all members of the parish, he belonged not only to the main community which met for Masses and praise, but also to a small local ‘stake’, as they called it, which met together each weekday morning for fifteen minutes of prayer before they all went off to work. Even on days like today, when a full service would follow at the main church later in the morning for those able to attend, few ever missed the house church sessions as a start to their day.
On the coffee table in the midst of their circle lay the whole revelation. Its various elements had been known to the community for months, but always in bits and pieces, as revelation usually came. In the midst of the ecstatic states achieved during true worship, when the Spirit moved within the hearts of men and women and stirred them to speak with the voice of angels and not of men, shouts had emerged that gave voice to the prophecy in various utterances. They came in the home sessions, they came in the community meetings. One man had spoken of the river. A woman’s voice had revealed the colour would be of blood. And the other elements had come to them, too – night, fog, chaos, and all the rest – all had surfaced from prophetic lips at one point or another.
But now they had it all. It was concrete. The tablet that had been discovered had conveyed into their present a verification of their experience, engraved in a relic of the ancient past. Thomás was shaken to his depths by the realisation of what that meant. Something so ancient, which precisely matched the revelations God had been giving them in their heights of spiritual ecstasy . . . it was confirmation. Absolute confirmation of what he realised he’d long known to be true. The charismata of faith were real. Man really did commune with God. Truths as ancient as the world itself could be met and known – and the God who had spoken in the past was speaking in the present.
He was speaking of their future.
‘This was received from friends.’ The calming, sure voice was that of Giulio Selmone, a stock trader who owned the house and who was the appointed leader of their stake’s weekday sessions. A moment ago, Thomás had helped him distribute the photocopies they’d received from the church office, with Father Alberto’s blessing, the evening before. ‘The full revelation of the tablet discovered in the mud,’ he continued. ‘The full revelation of . . . everything.’
They all began to read. The text was a translation, of course, presenting the ancient prophecy in their modern tongue.
Their faces lit the room as they took in its contents.
Giulio Selmone turned to an older man at his right. ‘Has our message been received by those on the outside?’
The older man was the church’s custodian – the man called Laurence who had helped Thomás yesterday when the first news of the prophecies coming true had been his to pass along to their priest. Laurence had been with them for the past few months, being assigned to Thomás’s stake at the same time he took up his menial job in the church, and his kindness and gentility had quickly rendered him a beloved new recruit. In years he far surpassed most other members of the church, and his openness to revelation and the will of God was nothing short of extraordinary for a man ‘of a previous generation’. An inspiration to everyone. Father Alberto, who was roughly Laurence’s contemporary, had taken him closely under his wing, his fondness for the man openly showing.
‘I’m told that people all through the city have heard our call to action,’ Laurence answered. His old eyes surveyed the others in the room. ‘It is a receptive populace, especially given the signs at work before them. Though as to exactly how many have heard, I may not be of the right generation to know those sorts of details.’ He smiled, and the others did too. ‘But Thomás was the one to give our message voice. I am sure he knows.’ The custodian inclined his head kindly in Thomás’s direction.
He felt a surge of pride and leaned forward. ‘We recorded the messages as Father Alberto and Laurence directed us,’ he answered, acknowledging that the older man, though technologically inept, had been one of the most receptive hearts to God’s voice. ‘It went live online about an hour after we recorded it. So far we have over seven hundred thousand views.’
He sat back. Pride would urge him to say more, but humility was a virtue that lent itself to silence.
‘We are warning them,’ Laurence continued, ‘even if they do not wish to be warned.’
‘The world may be blind,’ their group leader announced, ‘but it’s eager to receive our visions of what will come.’
Silence overtook the group again.
Finally, Thomás asked the question that was on all their minds. ‘And what is that? What’s going to come next?’
‘You’ve seen the prophecy as well as I,’ Giulio answered calmly. He let his eyes fall back down to the paper, and seven other sets of eyes followed suit. He slid his finger down the lines of the complete translation, finally stopping at a single line.
Thomás strained to see where he had stopped, and when he had a bearing on the right spot, found it on his own copy of the text. He read, and re-read. The words were there, and he saw them clearly – but he didn’t understand.
The group broke up moments later, dismissed by a nod from their stake leader and a few words of prayer for the day ahead. Thomás walked quietly down the steps outside the front door and turned down the street. He wouldn’t go into work this morning. He would make his way towards their main church to participate in the Wednesday morning Mass and hymns of praise. Today, he felt like he needed it.
He kept the translation in his hands. He read the line again.
And again.
But understanding didn’t dawn. What kind of plague was . . . fog?