Godric

Here's a quote from a book I'm almost done reading. The book is about a saint, Godric, who is having his hagiography written (a hagiography is simply a biography of a saint). The hagiographist usually only records the good things in the proposed saint's life, neglecting the negative. This book, Godric, by Frederick Buechner, is the real life of the saint without the sugarcoatedness (the book is, however, fictitious). Please take the time to enjoy this quote. It's well worth the read...

“’Since all are sinners, I damn the ones I choose to damn and save the rest,’ Christ said. ‘So are my justice and my mercy both upheld. Thou, Elric, I have chosen to damn. Through all eternity thy fate shall be to suffer pain unspeakable and thus to show my glory forth.’
“I said, ‘O Lord, I am a sinner sure. I rate no less. Yet night and day I’ve served thee all these years as best I could. I’ve sought to quell my wayward flesh with chains and scarcely food enough to fill a gnat. All earthly loves I have foregone for love of thee. Canst thou not find it of they grace to damn some other sinner worse than I instead?’
“Christ’s laugh was terrible to hear. ‘is that how Elric does my will to love his neighbor as himself?’ he said. ‘For this thou shalt be doubly damned. Thou mayst as well go gobble up what brutish, greedy joys thou wilt while yet thou canst, for the very moment thou dost breathe thy last, thy torment shall begin.’
“Was this the sinners’ friend, I thought, the one who healed the sick in Galilee and prayed his Father to forgive us for we know not what we do? All hope was fled. The one who sits upon the mercy seat had proved himself most merciless of all. I would have hanged myself except I feared to hasten to my fiery doom. And then the priest who shrived me saved my soul.
“’Poor fool,’ he said, ‘the Devil often comes in such a guise. Our Lord would never speak so cruel. The next time, take a piece of dung and fling it in his face. Then you will see.’
“So when Christ came again, or so I thought, I winged a turd that caught him on the snout, and sure enough he was not Christ. His white robe fell, and underneath he wore a pizzle like a mule. He had a pointed tail and serpents’ scales. He howled at me and fled. Thus does the Devil seek to thwart our faith with lies. Godric, be ever on your guard.”

To check out more on this book go here.