possibly the time that Martín acquired the gift that permitted him to speak to animals. Before this, his love had embraced even the most wounded human being; following upon his intimacy with Rosa, the tenderness he exhibited was undiscriminating and unbounded. It extended toward all life.
In what I feel was the final letter, Rosa tells Martín that as a sign of their love, of the “elimination of the barriers that exclude God,” they should regularly place vases of flowers onthe garden wall, where the arrangements would be visible to each of them. Indeed, in statements included in testimony taken down by the apostolic tribunals, I’ve found references to the fact that until their last day it was the habit of each of these people to place bouquets of flowers on their common wall, the instances of this noted because no matter what the season, vivid displays of lilies and roses appeared.
The letters of Rosa and Martín have compelled my salvation, but they have also created a dilemma for me. My foremost responsibility, I believe, is to protect them from fanatics, from obliteration or derision. (Curious, how late in life has come the realization of what my father meant.) In the days following my discovery of the letters in the library, however, I developed such an affection toward the world, such a sense of tenderness toward anyone caught in the predicament of life, that I came to view publication of the letters as an urgent matter. By means of this one gesture, I thought, so much of the putrefaction and hypocrisy of evil could be wiped away. I now saw the physical attraction between my students, Pedro and Analilia, not as mundane carnality but as unperfected desire, and within that a potential for pervading love, whether or not they decided to marry. With Camilla, whom I had become so remote from, who had become almost an idea to me, I rediscovered simple sensual pleasure. Perhaps most striking for me was the recovery of a sense of the vastness of the world outside my own concerns and aspirations.
What would seem astonishing to a modern reader of these letters, of course, is that two saints embraced the physicalhunger that enveloped them instead of running from it. They took it as a sign of God. Then, riding a wave of passion large enough to drown most of us, they transmuted that clutching, compressing, exhausting physical love into a deeper knowledge of God, achieving a peace in their own lives that they gave away in all the dark corners of Lima.
Even as I saw the good that could come from publishing the letters, however, I knew it was being realistic rather than cynical to see that any such publication in Peru would be suppressed, or so thoroughly undermined that the letters would finally be dismissed as forgeries. The Church would call it blasphemy, Hollywood would beat at the door with money and offer solemn promises. The endurance of these letters through fourteen generations would then culminate in an explosion. They would fall back to the earth like so much confetti.
By some means, however, I intend to release these letters. It is amazing that love like this is the experience of saints, but the apparatus of sainthood and Catholicism, it seems to me, is not essential in the story of these people, only knowledge of the spiritual life to be found at the core of their physical experience. Ecstasy seems directionless to me, but like all passion, it might be directed toward the divine.
I am considering several courses of action. If I forward copies of the letters to a friend in China, a scholar of religion at the University of Wuhan, he could arrange for their publication there. They would then emerge as a kind of heresy and so enjoy that protection. I am also considering paying for their publication in Lima under the auspices of a spurious monastery in Catalonia. Eventually they would be discreditedby the Church as a work of fiction, but they would suffer less that way than if the authorities were forced to treat them
In what I feel was the final letter, Rosa tells Martín that as a sign of their love, of the “elimination of the barriers that exclude God,” they should regularly place vases of flowers onthe garden wall, where the arrangements would be visible to each of them. Indeed, in statements included in testimony taken down by the apostolic tribunals, I’ve found references to the fact that until their last day it was the habit of each of these people to place bouquets of flowers on their common wall, the instances of this noted because no matter what the season, vivid displays of lilies and roses appeared.
The letters of Rosa and Martín have compelled my salvation, but they have also created a dilemma for me. My foremost responsibility, I believe, is to protect them from fanatics, from obliteration or derision. (Curious, how late in life has come the realization of what my father meant.) In the days following my discovery of the letters in the library, however, I developed such an affection toward the world, such a sense of tenderness toward anyone caught in the predicament of life, that I came to view publication of the letters as an urgent matter. By means of this one gesture, I thought, so much of the putrefaction and hypocrisy of evil could be wiped away. I now saw the physical attraction between my students, Pedro and Analilia, not as mundane carnality but as unperfected desire, and within that a potential for pervading love, whether or not they decided to marry. With Camilla, whom I had become so remote from, who had become almost an idea to me, I rediscovered simple sensual pleasure. Perhaps most striking for me was the recovery of a sense of the vastness of the world outside my own concerns and aspirations.
What would seem astonishing to a modern reader of these letters, of course, is that two saints embraced the physicalhunger that enveloped them instead of running from it. They took it as a sign of God. Then, riding a wave of passion large enough to drown most of us, they transmuted that clutching, compressing, exhausting physical love into a deeper knowledge of God, achieving a peace in their own lives that they gave away in all the dark corners of Lima.
Even as I saw the good that could come from publishing the letters, however, I knew it was being realistic rather than cynical to see that any such publication in Peru would be suppressed, or so thoroughly undermined that the letters would finally be dismissed as forgeries. The Church would call it blasphemy, Hollywood would beat at the door with money and offer solemn promises. The endurance of these letters through fourteen generations would then culminate in an explosion. They would fall back to the earth like so much confetti.
By some means, however, I intend to release these letters. It is amazing that love like this is the experience of saints, but the apparatus of sainthood and Catholicism, it seems to me, is not essential in the story of these people, only knowledge of the spiritual life to be found at the core of their physical experience. Ecstasy seems directionless to me, but like all passion, it might be directed toward the divine.
I am considering several courses of action. If I forward copies of the letters to a friend in China, a scholar of religion at the University of Wuhan, he could arrange for their publication there. They would then emerge as a kind of heresy and so enjoy that protection. I am also considering paying for their publication in Lima under the auspices of a spurious monastery in Catalonia. Eventually they would be discreditedby the Church as a work of fiction, but they would suffer less that way than if the authorities were forced to treat them
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