‘California 2029’

I.

It was my birthday.  I was 19 years old then.  Many say I am still young, but I feel very old.  My mother died shortly after my birth.  A prenatal exam revealed that I had a gene that would cause high cholesterol.  The doctors recommended a simple gene-editing procedure to remove it.  My mother and father agreed.  But the results were unexpected.  A third arm began to grow, underneath my right one.  It did not form fully, yet there it was.

The doctors who worked at the military base in Los Angeles where my father was stationed and where my mother and father lived were fascinated by this turn of events.  They would not allow an abortion.

Complications during delivery caused by this arm led to my mother’s death.  From then on, any significant illness or injury or growth spurt was another opportunity for the doctors to conduct more tests on me.  My father, as a good soldier, did not resist orders, but I could tell it hurt him when they took me away for them.

II.

Religious freedom is strictly enforced throughout California, for, as the rulers here well know, a multitude of religious opinions is the great enemy of Truth - and that is something they greatly feared the masses getting hold of.  Counterfeits and fakes are everywhere.  By the Grace of God, I had always been drawn to more traditional churches, but it is still a miracle I heard about the hermit Father Ignatius at all.  But his fame was spreading.

One Sunday morning as the robot priest of my Episcopalian parish was preparing for the service, I overheard two members sitting in front of me mention him and the remarkable things about him.  I fixed it in my heart to visit him.  Maybe he could bring healing to my body and save from the medical torturers.  When my father asked what I wanted for my birthday, I had an answer for him:  ‘I want to take a trip to the edge of the city to view the horizon.’

III.

A high-speed rail line runs in a ring around Los Angeles.  At one of the stops is an observation deck for looking out at what is left of the green space around the city.  In order to cut down on carbon emissions, most car use inside or outside the cities here in the new nation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Gaia-California is severely restricted.  However, for the right price, some are still willing to drive people to a destination in vehicles that have had their GPS trackers illegally disabled.  They usually gather at this observation point. I found one, haggled, paid, and off we went.

IV.

In order to save California from ‘climate change’, President Harris implemented a plan to blanket the skies with sulfur dioxide and other metallic crystals to dim the sun and cool the air.  The effects on the creation were catastrophic.  The sky is now a nauseating hue like vomit itself; many of the trees and other plants have withered from metallic poisoning.  The scientific experts assure us that genetically modified plants will make everything okay.  But many are skeptical.

V.

After an hour’s drive or so, we arrived at a former nature reserve that looked to be more filled with death than with life.  I got out and began to follow the path that led up into the foothills of the mountains.  After another hour, I was standing before an extraordinary scene:  A garden of the most brilliant, verdant green I had ever seen met my eyes, and in the midst of it was an old man, whose long grey hair and beard resembled the Spanish moss I had heard about that grew around the bayous and rivers in the recently revived Confederacy to the southeast.  A soft, warm Light radiated from him, and around him were a number of wild beasts and birds resting tamely.  The Light faded as I approached him.

‘God bless you, Andrew.’ 

He knew my name though I had not said a word to him.  As he made the sign of the Cross over me, a current of Grace rushed through me, and I felt more still and content than I could remember.

He invited me into his cave, and I followed him there.  In one corner, a little lamp of almond oil burned before an icon of the Lord Jesus Christ which this monk had brought with him from the St Herman Monastery in Platina.

‘What would you have me do for you, Andrew my son?’

‘I want to be whole, Father.’

‘That is a good goal.  But before we set out to attain it, tell me about your life.’

I confessed to God in his presence my whole life.  I hid nothing, not even the darkest corners of my heart.  He listened to my confession and offered many words of spiritual instruction and healing to me.  At the end, he placed his stole over my head as I knelt before his Gospel book and Cross, and he read the prayers of absolution over me.  A burden fell off my shoulders, and tears of joy streamed down from my eyes as he made the sign of the Holy Cross upon my head.

‘Baptize me into the Orthodox Church, Father.’

‘Not by my hand, dear child.’

Suddenly, a shower of water and oil fell down upon me where I stood, and a Voice said, ‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.’  As this happened, I felt a spark where my shriveled arm met my side.  It hardened, and fell to the ground; smooth flesh covered the place where it had been.  We buried it outside the cave.

VI.

Darkness was creeping into the cave as the sun set.  Fr Ignatius placed before me some almonds and figs from his trees. 

‘Eat, Andrew.  You must keep up your strength.  Trials await you still.’

He stood before the icon and prayed quietly while I ate.  As I finished, we found we were no longer alone.  Military police from Los Angeles had come in search of me.  My long absence worried my father, and the surveillance cameras and threats to my driver helped these to find me.

The holy monk turned to me:  ‘Remember me before God, Andrew.’

The Grace that radiated from him pierced the hearts of the policemen like great shafts of arrows.  But they loved the darkness rather than the Light, so these wounds of Love drove them to anger instead of repentance.  And at the urging of the demons they fell upon Fr Ignatius with great savagery, beating him with their weapons and then shooting him.  But as soon as they had done so, they went mad and attacked one another, tearing and biting each the other, until they fell down a steep cliff and died.

I buried God’s New Martyr Ignatius, and asked for his prayers as I left, knowing what awaited.

VII.

I drove the military police transport vehicle back to Los Angeles.  My father was amazed at what he beheld; so, too, were the scientists.  One of their prized specimens was even more interesting to them now.  The testing was as brutal as ever.  But when they saw in my DNA that the results of their pre-birth CRISPR experiment had been changed, that my body was now whole, and heard my explanation of how it all happened, they became frantic in their efforts to expel me from Los Angeles lest true faith should challenge the controlled religious chaos the oligarchs used to keep the masses captive to their whims.

VIII.

I was exiled over the objections of my father.  Perhaps it was their intention that I die in the wilderness where they left me, but by Saint Ignatius’s prayers I survived and made my way back to his cave.  There I took up the life he had lived, suffering assaults from the demons and from my fallen passions.  Whenever I needed direction in some particular of the monastic life, the All-Holy Trinity would send St Ignatius to teach me.

But I could not attain to pure prayer of the heart as long as my father remained in Los Angeles, so I gave myself over to constant prayer for his salvation.  Weeks passed into months, but one morning he did appear, near to death, at the cave.  He was full of sorrow over his life, and wanted to ask my forgiveness before he died.  He said an old man robed in blinding Light had appeared to him and told him how to find me.  I assured him all had been forgiven long ago, and held him in my arms comforting and consoling him all the evening.

Water from the holy well that had sprung up at some point in the past by St Ignatius’s prayer healed my father.  He lived with me in asceticism for several years before passing to the next life. 

And now I live here alone, seeking deeper union with all the hosts of Heaven and with Christ Himself, helping the pilgrims who come to St Ignatius’s mountain in search of nourishment for their souls like I once did.  Perhaps we will share in St Ignatius’s martyrdom one day as well.  In the meanwhile we wait to see which way the world will go:  towards further rebellion and the final anguished trial of the Church at the hands of Antichrist or towards repentance and a respite from evil, however brief it may be, brought about by the unbending, righteous will of a newly anointed Orthodox Tsar in Russia.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!