Pierced by a Sword (17 page)

I have helped destroy another marriage!

John Lanning was a bishop
in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, known more commonly as the Mormons or the LDS. A bishop in the LDS was the rough equivalent to a pastor of a parish in the Catholic Church. John was a direct although distant descendant of one of the original apostles of Joseph Smith, founder of the sect in upstate New York in 1830.

In addition to his part-time religious duties as a bishop he
was also a full-time professional for the LDS. He and his wife Elena lived in Bountiful, "up on the hill," atop the closest of the mountains that cradled Salt Lake City. It was a posh neighborhood with the most expensive homes in the city. The view of the capitol building, the city proper, and the valley below was breathtaking. Every morning he left his home and walked down East Capitol Boulevard
to the largest office building in Salt Lake City–the offices of the LDS. He had a corner office in the skyscraper that overlooked the impressive Temple and the other buildings in Temple Square.

Officially, Lanning was the director of public relations for LDS. Unofficially, he was known to a select few in the secretive organization as one of the most important marketing minds of the fastest growing
church in the United States. Depending on the length and goals of the project, Lanning had hundreds of millions–even billions–of dollars at his disposal. For over forty years Lanning had served the LDS diligently and brilliantly.

The LDS had many shadowy levels of influence. There were always two hierarchies: the public and the private. Very few people–even rank and file members of the LDS–knew
about the shadow hierarchy. Lanning believed that he was only a level or two from the top of the hierarchy–the real decision makers in the LDS. He had heard rumors about the mysterious Council of Fifty, which had disappeared from public view when the U.S. Army established two military bases nearby to keep an eye on the sect in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Until they went underground,
the Council of Fifty had been the LDS equivalent of a shadow government and private police force wrapped in one.

At the top of the public level are the Prophet and the Twelve Apostles of the LDS. Despite his high professional position, Lanning rarely interacted with the Apostles–most of his instructions came to him in the form of written memoranda.

John Lanning's job was simple: foster in the
minds of Americans that the LDS was a family-oriented, harmless, and ordinary Christian church. That's what the Apostles wanted, so that's what Lanning delivered. In the privacy of his own thoughts, he had lately come to think of this main goal as Project Camouflage.

At the beginning of his career in the early 1950s, after graduating summa cum laude from the exclusive Medill School of Advertising
in Chicago, Lanning had been a sincere, ambitious, creative, and dedicated Mormon.

By the early 1990s, Lanning's public relations campaign had worked. The Mormons enjoyed widespread acceptance in the minds of ordinary Americans. It had been an extremely difficult and painstaking job. Thousands had implemented the work–but Lanning had conceived the ideas. Subtlety and long term planning were his
strong suits.

Throughout most of its colorful history as a minority sect in the melting pot of American religions, the LDS had been barely tolerated as a quirky (and sometimes violent) aberration by both the government and mainline Christian churches. The general breakdown of the family unit of recent times highlighted the sect's clean cut image. Marketing surveys commissioned by Lanning in the
early 1960s showed most Americans associating Mormons with the idea of polygamy (multiple wives). Recent surveys showed the number one idea associated with Mormons was now "family values."

Overseas LDS missions were booming; over fifty thousand missionaries scavenged the United States and the rest of the earth for new members. The LDS now had almost ten million members. Lanning had played a hidden
but key role in this area, too. These missionaries used highly effective presentations–often memorized word for word and always carefully tailored to fit the culture of the marketing target. Lanning had spearheaded the use of Madison Avenue consulting companies to help perfect the presentations and methods used by Mormon missionaries.

The Mormons had a practice called
theological warfare
which
makes these presentations more effective. It was okay for a Mormon missionary to exaggerate, misrepresent, or hide the true teachings of the LDS in order to avoid losing a prospect. For the ultimate good of the prospect, of course. This gave Lanning greater latitude when he helped design missionary presentations.

Although finances were not his department, he knew that the LDS owned large portions
of stock in major U.S. and international corporations. A negative article in the
Wall Street Journal
in the 1980s had claimed that the LDS owned untold billions of dollars worth of corporate assets through a complicated web of holding companies. When word came down the corridor that the higher-ups were not pleased, Lanning had spent months doing damage control. To this day, Lanning believed, only
the Twelve Apostles knew the true extent of the LDS wealth.

Where did all the money come from? Most Mormons were good Mormons. And good Mormons were required to donate ten percent of their
gross
income to their church–or face excommunication and loss of the incredible reward of Mormon exaltation: personal godhood and control of one's own planet! As strange as this would seem to most Americans,
Mormons taught and believed that every Mormon who is "exalted" will become the god and king of his own planet after death, which he will then populate with "spirit children" just as the Mormon God populated the Earth.

Millions of prosperous Mormons contributed tens of millions to their leaders
every week.
This money was invested and reinvested through the myriad of holding companies over the decades.

A clever series of national radio and television ads–at the suggestion of the incomparable John Lanning–cast a glowing light on Mormon activities, offsetting the bad publicity garnered by the refusal of Mormons to accept black members until 1978. In 1978, the Prophet suddenly announced a "new" revelation: God now permitted blacks to be admitted to the married priesthood of Mormonism. (All
good Mormons believe that their destiny is to be admitted to the priesthood through sacred marriage ordinance rituals carried out in their temples.) A simple, one page memo had instructed Lanning to "ease" the new teaching into the public consciousness. The fact that the new revelation came shortly after a much publicized racial discrimination lawsuit was leveled against the LDS was not lost on Lanning.

That lawsuit and the new revelation had cast the first doubt concerning his faith into his mind. Slowly but surely the doubt grew until he found himself counseling depressed women to divorce their husbands based on theology he no longer believed. At first the doubt was barely noticeable to himself. To reject Mormon teaching was an unforgivable sin "against the Holy Spirit" according to
Mormon teaching. Yet Lanning was a keen observer of human nature by temperament and profession, and he couldn't understand why God would change such an important religious law. Humans lived by unchanging natural laws, he believed. He banked on the universality of human nature to design his strategies.

Thousands of Mormons left the sect after the new "black" revelation. Lanning was asked to craft
language to prepare missionaries confronted by Protestants who were well informed about the matter. Soon after the lawsuit, a key scripture in the Book of Mormon which described the elect as "white and delightsome" was changed to "pure and delight-some." At the time, he was aware of hundreds of other scriptural changes routinely made in "updated" versions of the Book of Mormon, but this particular
change struck him as a matter of expedience.

Lanning was privy to other information not widely known among Americans. For example, Utah–the land of supposedly well-adjusted Mormon families–had a high suicide rate compared to most states, especially among young people. Mormon women had high rates of depression and divorce.

Over time Lanning's attitude toward his religion changed from unthinking
acceptance to an exciting search for inconsistencies. He couldn't face the fact that his growing doubts were endangering his "exaltation," and convinced himself that he was merely doing marketing research. A year earlier, he even got permission to conduct focus groups with former Mormons under the pretext of conducting marketing research.

As his doubts increased, his fear of losing his soul and
godhood decreased. A few weeks ago, he woke up in the middle of the night, uncomfortable in the "sacred garment" which is required to be worn by Mormons. The temple garment was supposed to be worn underneath one's clothes, touching one's skin, at all times. Some women even wore their bras over the garment. It was supposed to ward off evil spirits.

Lanning tore it off. For a few moments he waited
for the demonic attack to begin. When nothing happened, he fell back to sleep with little consternation. Elena woke up the next morning and saw that he was naked. An expression of horror clouded her face. But she said nothing. Lanning believed she was in a state of denial. They never discussed his doubts. Ever.

As John Lanning sat sobbing in his chair in his ward office, he considered suicide.
He could not pray because he no longer believed in God–or at least he could not pray to what he now thought were cartoon Mormon versions of gods. Having lost his faith, he had no belief to turn to for solace.

"Who are you!? Are you Lucifer or Jesus or something else? Are you there at all?" John called out, his voice filled with misery, addressing gods he no longer believed in. (Mormons believed
that Lucifer was the defiant brother of Jesus.)
Are you real?
The walls of his office did not reply. Lanning looked out the window. At the bottom of the hill he saw Temple Square and the Salt Lake City valley. He closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. He wanted to die but he no longer believed in heaven.

Chapter Eight

1

Saturday Afternoon
7 October
Motorman Motel
Santa Paula, California

The drugs were beginning to wear off. It was time to end it. Lee was wearing a dirty pair of pants, no shirt. He was barefoot.

"It's time, Lee."

He managed to climb onto the cushioned chair next to the cheap dresser. As if watching from afar, he saw his hands working the paraphernalia required to prepare his vein
for the final hit. He dropped the spoon and inserted the needle into his vein. Before applying pressure to the plunger he asked himself a question.

Am I in control of my own destiny? I wonder what comes next?

Above Lee an invisible, ugly creature prepared his next lie. One more deception pushed into the target's consciousness would be all that was needed. This mission was going quite well. This
was easy!

"Light awaits you, Lee. Light awaits you!"

The creature assigned to destroy Lee Washington chuckled coarsely.

Light awaits me! I will join the light of destiny!

Because Lee had always possessed a curious nature the thought gave rise to questions in his battered mind.

Is that my voice? Who's that laughing? What light? When have I ever experienced light?

Never. Oh well, here goes nothing.

The Miraculous Medal which Lee Washington had found on the Woodland sandlot during his childhood still hung around his neck. It distracted him. He noticed the image of the woman on the medal, her arms outstretched. Before he could plunge the poison into his vein an incongruent image of another woman entered his mind. Like many who are about to commit suicide, Lee thought of the only person he
had ever really loved, despite her betrayal of him. Perhaps the thought of light brought her to mind. He remembered one day when he was a little boy. Shawna had been doing the dishes when little Lee showed her an airplane he had made with Legos. She had turned from her dishes and put a warm, wet hand on his cheek, smiling at her son. "I love you, Lee. You're all I have." This memory gave him one last
chance to choose a good thing after choosing so many bad.

His choice would set off an instantaneous chain of events. For all his degradation he did not want to punch out on a bitter note. After all, he had been a successful man after a fashion, and however briefly, an optimist. His last thought was for Shawna Washington. He chose the good.

"I forgive you, Mommy. I love you," Lee Washington whispered
sadly, tears forming in his eyes...

Grace was unleashed in a torrent, a cyclone, a tidal wave of power. A mighty warrior came directly to his aid. None other than Saint Michael the Archangel was released by Lee's generous, final choice. The angel was also released by the grace merited by a tired, faithful woman in Argentina who was praying a Rosary for Lee at that very moment.

The grotesque creature
and his immediate superior were brushed away in the metaphorical sweep of the archangel's mighty wings. Unlike human affairs, affairs in the world of non-corporeal beings have a sharp quality. There is a finality and definition to these affairs which are not found anywhere on the muddy, material coil of men.

Battles in the invisible world are what mathematicians call "zero sum games." There is
no partial success for the vanquished, only total annihilation for Darkness when Light confronts it. The two are incompatible–one could accurately describe beings of Light and Darkness as having
enmity
between them. Does it not say in the beginning of the Gospel of Saint John that the darkness cannot overcome the light?

Throughout the centuries, writers have attempted to describe these battles
between dark angels and good angels in colorful military terms. These terms are inadequate. It is sufficient to realize that when the Archangel Michael appeared before the two arch-demons bent on the destruction of Lee Washington, the grotesque creatures were instantly defeated and immediately removed from Lee's midst. It was not the first time Michael had swept these two black enemies back into
the burning abyss of hell.

Now God directed yet another archangel to come to Lee's aid. Lee's unique destiny required such drastic measures...

Before he could push the needle's plunger, he heard a man's voice. Lee looked up and saw the archangel. He perceived the creature before him to be a man, although Raphael was not a man.

The Archangel Raphael spoke to the confused, stricken man in the chair,
"Lee, if you wish to live, remove the needle from your vein. Then, I shall heal you."

"I'm hallucinating," Lee whispered.

Raphael was standing only two feet away from Lee's chair. Lee knew the difference between an hallucination and reality from direct experience. His mind insisted that the man standing over him
could not be there.

But this man is as real as the chair I'm sittin' on,
he admitted.
Raphael looked like any other man except his hair was long, red, and curly. He was taller than Lee and well-proportioned. There was a peaceful countenance on Raphael's face but it was not otherworldly. He was wearing a beige tunic and a leather belt which had a small bag attached to it. He wore sandals with leather thongs and tie strings. He did not have wings and his voice was not unusually deep
or undulating like the angels in movies.

In fact, Raphael appeared in precisely the same dress and form in which he had appeared to Tobias, centuries before the birth of Christ.

Raphael shook his head slowly, a smile on his lips. There was a gleam in his eye–as if he was mildly amused by Lee's incredulity.

Presently, he spoke again, "Come now, Lee. It is your choice. The needle..." Raphael suggested
in a perfectly rational tone of voice, holding his hand out toward Lee.

Lee, whose head was pounding, had forgotten the needle. He looked at it, pulled it out of the vein, and handed it to Raphael, who placed it back onto the dresser.

"You have had a rough time, my friend. You are in no state to see your true mother, who is coming to visit you. I will prepare you. I am Raphael, the Divine Physician."
Raphael smiled disarmingly at the stunned man sitting in front of him.

"I am a bruised reed," Lee heard himself say, unaware he was quoting Scripture.

The strange man of no specific age opened the bag and removed a small cloth and vial of oil. Raphael pulled a small cork from the vial. He bowed his head, closed his eyes, moved his lips in prayer, and then dipped the cloth into the vial. He reached
forward, cradled Lee's cheek in one warm soft hand, and made the sign of the cross with the cloth on Lee's forehead with his other hand. A soft orange light from the setting sun streamed through the soiled curtains into the room behind Raphael, outlining the archangel.

Lee tried to speak but the only words that came out of his mouth were "What the–?"

Beginning inside Lee's forehead, a soothing
heat drained down into his body. Lee looked at the man's eyes and saw a light in his pupils.

The light grew, but did not harm Lee, and then Lee passed out.

+  +  +

When Lee opened his eyes a while later he was completely healed. His shakes were gone. Addictive desire for drugs no longer wracked his nervous system. All infirmities had deserted his abused body.

The archangel was gone.

Lee was lying
on his side, his back to the chair, facing the door. His muscles were sore but not aching. He had a perfect recollection of the mysterious red-haired man who had healed him. He looked at his arms and saw that the needle marks were gone. He felt an odd sensation in his stomach and was alarmed, then surprised, by the feeling. Hunger.

Then he heard
her
voice. It was the same voice Maria Bonilla heard
twenty-eight years earlier as she sat before the Pieta in San Nicholas. It was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. It came from the direction of the chair behind him.

"I have waited so long to be with you, my son. Come to me and let me hold you."

Lee, seized with a fear of the strange events that were enveloping him one after another, yet buoyed by the beauty in the voice he heard, gathered
himself and turned to look at the woman.

She is so beautiful! And young! She's younger than I am!

"Who are you?" he croaked, his throat constricting with overwhelming emotions: joy, relief, contrition, awe, peacefulness.

The woman was wearing a long beige tunic with a royal purple shawl covered with stars, but wore no belt. Lee saw that her skin was brown but lighter than his own. She had a simple
brown cross hanging around her neck. Now that he was looking directly at her, she seemed older than he had first thought. She was
ageless.

"I am your mother, Lee. I am the mother of all mankind. Do not be afraid. We have time. There is much to explain. I know you are confused. First, come here," she gently invited as she held out her arms.

Tears welling in his eyes, Lee allowed himself to be drawn
into the arms and lap of the beautiful woman in the chair. Huge sobs surged up from the depths of his body as he embraced the woman. She consoled him with tender words, much as she had consoled Saint Catherine Labouré in a small chapel on the Rue du Bac of Paris in 1830.

"Am I not here, Lee? Do I not see each falling tear, my son?"

Lee continued to cry, but calmly–a little boy in the arms of his
mother. With each tear he felt more and more the healing of his soul as his mother held his body in her embrace. This suffering son of man would not be lost today.

+  +  +

Maria Bonilla finished her Rosary and felt pain in her arthritic knees as she rose. It was time to prepare
chorizo
for Miguel before he woke up. She felt no differently than she had after the thousands of other Rosaries she
had prayed for her lost son. The strange sleepiness was now gone from her system. She would learn of her role in Lee Washington's life after her death.

+  +  +

Sister Leonardo Mary MacEvoy winced when she was shown the fierce but brief battle between Saint Michael and the arch-demons torturing Lee Washington. Then she saw the visit of Raphael to the decrepit motel room. She did not see Lee's intimate
visit with the Mother of God.

"Why am I being shown this man, My Lord?" she asked the ever present Trinity in which she bathed.

"You will help to bring this man to Nathan Payne, who is also a bruised reed," she was told in reply.

+  +  +

Providence is not without certain patterns. The first historical account of an event similar to what happened to Lee Washington occurred in Palestine to a Roman
citizen named Saul. Who we now know as Saint Paul, the Great Lion of God. Others have been knocked from their horses.

In the late nineteenth century, a Jewish atheist named Alphonse de Ratisbonne visited Rome. Ratisbonne was proud of his atheism and took great pleasure in baiting Catholics and exposing their superstitions. To prove to a friend how superstitious Catholics were, he wore the Miraculous
Medal (which had been given to Saint Catherine Labouré by Mary in 1830). Ratisbonne prayed the "Memorare" prayer of Saint Bernard de Clairvaux for nine days. On the ninth day, upon entering the Church of Sant' Andrea della Fratte, Ratisbonne saw a vision of Mary and was instantly converted. Amazingly, he was infused with knowledge of all the doctrines of the Catholic faith.

Eventually, he was
ordained a priest. He spent the rest of his life preaching to the Jews and anyone else who would listen to his eloquent explanations of the beauty and wonder of the Roman Catholic Faith.

In the late twentieth century in Kibeho, a town in the country of Rwanda, Africa, a pagan peasant boy named Sagstasha (who was completely without formal secular education, much less Christian religious education)
was visited by a woman who called herself the Mother of God. Sagstasha was also visited by her Son. The pagan boy was taught by Jesus the doctrines and teachings of Catholicism. Sagstasha, who later took the Christian name Emmanuel, astounded skeptical theologians with his infused knowledge. In 1988 the local bishop approved the apparitions to Emmanuel and six others in Kibeho.

So when Lee Washington
was infused with the Catholic faith by the grace of the Author of Faith, the event was not without precedent. Like Ratisbonne, Lee received his gift instantaneously. Before he was finished crying in the embrace of the mother of the Author of Faith, he was transformed into a new man. But he would always have the experiences, memories, emotions, and temperament of the Lee Washington who had
been led to the motel room less than twelve hours earlier.

+  +  +

Lee stood before the beautiful woman. She had spoken to him about many things during her visit. After a time which Lee could not measure, the woman gave him mysterious final instructions:

"My son, I will not visit you again like this before you draw your last breath, but I will be with you in the Spirit of God.

"You must go immediately
to Salt Lake City to meet a man who will recognize you. You must try to teach this man the Truth you have been taught. This man's conversion is not inevitable in my Son's plan. If you succeed, many souls will be saved.

"Many trials await both you and this man, but you will be led to others who will help you play a role in the destruction of the evil one who failed to destroy you on this very day.

"Later, toward the end of your tribulations, you will meet a man who will give you a new name. Speak to him these words: 'The angel whom God used to rescue you was named
God Conquers.'

"You are one of many who has been marked on the forehead with the Sign of the Cross as part of my Son's cohort. You are one of the anointed who will fight the legions of the enemy.
He
brands
his
slaves on the hand.

"You will not be able to see with your own eyes the sign of the cross marked by my angels upon the foreheads of my Son's cohort. But you will, on occasion, have an interior knowledge of this Sign of Redemption on others.

"I must go, my son. Remember, I am with you in the folding of my arms."

The beautiful woman, whom Lee now knew was the very Mother of Jesus, smiled at him. She began to float like
a vision and ceased to be "real." Mary left quickly. Lee would have been hard pressed to describe the phenomenon.