Strange Rites (an unfound letter)

May the grace and charity of Christ our Lord be ever with us. Amen.

My dear Father in Christi visceribus:

No doubt you have already received the letter I sent you in January of the year of our lord 1548, concerning the Japanese and their culture, and while I see a large pool of letters from both you and the rest of the society, back in Europe, I feel the need to compose this letter before the event in question grows further from the present.

I first set foot on Japanese soil on August 27th, 1549. With the help of my translators and two other members of our order?Father Cosme de Torr?s and Brother Juan Fernandex, both of whom have promised their silence in the specific subject of this letter?I set forth to bring the Gospels to the people of the land that Marco Polo referred to as Cipangu.

I preached from a translated sermon for more than a year, attracting the interest of several Daimyō, the lords of this land. I preached in the various provinces of the southern island, Kagoshima. And though it is might very well be hubris to believe as such, I like to think that I served our lord well.

Before the celebration of our lord?s birth, I set out for the capital of this land, Miyako, to speak with the King of Japan. The King refused to meet with me, and I arrived back in Satsuma the following March.

The event of which I speak occurred in Febuary of that year, shortly after I had been turned away by the King?s bureaucrats. Brother Juan, my translator Anjiro, and I, had been on the road for months now, forced to walk because of our economic situation.

In Japan, there are groups of militant individuals, peasants in armed revolt against the Samurai. They are lead by a group of bonzes who call their movement the Ikko-Ikki, which is a rebellious sect of their philosophy-religion. They follow a ?Philosopher-God? named Amitahba, who is a being of pure compassion. In this aspect, they are not terribly different from our own Gospel, and for a time, I believed these ?Philosopher-Gods? might have been prophets sent by God the Father to prepare the way for the Gospels in the East.

This conception ended the day I saw what these Ikko-Ikki had done to a small Japanese shrine. It was in the south of the Japanese mainland, near the area where we must cross the waters to Satsuma, and it was near a small village, which had been spared from the depredations of the marauders. The shrine had been burned, and the priest had been killed with the farm tools that the Ikko-Ikki use for weaponry. He was not yet a day dead, but the killers were nowhere to be found.

Out of respect for the clergy, even of one of such a dramatically different faith, we gave him a burial, my translator making a marker for him, and the Brother and I saying prayers over him.

There are upright men, even amongst cultures that have not received the Gospel yet. How was I to know this man was not one such individual? We buried him, and prayed for his soul. It was not a catholic funeral, you understand, but it was a funeral.

We arrived in the village, and my translator found us a place to sleep, on my insistence. There was no way to tell whether the marauders were still about, and I, personally, wished to give them as much time as possible to leave the area.

Sleeping on the floor of what I assume to be a public house, I expected to be roused in the morning when the sun rose above the horizon, but instead, I was disturbed not an hour after I had fallen asleep. There was a banging on the door, and a faint light outside. Brother Jose, who had also been awakened by the clamor, stood, and went to investigate.

On the other side of the door was a Japanese woman, who began to speak rapidly and in great distress. I began to get off of my palette on the floor, and shook our translator, waking him up. When he understood the situation, he quickly moved to calm the woman and get her to speak so that he could translate.

Anjiro is a good man; I do not know what I would do without his help. I most certainly would have much greater difficulty navigating the complexities of this most distant and alien land. But I digress from my narrative.

Anjiro turned to me and brother Juan, and told us that the woman?s child had taken sick, and needed a priest. When we had him relate to her that we weren?t healers of the body, he quickly responded that the child needed no physical healing.

We quickly followed her to the low, straw-thatched hut, and entered?there was a low fire casting an orange glow about the one room, it was quite dark, the fire providing no more illumination than a full moon.

The child was an emaciated creature that couldn?t be more than eight summers in age. His face?I assume it was a son, though his appearance was genderless?was drawn and pale. His eyes were like twin fireflies caught in tar. Dim lights surrounded by a liquid black.

The boy?s father knelt over him, attempting to swaddle him in blankets, like a newborn, for the boy seemed to lash out deliriously at any who came near. He groaned and mumbled in Japanese, but his voice was not the voice of the child before us, but that of an adult man of vast proportions.

?How long has he been like this?? we told Anjiro to ask. He turned to the woman, and spoke to her, and she responded. He turned to us, and informed us that it had been no more than a day, roughly since the Ikko-Ikki party had passed through the area.

I walked over to the boy, and knelt by him, looking him in the eye. It seemed that his struggled abated somewhat when I neared, and he looked at me with his firefly-in-tar eyes.

?Iesu-janai, Kirishaitan-Shisai.?

I leapt back, as the child got a hand free, and swiped at me.

Brother Juan and I spoke for a moment, and discussed the meaning of this event. The demon-child?or rather, what I know believe to be a possessed child?was obviously aware of what we were, ?Kirishaitan? being the Japanese pronunciation of ?Christian? and ?Iesu? being their attempt to pronounce ?Jesus?.

We convened, and after much agonizing on the subject, we decided to attempt an exorcism. He had been ordained into the minor orders, and as a priest, so had I. He insisted that I perform the actual rite, while he simply supports me. We couldn?t perform a proper exorcism, but we were determined to try.

My Father in Christ, and dearest friend, can you forgive me for this hubris? We had to try, but we couldn?t do it properly. It had been years since either of us had studied the rites, and I only remembered Benedict?s formula for exorcism, as well as a few snippets of prayer to be used. I vowed afterward to send for my books when I return to Yamaguchi, so that I can memorize the rituals, and keep it with me at all times. I do not wish to repeat this failure?and I sorely wished to return there, so that I could confess this sin to Father de Torr?s.

We drew a bucket of water from the river, and I blessed it, and we gathered oil lamps from the other houses in the village. We lit them and set them around the child. Anjiro carried the bucket into the house, while brother Juan helped the father restrain the child. They bound his wrists and feet with rope, tightly, but not so tight as to injure the child.

I gathered our luggage, and brought the materials to the house. I produced the translated catechism that Anjiro had translated, and gave it to him when he came in. I gave brother Juan our Latin bible, and gave them both readings for when I began the ceremony.

I washed my face and hands in the holy water, and bid my companions to do the same. Anjiro was no exorcist, but this was a Japanese demon; Him being able to understand the language made him useful.

I knelt before the Child and held up my cross. The demon did not shrink back, and I began to chant Benedict?s formula, as my companions read the twenty-third psalm, one in Japanese and one in Latin.

I recited the formula perfectly, just as I recalled it:
?Crux sancta sit mihi lux
Non draco sit mihi dux
Vade retro satana
Nunquam suade mihi vana
Sunt mala quae libas
Ipse venena bibas.?

I recited it multiple times, holding my cross before me and anointing the child with the blessed water.

?Kirishaitan no kami-sama o janai. Kirishitan no akuma o janai. Da
Shikigami?janai tenshi no akuma.?

I asked Anjiro what the child was saying, and he told me?

?He claims to be separate from both God and the Devil. He says he is a?a shikigami.?

I learned later what a shikigami was from Anjiro. They are spirits called up by Japanese warlocks?Onmyoji?to serve as familiars. This servitude can be seen as a sort of purgatory for spirits, as they desire release from this state every second of their servitude. Only the most powerful ones could possibly possess a human being.

I was so wrapped up in my desire to set this child free, that I pursued the exorcism with redoubled force. I did not know that this was no fallen angel; it is a being that is created by the Onmyoji.

Repeating the formula, I began tracing crosses on the skin of the child with blessed water, and ordering the spirit out of the body. He kicked and struggled, but I grabbed the child by the head, and began ordering the spirit out of the child?s body.

He began to weep, tracing black lines down his ashen face, screaming terribly producing a sound that can only be called an unholy cacophony.
His thrashing limbs hit one of the lamps, spraying the wall with flaming oil. I kept hold of the child, and continued to order the spirit in Latin, once again. Its eyes shone with a dark light, and I could hear my blood thundering in my ears.

The fire spread, licking upward at the thatch roof. Adamantly holding on to the child, I continued my attempted exorcism. Brother Juan and Anjiro both began to pull me from the flames, and the child slipped away.
It was reported to me that the flames dancing upon the roof formed symbols in the Japanese language, though no one in the village was literate, and could not report what they said to us. The shape was not the only peculiarity, as the flames also appeared to turn black.

We begged the family?s forgiveness and left the small village shortly afterward, the flames having consumed Brother Juan?s bible and most of our luggage. The woman and her husband accepted the news stoically, but were still devastated. I do not know if they survived the hardships that the loss of a home meant for them, though I sorely wish them good fortune, having been unable to save their only child.

Ignatius, speaking frankly, I humbly request that you do not allow my inexperience to repeat itself. If the Society is to survive, then we must be dedicated to every good?whether that good is in fostering peace and prosperity, or in eradicating the fallen angels and demons of this world. I have failed that poor child, I have promised myself not to fail another.
I will not make a secret of this, but I wish not to advertise my failure. Please, my Brother in Christ and dearest friend, hide this letter, keep it secret. The only other person in the west who I wish to learn of this is his Holiness, Papa Paulus Tertius, whom I have sent letters to, concerning this.
My friend, I am going to continue my ministry. Nothing could dissuade me from that. I must admit, however, that I am certainly disheartened.

From Yamaguchi, April 16, 1551.
Your most foolish and sorrowful brother in Christ,

FRANCISCO

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This is a short story I wrote for a contest--it's under 3000 words, and it's an idea I've been turning over for a while. I'm not personally terribly religious, but I have great respect for the Jesuits (hence, I go to a Jesuit school, see?)

This is meant to be a sorto f manufactured myth, explaining how Jesuits became associated with exorcisms, as well as a more metaphorical story. What do you think?

Duuude. VERY nice.

I only browsed it very quickly, but it seems two things at first glance.
1: Very well written. Powerful and technically skilled.
2: The theology seems to be fairly stable, and the historical bits seem to be accurate as well, though I'd research 15th century exorcisms to be sure. Not saying it's theologically correct, but it's theologically plausible, which is the best possible thing for a work of fiction.

I really couldn't find any resources on the exorcisms--I know Saint Benedict's "formula" dates from the 14th century, so I figured that it would be acceptable to use that. I don't know if Xavier performed any exorcisms during his career (the book of his letters that one of the Jesuit Brothers leant me didn't contain any accounts of it.)

Thanks for reading through it, folks.

its very well written, good story