CHAPTER 35 - CHINA
The co-founders’ spiritual son was literally ecstatic. "I have spent my life reading your letters and trying to practice the Gospel in accord with the way the two of you did. I know you are both canonized saints and I am far from that. The truth be told, I don't hold a great deal of importance with the process of canonization. I think saints are those who live decent lives. The canonization process is simply a way of pointing out role models for the rest of us who need it."
St. Francis de Sales smiled peacefully. "I so agree, my brother. As you know, I was the first one to undergo the process of canonization. I was investigated and our dear mother Jane de Chantal even had to testify about my life before an ecclesiastical court. There were some miracles wrought by God, not me, and then I was proclaimed a saint. Prior to that process it was the people who determined who saints are. If someone lived a good life the people would pray to that person, miracles would happen, and that person became a saint automatically, so I understand your point."
"I'm not completely certain what's happening at the moment. Perhaps I’m in some altered state of consciousness. The clinical psychologist in me can't help but give it some sort of scientific name. The monk in me, however, wonders if I'm having a spiritual experience--or even if I am dead."
This time St. Jane de Chantal smiled peacefully. "I suppose we could say that you are somewhere between physical life and New Life. What would you like to do Brother Francis? Would you prefer to stay here with us and the others and actually encounter God in a new way, or do you choose to return to your life as a human being?"
"It is wonderful to be here, my spiritual mother, and the lower part of my soul says that I want to stay here and enjoy this peace and beauty and blessed rest. The higher part of my soul, however, truly wants to do what is most in harmony with God's will for me."
Then both saints smiled peacefully.
Theresa and her cousin Mei Li rotated shifts night and day for several days, keeping vigil over the monk who hovered somewhere between life and death. They felt half asleep even though it was the middle of the day. Brother Francis looked like a corpse, yet the doctor felt a quality of qi, or vitality, within the monk that suggested otherwise. On a human level it looked as if his patient would soon be dead, but on a spiritual level he had a sense that this was not the human end of this very unusual man.
He took the twelve pulses of the monk again. Six of the pulses were felt on one wrist, and six of them on the other. The fire element was weakening and this was a good sign, as was the fact that the water element was increasing. The doctor prayed to the Medicine Buddha for his Christian patient while the patient’s friend who was keeping vigil prayed to Jesus. The monk’s eyes began to flutter and, in a rasping voice, he asked for some water.
They excitedly sat him up a little and gave him little sips of water. Brother Francis had a strange mixture of relief and disappointment on his face. Then he asked, "What about the parchments?”