Disclaimer:
I don't own the characters from Forever Knight.

This story deals with theology and came about because
of a sermon I heard in church on Sunday.

WARNING: this story has some religious humor to it. It
is not meant to be offensive to anyone, however, it
could possibly be so if you are a staunch Catholic.

The content of the story deals with some of the
differences between Catholocism and Protestantism. It
is meant ONLY as the musings of a certain ME, and not
as a criticism or debate about the rightness or
wrongness of any one religious viewpoint.

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Power of Redemption 1/1

Natalie pondered the words she had heard that morning.
She had gone with Grace to her church for Easter
Sunday, not quite sure what had prompted her. She
wasn’t really a highly religious person, but for some
reason she had felt the need to go this year. Having
been raised in a fairly agnostic family, she had gone
to a few churches throughout her life growing up, but
had never been to a Presbyterian service. It was quite
different from the Catholic and Anglican services she
was used to.

Not surprisingly, the topic of the sermon was
spiritual redemption. She had known, in a vaguely
general way, the whole point of Easter and Jesus’
crucifixion. That he had died to “save mankind”. But
she hadn’t ever fully thought about some of the
implications. The sermon that the minister had given
had really been thoughtful, and she had asked them if
she could get a copy of it. There was a certain
medieval Catholic vampire she thought might benefit
from the words.

Which brought her back to thinking about Nick’s
endless cycle of guilt and his own efforts at
redemption. The Protestant churches seemed to have a
much different view on sin and redemption than the
Catholics. It seemed much more personal, and there was
no Confession to a priest.  The theology seemed to
indicate that a person’s relationship with God was
much more direct, and that the church was a community
and something like a support network, but not as
focused on the guilt aspect of spirituality as the
Catholic church. Granted, she was no expert on
religion, this was just her own personal
interpretation.

She wondered if Nick had ever met Martin Luther or
John Calvin. She remembered a little bit of her
college history classes and knew they were the two
main Protestant reformation figures in religious
upheaval in Europe. She decided to go to the library
to read a bit more on the history and the differences
in the theology between the two main forms of
Christianity.

Nick had told her that Joan of Arc had told him that
he needed “faith”. As a scientist, Natalie knew that
vampirism was a physical condition, but she could not
understand the whole aversion to crosses and holy
water. She had never asked about, say, the Star of
David and whether vampires had any reactions to it.
She suspected that Nick, having been Catholic, was
much more affected by the symbols of his own religion.
But that didn’t explain LaCroix, who she knew also had
physical reactions to the cross. But, if she
understood correctly, he had never been a Christian.
It had been a religion in its infancy when he became a
vampire. She had a hard time believing that an entire
species (and she had begun to consider vampires to be
a different species from human, a mutation of some
sort perhaps) had a psychosomatic reaction to the same
religious articles, and she KNEW that not all vampires
had been Christian in their mortal lives.

So what WAS it about these religious articles that
created the reactions? Was there, truly, some sort of
a spiritual or metaphysical component to vampirism?
She had a hard enough time understanding the psychic
“link” that Nick claimed from his sire.

If Nick could truly come to BELIEVE that he had
achieved redemption, could that possibly be the final
hurdle to him becoming mortal again? She shook her
head. Getting Nick to let go of his guilt would be a
monumental feat, and she knew it was going to take
help from a quarter SHE wasn’t qualified in. The one
thing that she knew about the Catholic Church that she
didn’t see in the makeup of the Protestant churches
was the Seal of the Confessional, and the guarantee of
secrecy it implied; she remembered the case the
previous year that had involved the murder of several
Catholic women and the arguments Nick had had with the
young priest. She had a suspicion that Nick would
never truly believe in the Protestant form of
self-confession. His own roots were too deeply
ingrained in him. She wondered if he had tried going
to Confession at all in the last 200 years? She
couldn’t help herself but grinning as she imagined
Nick trying to get a priest to BELIEVE in him.

“Forgive me Father, for I have sinned”.

“How long has it been since your last Confession my
son?”

“Father, it has been 765 years since my last
confession.”

She wondered how my thousands of Hail Mary’s Nick
would have to start with. She shook her head. She
could NEVER let Nick know of her amusement; she didn’t
think he would take it too well. Maybe she really did
need to work with Nick on getting his perspective to
change. She knew he truly repented of all the killing
he had done over the centuries, but she suspected he
would need the external forgiveness from a priest to
begin to BELIEVE that he had forged ahead. And, what
an interesting implication it had for the whole
concept of prison rehabilitation for serial killers.

She walked over to her desk and pulled out her journal
on Nick’s progress. She started a new section, calling
it “Spiritual Aspect”. She took the book over to the
kitchen table and jotted down her ideas and
observations. She looked at her watch, and saw that it
was after 5. Nick should be getting up, she decided to
call him and tell him she had some new ideas to try.
It certainly couldn’t hurt. Her mind began examining
some of the possibilities and routes to take, and soon
she was once more absorbed in the puzzle of the
vampire.
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