Gods Without Men

1775

From the daily record prepared by Padre Fray Francisco Garcés, son of the Colegio de la Santa Cruz, Queretáro, of the journey that he made in this year 1775 by order of His Excellency Don Antonio María Bucareli y Ursúa, Lieutenant-General, Viceroy, Governor and Captain-General of this New Spain, as made known in his letter of January 2nd of the said year and decided upon by the council of war held at México on November 28th of the year preceding; and by order likewise of the Padre Fray Romualdo Cartagena, Guardian of the said Colegio, in his letter of January 20th 1775, in which Fray Garcés was directed to look over the lands west of the river Colorado and treat with the neighboring nations, to determine if they were disposed and ready for receiving the catechism and becoming subjects of our Sovereign. The following passage was suppressed before the declaration of Imprimatur, confirmed by order of His Most Illustrious and Reverend Eminence, Carlo, Cardinal Rezzonico, Secretary of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition.

154th day: In the last week I have traveled fourteen leagues on courses west and northwest, and today arrived at a ranchería of the Chemegueba nation, situated near a spring shaded by many palm trees. The men of the ranchería came forth and issued threats, and I believe I was spared martyrdom only by showing forth the image of the damned man, whereupon my tormentors were so afraid that they begged me to turn the painting round and show them once again the gentle face of Mary Most Holy. Accordingly I named the site of my reprieve, Aguaje de Kairos.

159th day: In the last four days I have traveled ten leagues on a westward course. My interpreters left this morning, saying that they had come to the limits of their country and here the country of their enemies begins. They begged me not to proceed farther, warning that ahead was only desolation. I was glad to see them go as I believe they are in league with the Adversary. I watched them go and indeed they were as fleet as deer.

164th day: Of food and water I have very little. Even mice and small lizards are scarce here and it is my greatest desire to find a well. I have seen no sweet water since Aguaje de Kairos. I am afflicted with visions and do not know whether they are the work of God or my Enemy, whose name I dare not write.

165th day: This day I lost my compass needle in ground riddled by cracks and fissures. I searched for several hours, digging out the cracks with my hands, but was unable to find it. My Enemy laughed at me, bidding me find my way by God’s holy light.

168th day: I climbed the San Ignacio range and looked down on an immense white plain, unbroken except for a butte whose three-spired shape I considered auspicious as a representation of the Trinity. There was no sign of water or herbage but I trusted in God and set forth toward this sign of His grace. From this high place I could see that beyond the plain was another range, and no doubt beyond that another, and my heart was filled with fear, for my hunger and thirst were such that the sound of the wind was like a running brook in my ears and the round white stones in my path had the appearance of loaves of bread.

168th day: I halted at the rocks of the Trinity. My Adversary bade me climb them and fling myself from the peak, commanding God’s angels to break my fall, but I trusted in Him to give me strength to walk forward on my two feet, though I cannot sail over the earth like the heathen runners or fly through the air like my hypocritical Adversary, who cloaks himself in sunlight like the white raiment of the just. Whatever has come from God has life only when it gazes back toward Him and this I did, looking away from the Adversary’s lying light, seeking the true light of God. My trust in Him is absolute, though I am sore beset.

As I rested in the shade of the rocks, it seemed to me that the sky was rent asunder and a dart of longing went out from my heart, piercing the veil that surrounded God, whose love boiled over and spilled down upon me as an angel in the form of a man with the head of a lion. And he spoke to me, saying that I was beloved and revealing certain mysteries concerning life and death, which as soon as they had been revealed receded into forgetfulness, for that which is infinite is known only to itself and cannot be contained in the mind of man. I received all this in silence and stillness and then the creature retreated into the sky and I was once again alone in this desert place.

Here ends the redacted passage.