On Damnation: The Power of Purpose
From LanceaSanctum
Given by Father Cassius Callaghan on November 11th, 2007 in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Welcome, all of you assembled Damned. For my first sermon to this congregation, I would like to illustrate a key element of our state of being, damnation.
To expound upon damnation, we must first discuss the existence of sin and its formative effect upon our faith, our purpose, and indeed our own existence.
What is sin? Sin is that which is intolerable to God. Sin blights the soul, and eats away at the virtues we strive to maintain, eroding the blessings about us. Sin is the disastrous result of the very first gift of God, that of choice. To man and woman were laid the whole of paradise on earth, if they would but listen to God's decree to keep away from the fruit of knowledge. In the nature of mankind, at its very heart, there is an urge towards independence and a spark of curiosity. Those urges are seeds which flower into actions. The actions of Adam and Eve flowered into the sin of disobedience before God. That flowering tree of sin scattered its seeds in all of Adam and Eve's descendants. This concept is called original sin by theologians, and is an essential part of our faith.
We know that the Centurion was not the first of our kind. We know that he encountered the Camarilla, the first collective governing body of our society, in his nascent realization of his damnation. It is debatable if any of us can know for how long the clans have existed, but it is known that our kind is unable to sire amongst the pure of heart. Those mortals who have truly realized union with the Holy Spirit can never be turned, tempted, or twisted to our designs. If this was all we had, we would know that we are damned. Yet, there is more. For while God moves in mysterious ways, and subtle design is inherent in all of creation, mankind and the Damned alike are dense and feeble creatures when it comes to perceiving the will of God.
For centuries, perhaps millenia, before the Centurion was damned and given the message of purpose, the world was hunted by Damned creatures who strayed from the God's intent. In the manner of men who had strayed from the path of righteousness, the Damned were given a guide. What sort of being would the Almighty choose to guide the Damned? The most sinful, wretched example of humanity was Longinus. The accounts within the testament state that of the seven deadliest of sins, he was a master practitioner of all of them. The Centurion maimed his cousin in a petty dispute displaying his wrath. He murdered a friend who had been promoted in the legion above him out of jealousy, a crime for which he was arrested. He boasted continuously of his prowess and gains, displaying both pride and vanity, going so far as to display the spearhead given him by Pontius Pilate upon a shaft of wood hewn for the purpose. That weapon being known now as the Spear of Destiny. He greedily craved after ill gotten gains, and indulged in every form of excess. He raped his own mother to sate his lusts, and was taking a serving girl even as the messiah marched to Gethsemane bearing the cross. Lastly, when ordered to ensure the deaths of the crucified prisoners, he ordered lackeys to act in his stead because of his sloth.
We are all damned from the moment of our mortal conception. We led lives that either were bereft of salvation, or paid only lip service to it. The one who came to show us the way into the Lord's Divine Plan was the most thoroughly damned creature that you could imagine, and that shows us all that we are destined to play an integral part in that plan, no matter the immensity of the stain of sin upon us all.
Consider for a moment the black miracle that you are. Each of us, while we can be slain, is an enduring monster. We are ageless, and unchanging save for great acts of will. We mimic life, but are more a monument to the human form than kin to it. Our damned flesh can, by practical applications and acts of will, exert incredible force, move at hellish speeds, and withstand assaults that would cave in oaken doors. This is practical experience at the wonders of our God. Now, look about you at this crude world in which we hunt. I marvel at the wonders about me on a nightly basis, but also marvel at the obvious power of God and its discrepancy with nightly existence. The reason for this is an inherent truth of Lancea Sanctum faith: the world is a cage for the living.
The gauntlet through which the living pass before achieving the grace require to enter the gates of heaven is made all the more trying because of us. Our purpose on earth is to test the faith of the living. We are jailers to a prison for the unworthy, and it is our divinely mandated right to use our powers to test the Canaille by any means that we can. Though we be damned, it is our duty to tend to God's creation. We trim the flowers of sin that grow now from the first scattered seeds, and in this we must be constant, vigilant gardeners.
To some, the reason to act as God's holy monster is a vague prophecy mentioned in the Book of Eschaton that speaks of forgiveness yet being possible for the Damned who act in fulfillment of the divine plan during Judgement Day. To this I say put not your hope in forgiveness for our kind. Take solace and heart in the part we are yet to play in the divine plan. Service is its own reward.
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