My Lifetime as Carla in Italy

Being part of My Lifetimes with the Christ

It was a time of great celebration.  The streets were choked with gaily dressed people in their festive best.  Vendors vied with each other to get the attention of buyers for the aromatic foods they were offering.  Hot pasties stuffed with spiced cheeses and meats; vari-coloured jellies and preserves to spread on the long crusty loaves of hot bread;  rainbow-hued creams and syllabubs, some covered with crusted sugar, others with crystallized ginger.  Large vats of ale and wine stood at the entry to each street and quick-handed youths handed out pitchers or mugs brimming with these delicious brews.

Suddenly there was a rumble and then the clip-clopping of horses’ hooves on the fresh washed cobbles.  Into the square in the centre of the town drove a wooden cart followed by four or five soldiers on horseback.  In the cart sat an old woman, her hands bound tightly behind her back.  Her long greasy hair fell upon her bony shoulders and her thin body convulsed with shuddering sights.  The cart stopped and the soldiers dismounted and one of them pulled the woman from the cart.  She fell heavily and was dragged upright. The soldier hit her on the head and she started crying piteously.  He roughly pulled her onto the bundles of wood that were piled high and slipped her arms over the stake that was sticking out of the wood.  He took a burning thong and bent to light the wood.

Then the miracle occurred.

 Into the centre of the square strode a man garbed in a white flowing robe.  He walked over to the frightened woman and quietly told her to be still. He stretched out His hands and the ropes fell away from around her.  He leaped upon the burning wood and gathered her in His arms and together they ascended upwards into a great column of Light that appeared from the heavens.

All that was left was a mighty sound that seemed to reverberate indefinitely and imprinted on the hearts of all present were the words, ‘Forgive them for they know not what they do’.