Shrovetide is violated by heathens.
Nefarious splurges of sin.
Persuasion is trembling with fever
and became a mantra of occult tongues.
Mankind enclasped Doom.
He turned his back on God.
Virtue became ultra-decadence.
We are all libertines of the damned.

A Fidei Defensor arises,
flogged and whipped from head to foot.
The body cleansed by self-flagellation,
supressed the lust of flesh and blood.

Night after night grim voices shriek
in portentous horror dreams,
even though his room was locked,
but a Seraph comes unseen.
The bloodstained walls surround him,
icons made of Calvary wounds.
Dreams of riddance were shattered in sin,
ill-fated to avert doom.

Let me embrace my fate which was adrift and hung.
I will be again the apple of his eye.
Take me from among the doomed Laodiceans
whose defamation thrilled the seething skies.

The man started to cry, hands held to the sky,
and expected to be purified in flames.
But the Angel smiled and took the Book
and commanded his holy mandate.

"The Lord foresees thy mother's advent
into the ranks of Paradise.
So spare him grief and deep distress
and take her worthless life.
But shall she be refined in Thine holy light?
Her spirit will shine will thousand suns.
Condone my doubt, but who am I?
The haranguing priest of the newborn Herod king.

The Fallen Seraph lowered his radiant mask
and showed the man the countenance of the fallen Morningstar.

Night after night his skin was flogged.
Damn those recurrent dreams.
Desperately flogging for relief
while murmuring blasphemies.
The bloodstained walls surround him,
icons made of Calvary wounds.
Dreams of riddance were shattered in sin,
ill-fated to avert doom.

Let me embrace my fate which was adrift and hung.
I will be again the apple of his eye.
Take me from among the doomed Laodiceans
whose defamation thrilled the seething skies.

"Christ, enthroned in highest heavens,
hear me crying from the deep,
for the fateful ones departed,
for the souls in a Laodicean sleep.
King of Glory, hear my voice.
Grant thy Faithful rest, I pray.
I have sinned, and may not bide it,
if you mark my steps astray.
She is Thine, O take her quickly.
Thou art her hope, O raise her high.
Ever hoping, ever trusting,
unto Thee I strive and cry.
Let them through thy boundless mercy
from all evil be restored.
Hearken to the voices pleading
of Thy Church, O gracious Lord!"

The Fallen Seraph lowered his radiant mask
and showed the man the countenance of the fallen Morningstar.
The man seemed stricken by a thousand bludgeons.
Penetrating just-healed wounds as foreplay for the storm.

"So because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold,
I will spew thee out of my mouth."
[Revelations 3:16]