━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Reverential Address The Glory of Herons High Exarch Aelfric Harhold May 11th, 308 AC ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ 'Sɛkʃn I - The Third Creed 'Sɛkʃn II - Saints of Union ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ “We speak of the Herons, the Heroes and Saints of our times and times past.” - Emperor Theomar the Holy, Excerpt from the Third Creed of Unionism - ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ | 'Sɛkʃn I | To understand the Saints of Union, one must first look over the Third Creed. Scribed by His Imperial Holiness Theomar I, through the wisdom of the Holy Spirit on high, we the faithful are taught of those who ascend to a higher place in the Everwatch than others. The Third Creed states, “And by the virtue of strength, or wit, or cunning or the simple virtues of man woman and child, so too can the simplest of souls be elevated to the highest steps to the throne of the Imperial Spirit. The Emperor alone is but one, surrounding him is a vast collection of spirits, not Imperial in a sense, but purely Unionist in many ways. We speak of the Herons, the Heroes and Saints of our times and times past. We model our lives to them as examples, as they have modeled their lives in the image of the Emperors. So that the will of the Emperor can be carried in the wind, like rain on a gust, ever multiplying into the infinite beyond. They shall have shrines, they shall have statues and the people shall evoke their names in reverence. They shall fill the bodies of Union with the will to fight, to preserve our cause, and to dream to one day become like one of them and be assured passage to the highest places in Paradise.” Let us begin with the first line, “And by the virtue of strength, or wit, or cunning or the simple virtues of man woman and child, so too can the simplest of souls be elevated to the highest steps to the throne of the Imperial Spirit.” When one is a good Unionist, nay, beyond a good Unionist. An example of virtue, of faith, of servitude to the Spirit, one can share with the Imperial Spirit and Emperors the highest steps of the Imperial Throne and be recognized by those on the mortal plane as what it truly means to be a Unionist. The second and third lines, “The Emperor alone is but one, surrounding him is a vast collection of spirits, not Imperial in a sense, but purely Unionist in many ways. We speak of the Herons, the Heroes and Saints of our times and times past.” As known by all Unionists, the Emperors are the most revered and holy men on Aloria, their bodies acting as the host for the Imperial Spirit of who they can communicate with when required as to guide the Empire and faithful in the direction deemed necessary by the Holy Spirit. While the Saints of Union do not have a direct communication with the Spirit in life, during their lifetime they acted purely by the Creeds. They adhered to the Creeds and teachings of the Spirit and act as examples to the people. While not Imperial or Royal, they are revered as those with a purity in virtue and devout faith. The remainder of the Creed, “We model our lives to them as examples, as they have modeled their lives in the image of the Emperors. So that the will of the Emperor can be carried in the wind, like rain on a gust, ever multiplying into the infinite beyond. They shall have shrines, they shall have statues and the people shall evoke their names in reverence. They shall fill the bodies of Union with the will to fight, to preserve our cause, and to dream to one day become like one of them and be assured passage to the highest places in Paradise.” As stated in the previous paragraph, we as the faithful use their stories and teachings as examples of devout and good Unionists. Ones to aspire to and look to for guidance in your daily chapters as they looked to the Imperial Holinesses of the centuries. We shall revere them and wish to one day ascend to the highest places on the steps on high as they did. The Third Creed serves as the explanation of who the Saints of Union are, those who live and die purely in the Spirit’s teachings. Who serve the Spirit with every breath and every movement. Who hold their faith close to their heart and act in virtue throughout their days under His serene and divine light. | 'Sɛkʃn II | The Saints of Union can be seen throughout a faithful’s day. From the statue at the rear of the Salvation Church, to the shrines within one’s home. They surround us, as does the Spirit, yet different in the essence of worship. While we worship the Spirit, we revere the Herons. We look to the Spirit and Herons for guidance and yet it is inherently different. While we look to the Spirit in prayer and ask for guidance and while you can indeed pray to the Saints of Union, the Saints are also looked to as examples. While the Spirit is the God of Union, King of the steps on high, a being of immense power and of divine wisdom, the Herons are very different. They are brothers and sisters such as us. Mortals, faithful, devout servants of the Spirit. Yet, they rise above us as examples for how we should be and what we should strive to be. We revere them for their faith, for their place on the steps to the Imperial Throne within the Everwatch, and for their virtue. For what they represent and for how they have served the Spirit fervently through virtuous acts and good deeds that are inspired each and every day by the Creeds of Union. As the Spirit is beyond the comprehension and beyond the restrictions and possibilities of us, the faithful, it is impossible for us to hold him as an example. However, the Herons are not. They are mortal. Share the same form as us and have flesh upon their bones and blood running through their veins. We can be like them. We cannot be like the Spirit Himself. Take Manfried the Pious for example. A man of the cloth who many sharing his holy place in society look to for guidance in their actions. In my decades of service in the Church of Union, from the Sancella, to the Unionist Divine, to my own Church, the Radiant Eye, I have looked to him for guidance many times. Many times have I strived to serve the faithful in his example and to aspire to be like him as I walk through life bearing the cloth of my forefathers. Those who walked the halls of the Calemberger Dom before me or the Reverend who served as my predecessor within my Verwaltung during the times of the Sancella. Just as I and many others have done, look to the Herons. Revere them and look to them as what you should be. What you wish to be. While it is impossible to completely reject sin as we were not created to be perfect, in every moment of your life, strive to be virtuous. Strive to outweigh your sins with your virtue. Help your fellow brother and sister of faith. Adhere the Creeds in every day of your lifetime. Take the life given to you by the Spirit and in turn live it within the Spirit’s warm light. Bask in his glory and the glory of his most loyal and devout servants. The Herons. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ May the Spirit above, Upon the radiant Imperial Throne, Protect us against all evil, Until the day where we his faithful, Bring forth Paradise to Aloria, When his light shall shine upon all, Oratario Paean.
