#AdventReading Day-12: The Christmas Mystery - Quirinius

 

Credit: Flora Waycott

Here we are at last... the 12th day, halfway to Christmas! I have to confess that I was not quite sure at first that I'd be able to do daily blogging for 24 days. But here I am now! And if I can make it this far, then it would not be that hard to finish until the 24th, right? *fingers cross*

Joachim and his parents have been wondering whether John the flower seller did indeed wrote all the hidden stories. Then Mama remembers something; a long time ago there's a little girl was missing from their town when she's Christmas shopping with her mother, and has never been found since. Is the girl called Elisabet? Papa investigates, and yes! A Elisabet Hansen was missing in 1948.

Meanwhile, do you remember how the bookseller told Joachim and Papa that John the flower seller has put a photograph of a woman called Elisabet in the store window? Papa gets the photo from the bookseller, so now they are looking at a photo of a young woman with long fair hair, with a large dome in the background at the top of the photo. The dome is of St. Peter's in Rome.

But first thing first: the picture inside door no. 12 is a man in red tunic holding a sign. The story today titled: Quirinius. The pilgrims has arrived in Switzerland. They pass Lake Geneva, the Rhone river, St. Maurice monastery, before finally arrive at a mountain pass. At the top of which stands St. Bernard hospice (I'd hoped they at least look at the St. Bernard dogs, but that's not happening today). After Impuriel re-tells the story of the Good Samaritan (linking it with the rescue service run by Benedictine monks at the hospice) and criticizing priests who don't help others, they see a man in red tunic holding a sign: "To Betlehem". He introduces himself as Quirinius, Governor of Syria.

Quirinius gives Elisabet the sign and tells her to turn it right round, and lo and behold... it is an Advent calendar with twenty four doors! Above each door is painted a young woman with long fair hair, standing in front of a church with a large dome on the top!! Quirinius tells her to open the first twelve doors, inside which she finds pictures of each member of their group.

It is in the year of 1045 when we leave them all; Christmas is approaching!

Previous posts:
- Day-1
- Day-2
- Day-3
- Day 4
- Day-5
- Day-6
- Day-7
- Day-8
- Day-9
- Day-10
- Day-11