Rome and a boy

Imagine a young boy with a too vivid and wild imagination...imagine him in an environment he could not always adjust to...attacked by many for no fault of his own
Imagine him unable to adjust to what he thought was wrong...and so he was harassed
Imagine that he saw himself as specially chosen by providence...and suffering injustices
Imagine that he built walls around himself...identifying with another city that once was under siege
A city built in hearts...that one of her sons called the city of God... a city of martyrs...and yet in that blood to bloom crowns more imperial than worn by Caesar
Imagine that he was no plaster saint...but fought back as good as he got...seeing himself anointed...Imagine that he was as great a warrior and greater than those that persecuted him
Imagine a city built on blood...on amphitheatres where lions tore apart those who would not confess to the lies of the majority
Imagine in her colosseums the laurel of victory...imagine the Tiber flowing with stifled cries and the ground gorging with hidden tunnels and secret beliefs
Imagine that same city turned white as snow...and the shedding of blood become a new and holy empire
Imagine that city proudly proclaiming its eternity..its sanctity...its oneness and majesty...from an embattled martyr, persecuted warrior, yet never defeated, never broken...gathering its secret following till one day it rose in triumph and using the very arms of the persecutor rise in such power that the iniquitous and unjust crowd that had turned against it burnt in hell...and worse...FORGOTTEN AS THOUGH THEY HAD NEVER BEEN
Imagine that that city now reigned in holiness in majesty and above all in goodness
Imagine the censers burning in its shrines...the thick smoke of perfume...the sensuous liturgy of one celebrating every season death and rebirth..sacrifice and immortality
Whose very life and liturgy had but one thought...SALVATION....salvation not alone of itself but of all that were good gathered with it in one communion
Imagine a city that rooted in decaying soil yet from matin to vesper rung its bells
That one day The Saviour would come
That the Word will be made Flesh
And God will be made Man