HATCHING THE PLAN

Thursday, 23rd OCTOBER 1192

The next day in the morning. Brother Philemon went to Abbot Jeromy's office like he had been told yesterday in the confessional box. As he walked to the office, he winced in pain from the robe rubbing into the wounds on his back.

As his penance, he administered on himself forty lashes early in the morning before the morning Mass started. To display his remorse and desire to be forgiven, he flogged himself in the most painful way possible. Through pain, he was overcoming the sins of the flesh and aiming to get forgiveness for the sins he had committed.

He found out that the Abbot was already in the office, he saw from the half-open door. He knocked once on the door before he heard Abbot's voice telling him to enter. 

"Good morning Abbot," he greeted him as he took a seat in a chair next to the large desk behind which the Abbot sat. He sat at the edge of the seat.