[00:01.61]8.The Story of the Fishing King
[00:05.20]It begins with the king as a boy, having to spend the night alone in the forest to prove his courage so he can become king.
[00:16.31]Now while he is spending the night alone he’s visited by a sacred vision.
[00:22.52]Out of the fire appears the holy grail, symbol of God’s divine grace.
[00:29.30]And a voice said to the boy,“You shall be the keeper of the grail so that it may heal the hearts of men.”
[00:36.49]But the boy was blinded by greater visions of a life filled with power and glory and beauty.
[00:43.35]And in this state of radical amazement he felt for a brief moment not like a boy, but invincible, like God,
[00:53.15]... so he reached into the fire to take the grail,
[00:56.63]... and the grail vanished,
[00:59.46]... leaving him with his hand in the fire to be terribly wounded.
[01:04.47]Now as this boy grew older, his wound grew deeper.
[01:08.72]Until one day, life for him lost its reason.
[01:13.77]... He had no faith in any man, not even himself.
[01:18.02]... He couldn’t love or feel loved.
[01:21.61]... He was sick with experience.
[01:24.11]He began to die.
[01:26.40]One day a fool wandered into the castle and found the king alone.
[01:30.97]And being a fool, he was simple minded, he didn’t see a king.
[01:36.09]He only saw a man alone and in pain.
[01:39.27]And he asked the king,“What ails you friend?”
[01:43.85]The king replied,“I’m thirsty. I need some water to cool my throat”.
[01:50.01]So the fool took a cup from beside his bed, filled it with water and handed it to the king.
[01:56.33]As the king began to drink, he realized his wound was healed.
[02:02.01]He looked in his hands and there was the holy grail, that which he sought all his life.
[02:08.69]And he turned to the fool and said with amazement,
[02:11.52]“How can you find that which my brightest and bravest could not?”
[02:16.45]And the fool replied,“I don’t know. I only knew that you were thirsty.”