How vampires show us God’s mercy: Nun who writes vampire novels concludes trilogy
Sister Allison Gliot, a Daughters of St. Paul nun, finished her "In Aeternum" vampire trilogy with the third book "The Dawn We Seek" released July 24. She describes her writing as a spiritual journey guided by Jesus, noting that readers’ responses have deepened her sense of purpose. The trilogy uses vampires as a metaphor for sin and humanity’s fall, illustrating the possibility of repentance and God's extreme mercy. Gliot stresses that the stories aim to evangelize and help readers reflect on their own spiritual struggles and the path to redemption.
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The “In Aeternum” trilogy, written by Sister Allison Regina Gliot, a Daughter of St. Paul, concludes with the third volume, The Dawn We Seek, released July 24, 2026. Through a Catholic‑young‑adult vampire narrative, Gliot uses the genre to illustrate God’s boundless mercy, the possibility of redemption even for the most fallen, and the Church’s call to employ imagination as a means of evangelization 1 2
Sister Gliot’s three‑book “In Aeternum” series follows Elizabeth, a Catholic teen, and Christopher, a vampire outcast, as they navigate a conflict among vampires. The story began with the first novel and culminates in The Dawn We Seek, completing the arc of the protagonists and the thematic exploration of sin and salvation 1
Gliot describes her writing as a solitary partnership with Jesus that later expanded to include her religious community and editors. She says readers’ responses have deepened her prayer life, prompting her to “carry the readers in my heart and prayers” 1
In the trilogy, vampires serve as “a mirror of our wounded humanity at its worst,” illustrating how far one can fall when choosing sin. Their extreme evil, however, highlights the “extremity of God’s mercy” and the hope that even those who have strayed far can be redeemed through even a “tiny step” toward God 2
Gliot affirms that the Catholic Church teaches imagination as a God‑given gift meant for building the Kingdom. She argues that Catholicism does not limit creativity but rather connects believers to “God’s imagination,” allowing storytelling to become a conduit for divine grace and the sacraments 1 2
Gliot notes a growing interest among Catholic writers in “popular genres” like urban fantasy, yet acknowledges the field’s challenges. She asks readers to pray for Catholic authors seeking to bring faith into such narratives, hoping the Holy Spirit will bear fruit from their efforts 2
The final book is published by Pauline Books & Media, and Gliot also works as an acquisitions editor for the same imprint. The series is positioned as part of the Daughters of St. Paul’s mission to evangelize through media, inviting young readers to encounter the Gospel within imaginative fiction 1*
Examine the use of vampiric metaphor to convey Catholic teachings on sin and mercy
A “vampiric” metaphor—using imagery of blood-sucking, parasitism, and predatory bondage—can at times function as a vivid way to describe Catholic themes such as sin’s enslaving power and the devil’s hostility to God and the human person. However, in Catholic preaching and catechesis, imagery must remain faithful to the Church’s theology of sin as an evil to be healed, grace as stronger than sin, and Christ’s Blood as medicinal and salvific rather than merely “violent”.
Catholic theology does not treat imagery as optional decoration. It recognizes that metaphors shape religious imagination—not only conveying ideas, but also forming how people experience moral and spiritual realities.
Pope Francis explicitly recommends learning how to use images in preaching so they become “familiar, close to home, practical and related to everyday life,” helping people “savour the message” and move the will toward the Gospel.
At the same time, Catholic tradition distinguishes between metaphor/analogy and literal identity. The point is not to smuggle in false doctrine through a picture, but to let the image serve truth. Catholic sources on divine naming stress that metaphorical language can be “more richly revelatory,” yet it must not collapse into treating the image as literal description.
Implication for “vampiric” imagery: the metaphor may illuminate what sin does (captivity, predation, parasitism), but it cannot be allowed to obscure what Christ actually does (pardon, healing, reconciliation, and mercy).
Even without “vampire” language, Catholic sources already employ potent images—often strikingly physical—to express sin, bondage, forgiveness, and healing.
A major stream of biblical and patristic metaphor speaks of sin as debt owed to God and neighbor, not just as a “weight” crushing the sinner. This debtor framework highlights reciprocity in justice and the need for atonement.
Ambrose of Milan uses the language of creditor and debtor: before Christ, humans were “bound by a heavy debt,” and Jesus “changed my creditor” by offering His death and pouring out His Blood. He explicitly links sin with devilish “wealth” and describes inherited liability transmitted through sin.
Pope Francis, reflecting on Luke’s account of the sinful woman, highlights that a specifically Christian approach is to distinguish sin from the sinner. Mercy is not contamination; it is healing closeness: God’s Word teaches that sinners are “like the sick,” and “in order to heal them the doctor needs to get close, examine them, touch them.”
This matters for any “predatory” metaphor: the Church’s goal is therapeutic, not merely accusatory.
Pope Francis’s 2016 retreat meditation presents Christ’s wounds as the definitive “icon” of mercy. The “real vessel of mercy” is mercy received that recreates a “new heart,” and the wounds leave traces as “scars” that are reminders rather than negations. “Enter into the wounds of the Lord and there you will find mercy,” and mercy is “in those scars.”
Ephraim the Syrian portrays Christ’s Body and Blood as “medicines” and describes the sinner as going to “drown all her wickedness” in the “Sea of Grace.”
In Misericordia et misera, Francis teaches that in the Sacrament of Penance the Father embraces the penitent and that “grace always precedes us,” takes on the face of mercy, and “grace is stronger than sin: it overcomes every possible form of resistance, because love conquers all.”
And in another audience, he stresses God’s superiority to sin: “God is greater than our sin,” and the prayer of Psalm 51 asks God to “blot out” and “wash” and “cleanse.”
Used carefully, vampiric imagery can communicate several Catholic insights that are already present in the Church’s metaphorical vocabulary:
Ambrose describes sin as enabling “perpetual captivity” through a heavy debt and portrays devilish “riches” as crimes—an image of the devil as exploiter of human beings.
A vampiric image can make this “predatory” dimension emotionally legible: sin does not merely break rules; it feeds on the human person, draws out life, and makes the soul captive.
Catholic mercy is not a self-improvement narrative. The Church presents grace as overcoming resistance and restoring the sinner.
If the vampiric metaphor is used to say, “This is captivity; grace breaks it,” it can function as a wake-up call aligned with the sacramental logic that grace precedes and conquers.
Because vampirism centers on blood, the metaphor can tempt a hearer to think blood means violence. But a Catholic preacher can redirect: the true “blood” logic is not predation—it is Christ’s Blood poured out for redemption, described in terms of medicine and mercy.
Best practice: if blood imagery is used, it should be explicitly subordinated to Christ’s salvific “medicine” imagery, so it points away from exploitation and toward healing.
Vampiric tropes in culture often carry sensuality, glamour, or fascination with the predatory act. Catholic sources we have here emphasize mercy as healing and reconciliation—not fascination with suffering. Pope Francis’s focus is the merciful physician who touches the sick without contamination, and Christ’s wounds as the place where mercy is found.
If the metaphor’s emotional center becomes “thrill” or “attraction,” it undermines the penitential and therapeutic aims intrinsic to the tradition.
Ambrose’s creditor/debtor framing culminates in a merciful exchange: Christ offers His death, pouring out His Blood, changing the creditor.
But vampiric imagery can easily emphasize only the “predator” side. Catholic teaching insists mercy is what blots out sin at the root and makes the penitent once more a son/daughter; grace is stronger than sin.
Without the “grace that conquers” center, the metaphor risks becoming merely descriptive of evil rather than evangelically restorative.
In Catholic teaching, Christ’s Blood is medicinal—Ephraim calls it “medicines secretly… with them He heals openly”—and Christ’s wounds are the definitive “vessel” of mercy.
A vampiric metaphor might be taken to imply that mercy comes through being “drained” or harmed in a way that mirrors the predator. The tradition offered in our sources instead portrays reconciliation, healing, and pardon as the purpose and effect of Christ’s Blood and wounds.
Catholic teaching here provides a practical criterion:
This aligns with Pope Francis’s insistence on using images to move the will toward the Gospel and with the Church’s broader “via pulchritudinis” approach: images should be paths that lead to an encounter with the Lord, not dead ends that keep attention trapped on the darkness itself.
A vampiric metaphor can, in limited and carefully re-centered form, help convey that sin is captivity, exploitation, and bondage, echoing Catholic themes of the devil as adversary and sin as debt that enslaves.
But Catholic teaching requires that such imagery remain subordinate to the Church’s own controlling images: the merciful Physician who touches the sick, Christ’s wounds as the “vessel of mercy,” Christ’s Blood as healing medicine, and grace that blots out sin and restores the sinner.