In the 1980s I had one best Girlfriend, my sister Rita. And like most BGFs we did a lot of things together. We were especially lucky, because our husbands, Joe and Ron, were buddies too. We both lived in Cincinnati and our families spent many weekends together.
One day Rita and I decide to attend a Healing Mass at St. Peter in Chains Cathedral downtown. We both have exposure to the Catholic Charismatic movement, so this type of service is not foreign to us. (Rita and Ron are part of New Jerusalem, Catholic Community in Winton Place and me and my girls attend mass at St. Francis Serpah, a Franciscan run parish, on Liberty and Vine Streets, where Sunday mass is accompanied by a couple of guitar-playing ex-hippies.) The healing service is on a Sunday afternoon and features a guest priest from Baltimore (I cannot remember his name). We are not sure what to expect but neither of us is prepared for what goes down.
Rita and Ron show up at our house around 2 pm. The Mass starts at 4. Joe and Ron will be staying here with the kids while Rita and I drive downtown. We want to get parking so we head out early. Of course we can’t find a spot in the church lot, so I drive around a few blocks and find a place that does not charge on Sunday. We walk into the crowded vestibule of this beautiful Greek Revival cathedral – nothing like the gothic basilica across the river in Covington – make our way inside to the nave, and soon realize there are no seats available where we can sit together. So we turn around and head up the side steps to sit in the balcony. We are excited as we hear the musicians start the opening hymn, Here I am Lord. We’re going to be singing the upbeat guitar and drum accompanied 1970s hymns. Definitely not the old Catholic songs we sang as kids, that sounded more like funeral dirges.
Me and Rita are in the middle row of the balcony and can’t see much as the mass progresses. For Communion we all file down the steep stairs while we sing One Bread One Body. We don’t have to go far, there are Eucharistic ministers in every nook. Back in the balcony, the mass is winding down, and then we realize there is some action up front. While we all sing the closing hymn Yahweh I Know You are Near, Father stands front and center as many congregants start filing up the aisle to feel his healing touch. Now it gets crazy, like a Pentecostal tent revival. We watch in awe as one after another people go down. Slain in the Spirit is the term used to describe the state of these horizontal supplicants. There are attendants ready to catch the slain person and lay them safely on the hard marble floor. This show goes on for a while. Note, not every person who is touched by Father falls down.
Then Father wants to be sure everyone gets a taste of this awesome power and starts walking down the aisle, turning left and right, touching and reaching out to the pressing crowd. Like Jesus did, I suppose. But now there is no one there to catch those slain. Rita gets excited and says, “Let’s go down.” So we do. Making our way back down the steps, though the pressing throng to the aisle on the right side where we have to stop, stuck in a row pressed three deep against the back wall with other star-glazed worshipers. Rita and I are laughing and acting silly. She even makes fun of a woman stretched out like a dead body with her skirt hiked around her hips. “It looks like a crime scene,” she whispers to me. I stifle my giggle. It’s obvious that both me and Rita are not in a contemplative or prayerful state. I, for one, have no agenda, nor do I even have a healing request in mind. I just want to see the show close up. So as Father gets closer and closer to us, stretching out his hands, palm out, to bless and heal us, I do not expect anything to happen.
Suddenly I am lying on the floor. I feel amazing. Like I’m high on some illegal drug. I am floating and I think I am laughing out loud. I have no desire to get up nor do I feel embarrassed. But eventually I do sit up and there is Rita, sprawled out beside me. She’s got a goofy grin on her face. I help her sit and then we stand and make our way out of the church. On our way to the car, we look at each other asking, “What just happened?” Neither of us think we were even touched by the holy hands. And we do not recall hitting the floor. Did we just sit down and then lay back of our own accord, or did our Guardian Angels catch us to keep us from cracking our skulls on the hard marble? We talk and compare notes all the way home. We have no answers or explanation. But we both agree our systems were short circuited by an energy surge of some kind.
Back at the house, we find Ron and Joe under the hood of a car. They come out to ask “Well, how was it?” I do not want to say anything. “It was good.” I reply. Joe says, “Are we ever going to eat dinner?” “Yeah. We’ll fix something,” I reply as I realize we’ve been gone for over two hours. Before we can get inside, Rita has to tell them. “We got slain in the spirit.” Ron, knows his wife, and does not pursue the obvious line of questioning. But Joe wants to know what she’s talking about. “What? Did you get hurt?” “No, she continues. It was the Holy Spirit. We both went down when the priest came by us with his hands out.”
Here is where I step in and try to explain to Joe about this phenomenon. He knows a little, since he had attended a few Pentecostal services with his Aunt and Uncle as a kid. “No one could make me fall down like a fool,” he chides. So I tell him that it was happening to everyone. And I didn’t think I was susceptible either. This is when Rita talks about the comatose woman with her dress around her waist. So, what comes next is no surprise for me. Joe starts laughing as he gives his take on what happened.
“You two crazy broads. I can just see you. Waylaid! Lyng on the floor like two drunk hussies.” Ron, who is his usual quiet self, does not voice an opinion or give a commentary about our experience. But he can’t help laughing. Once inside, we fix soup and sandwiches, set the kids at the table while we take our sandwiches to the living room where we move on to safer topics
Meanwhile Rita and I have an amazing experience to file away in our heads and hearts for future study.
Logos 