| Healing Service & Mass of the Ascension
... Wednesday, May 23, 2001 |  |
| Healing Service & Mass of the Ascension
... Wednesday, May 23, 2001 | |
"God ascends amid shouts of joy, Alleluja." That's the promise. That we can be healed and ascend amid shouts of joy.
We sat together, three broken hearted women, waiting for the word, the touch,
the sound that would make us well. We stood together, in the need of prayer
and we were given the anointing and the release, that allowed the tears to
come.
The prayer partners, the musicians, and our pastor were there. The candles were lighted and huge orange and gold flowers nodded on long stems -- bent low a little, like the faithful who gathered in the church. The Greeting and Sharing of the Peace felt different -- it was more intimate, somehow -- these faithful believers who were bringing their hurt disillusionment, losses, shock and pain into the presence of each other.
The musicians played the songs that are part of our history: Turn, Turn, Turn - and Let it Be, bringing a vision of 'Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, let it be.' The song carried me through the years -- and reminded me of all the other times I heard it. Through the dissent of the sixties, the hopes of the seventies, the me too eighties, the come and get it nineties; through the breaking up and putting together of our lives, I had stood, tears in my eyes, hearing the same words. Now in the year 2001, we sang them again, with deeper wisdom. Let it be.
The gospel message was read. And then Ron Joki gave us his homily. He told us stories of grace, through the person of Bob- a complex man who learned how to meet the needs of the people who have been at Grace House, people like all of us. Please read Ron's homily: Meet Bob - a Story of Grace.
Then the prayer ministers stood ready to touch and anoint us. We walked
single file, sometimes glancing at one another, some of us seemingly
enthralled with our own hands as we looked at them intently, sometimes our
eyes meeting the look of a deeply loved friend -- until we stood before the
ministers. We each said our need -- we stood with a 'partners' arm around
our shoulder and were listened to and heard on a deep level. You could feel
the fires being lit, the room heating up, the Spirit moving swiftly among us.
The last of us to stand in the need of healing, our pastor, waited patiently
to be anointed by his prayer partner.
All the while the music played and we sang "Jesus won't you come by here, Jesus won't you hold my hand, Jesus won't you hear my prayer."
Hearts joined and hands joined, we stood together as the great God descended
to our altar, and we received communion from the same hands that had anointed
and touched us.
And with the singing of another song - Somebody Touched Me - it was done. I looked around at the faces, so tense an hour ago. Now I saw openness, vulnerability, sweetness and repose.
It's something -- to be standing in the need of prayer. And receiving anointing. And maybe, just maybe, letting our spirits "ascend amid shouts of joy, Alleluja."
 |
 |
 |
 |