Charismatic Experience

The Catholic Student Association is getting into a habit of dragging me to Charismatic Catholic events it seems. Last week was Dominicans. This week was Franciscans. I have learned the Franciscans seem to be More Charismatic Than Thou in comparison!

Tonight was also the feast of the stigmata of Saint Francis of Assisi, something very near and dear to the hearts of the Franciscans who were leading things tonight. Anyhow, that in itself is rather awesome, the first man to have been said to have had the stigmatic wounds of Christ. Perhaps most awesome to hear about when we first got there though, was the story of a little girl that was running around. Months ago she was on the verge of death, with tumors rampant throughout her body. They thought they were going to have to amputate her leg, not that it would help with the ones on her kidneys and her lungs. People prayed ceaselessly, Masses were offered, pilgrims to the Holy Land prayed for her...and they decided before her surgery date to run the tests one last time to make sure they knew exactly where all the tumors were.

What they found shocked them. Nothing. Not nothing as in no change, that would have been miraculous in itself. Rather they found absolutely nothing. No trace of the tumors at all. I couldn't help but smile every time I saw that little girl tonight; because she was such a reminder that sometimes God does indeed answer prayers.

Anyhow...it was a weird experience. We did praise and worship and took a break before going on. We did the intro to the thing called Sharers of the Word, and the prayer teams were brought up to the altar. I smiled ruefully at God's apparent plans as I was pointed to where two people I came with, two guys I'd actually come up with, stood waiting with a Franciscan Friar, Brother Z. He asked me if I'd ever been prayed over before, and I told him the truth, no I hadn't.

The entire time leading up to all of this, I had been debating what I would ask for prayer for, because I had so much on my heart. I kept repeating the words silently, "Jesus I trust in You" as I looked at a giant painting of the Divine Mercy on the altar. He went over the basics with me of how it worked, anointed my hands and my forehead, and then asked me what I wanted prayer for. "Forgiveness" I replied. "To be forgiven, or to forgive?" "To forgive." "Who?" "My father."

Never had dad entered my mind on this night, yet here it was in the scope of this charismatic prayer event where I was scared witless that he would find his way to my lips. Brother had me say one thing while he prayed over me, "I forgive my father". It seemed so easy to say, but did I really mean it? After all he had done to me, how could I really forgive him? Then, I nearly fell; my anti-charismatic self nearly ended up backwards on the floor, but stayed up mainly through sheer willpower and stubborness throughout the prayer and as Brother Z told me how unforgiveness was a horrible block between a person and God and that I was free of that block now.

I thanked him and returned to my seat where I sank to my knees on the kneeler for at least half an hour. I knelt there and I questioned God, what had possessed me to do that? To speak those words when dad had not even been on my mind? I honestly don't know what it was, but I suspect the Holy Spirit may have been involved. I do know one thing though; I asked Him again and again why I had said those words, that there was no way I really forgave dad for all he's done, right? And so help me, I couldn't bring myself to hate him for the first time in my adult life. I still can't. If anything I feel a deep and abiding pity for him. And that in itself frightens me, because my hatred of him is so long standing and consuming that it's like I have a void without it, but a good void.

It's so unlike me that it's downright eerie in a way. Yet at the same time, it makes me very happy. Dunno, either way the experience, while interesting and different, might be worth repeating at some point. If nothing else than because it's an amazing thing to see habited nuns and friars alongside college students.