Reborn

1

"You're welcome to stay for the service, Grace."

Grace smiled at Brother Robert and looked around the room. They were in the oblong basement of Martin's brownstone in Murray Hill. This room did not seem to belong to the rest of the house. It was so much warmer. Fluorescent lights, recessed into a beige suspended ceiling, glowed through multicolored panels, giving a stained-glass effect. There was wall-to-wall carpeting, and the walls were deeply stained tongue-and-groove knotty-pine. Rows of chairs were lined in a semicircle around a low platform at the far end. The walls were bare except for the crucifix at the far end; both it and the statue of the Blessed Virgin in the left corner were covered in purple drapes, just as they were in churches throughout the world during Lent. But this wasn't a church.

About two dozen or so people stood around chatting. Nothing special about them. The Chosen looked like people off the street of any middle-class neighborhood in the city. Some wore suits and dresses, some wore jeans; one woman who didn't have the legs for it sported a miniskirt. And they were all very friendly. They had greeted her with genuine warmth.

"Yes, do stay," Martin Spano said.

"I don't know, Marty—"

"Martin," said the pale young man grimly. "Please don't call me Marty. Nobody calls me Marty." Then he smiled quickly. "Well, what do you think of our little group?"

"They seem very nice."

"Believe me, they are."

He was called away by one of the Chosen, leaving her alone with Brother Robert.

"Are you going to have a Mass?" Grace asked.

"Oh, no," he said in his French accent. "Just some readings from the Bible, the Old and New Testaments. The Church doesn't really recognize groups such as these. They are clearly Catholic, but the monsignors and bishops and such think they are a little… you know how you Americans say… " He pointed his index finger at his left temple and moved it in a circular motion. "Loony Tunes."

"Oh, dear!" Grace said.

She was not at all sure she wanted to get involved in this sort of thing. During the past year or so she had heard of these groups. Catholic Pentecostals, they were called. Charismatics.

"I have not encountered this sort of thing anywhere else in the world, and I find it truly fascinating, truly extraordinary. In a way it is a return to Christianity's humble origins." He gestured to the room. "Believers gathering together in homes to pray and hear the word of God, to witness the presence of the Spirit. That's what Christianity should be about. They have accepted me as a leader of sorts, at least for the time being, but I am not here as a priest. I am here as another one of the Chosen. They don't pretend that what happens here is sacramental, or in any way a substitute for the sacraments. It is an adjunct to the sacraments."

"I don't see how the Church can object to that."

"It doesn't object, but neither does it approve. It will never say so, but I believe the Church is a little concerned about groups like this. Although they are few in number, they are growing. They go to Mass and to confession and receive Communion in the orthodox ways, as we all did earlier this morning. But every Sunday afternoon and every Wednesday night, when they gather in meetings like this, they are on their own, with nothing between them and the Spirit. Surprising things happen."

"How surprising?"

He touched her hand gently. "Stay and see."

Grace stayed.

She sat in the last row and listened to readings from the Gospel, from various books of the Old Testament—mostly the frightening ones from Ecclesiastes—and to a homily from Brother Robert. His voice was mesmerizing. He was fiery and moving as he exorted the Chosen, whom he called the Army of God, to be ever vigilant for signs as to the identity of the devil incarnate, the Antichrist.

While he was speaking, some people sat and listened quietly, but some called out Amens, others stood and held their arms aloft as they swayed back and forth in time to a music audible only to them. Grace was shocked. This was more like one of those Protestant revival meetings they put on television every so often.

Then they all began to pray. And they prayed holding hands. The woman in front of her turned and reached her hand back for Grace to take, but Grace shook her head and folded her hands in front of her. She didn't want to hold hands during prayer! What kind of praying was that?

And then it happened.

A woman in a tweed suit in the front row stood up, rigid and trembling, then fell down onto the floor and began to shake. The nurse in Grace brought her out of her own chair.

"She's having a seizure!" Grace cried.

As she started forward, hands held her back, voices told her, "No, wait. She's all right"… "She has the Spirit"… "The Spirit is upon her."

Sure enough, in a moment the woman lay still, then turned over and sat up. Her eyes were unfocused. Her tongue moved strangely as she opened her mouth and began to speak. The words that came out were like no human speech Grace had ever heard.

Suddenly, directly to Grace's right, someone else, a man in a plaid flannel shirt, sprang up rigidly from his chair. He didn't convulse but started talking in a foreign language, one that sounded exactly like the first woman's. After he had finished, he stared blankly ahead, his jaw continuing to vibrate up and down.

"Hear them?" said a voice in her ear.

She turned and it was Brother Robert, standing at her side.

"What's happening?"

"They're speaking in tongues. Just like the Apostles did on the first Pentecost Sunday." His brown eyes sparkled. "Isn't it fascinating?"

Another woman stood up and began to babble.

"Three!" Brother Robert cried. "The Spirit is strong with us tonight! And always the same tongue! I understand that in other groups they speak in many tongues. But since I have been here, the Chosen have spoken in only one tongue!"

Grace suddenly felt flushed and weak. This wasn't the safe, sane, staid Catholicism she knew, with its comfortable rituals and regimented responses. This was like one of those crazy holy-roller tent revivals. This was chaotic, frightening.

"I need some air!"

"Of course you do," Brother Robert said.

She let him take her elbow and lead her upstairs to the brownstone's front foyer where it was cool but protected from the drizzle and the March wind.

"That's better," she said, feeling her pulse begin to slow toward normal.

"These prayer meetings can be upsetting at first, I know," Brother Robert said. "I was not sure what to make of them myself when I first came here. But they prove that the Spirit is with us, on our side, urging us forward."

Grace didn't know about that, wasn't really sure of anything right now.

"Is that what He's doing?" she said. "Urging you?"

"Yes!" Brother Robert's eyes hardened. "This is war! Evil such as the world has never known is coming. Satan in human form, here not just to claim our lives but our very souls as well! War, Grace Nevins! And you are part of God's chosen army. The Spirit has called you! You cannot say no!"

Grace could say nothing at all at that moment. Brother Robert was frightening her.

"Look," he said in a softer tone, pointing through the door glass at the street outside. "Even now we are being watched. I have seen him here a number of times this week."

Grace looked and saw a gray-haired man of about sixty standing under a tree across the street, facing their way. As she stared at him, he turned and walked away.