Page 192 - Aesthetic Formations Media, religion, and the Sense
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Breath, Technology, Making of Community 177
touches where it hurts. Cure Lord, Liberate my God [he closes his eyes,
while the local audience “prays in tongues”]. The Lord is touching a right
leg, the Lord is touching a leprous. Lord, a man is now placing inside You a
problem with his stomach (this difficult vital organ) and I ask my Lord also
for other causes that are not physical diseases but the others . . . emotional,
adulterous, impossible causes; You who are the God of the impossible, look
at the faith of your people, visit now Lord. There is a man who is not a
Catholic, he is an evangelic, and the Lord is touching, he will be among us
soon, thank you Lord. And now a right leg . . . thank you Lord because now
you are touching someone with ear pain, visit now my Lord. [pause] Now
my brothers change your left arm for your right arm and touch the person
on your right. If until this moment the words were lacking, now they will
be released. You who had a dry stuck tongue, now your tongue is free, thank
you Lord. This is now a living Church, not a dead one because the Lord is
the same yesterday and tomorrow and we have been obedient with all the
members of the Audience Club, all members of C.N . . . (Mass of the Audio-
Club, 7 November 2001)
In media res, Padre Edmilson interrupted his reception of prophecies and
started reading e-mails that reached the altar table. The mails had been
sent by the audio-viewers who witnessed a miracle foretold by the Padre.
This process of sending and receiving spiritual messages was intensified by
and associated with terms that pertain to technological interactivity.
Padre Edmilson, you told that we should put the hands where it hurts and
that by doing so a person who has a problem with the ears was being cured.
I am cured and the pain is gone. I thank the Lord.
Padre Edmilson, when you spoke about a man being cured of a stomach
problem, I touched the screen with my left hand having my right hand on
my stomach. My pain is gone thanks to the Lord.
Again, the reading of e-mails was interrupted by the surge of new revela-
tions Padre Edmilson was receiving from the Holy Spirit.
P.E. Yes, Lord a man who is now being cured from a cancer on one of his
testicles, thank you Lord for this listener and another who recovered his right
vision, My Lord thank you . . . cure miasma intoxication, cure a heartburn, a
tumor on the spine. A forearm needed a prosthesis but today watching the
Mass of the Audio Club, he is cured. Let us applaud Jesus, Our Lord!
The voice of Padre Edmilson played a key role in the interchange of “flows”
between inner and outer, between “producer(s)” and “audience(s).” Far
from being mere spectators, the audiences actively engaged in the framing
of communal prayer. Padre Edmilson sanctioned the cures that he himself