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
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