Free Over the Boundaries by Marie Barrett Page A

longer I resisted it.
    I got up to go to the altar in line with all the other communicants but immediately on doing so almost passed out. Still I persisted, thinking it would pass, and continued on the slow advance to the altar rails. I was comfortably dressed in a sleeveless, full-length wool print dress with matching shawl — something I had sewn up myself. The feeling did not abate and I began to wonder if I shouldn’t turn back. But I had come for this, to register my hunger for the bread of life and I continued on. I had reached the altar and could see the priest heading down the queue to me ,but I wasn’t going to make it, it seemed. Just as he was before me and my legs began to crumble under me, the statue to my left came instantly to life, taking on human form, and held me by both arms at the elbows. I opened my mouth to receive the host and, instantly revived, I turned and went down the aisle to my seat. At the entrance to the pew I knelt down and made the sign of the cross, got up and turned to go outside into the morning sunshine.
    I called in to the shop across from the church to pick up some groceries. I mentioned to Jimmy, the grocer, when he enquired after my health that I had hust seen the statue of Mary move over in the church whereupon he peered out at me from behind his glasses and, eyes full of mirth, suggested I had been having too many late nights or something to that effect and burst out into a hearty laugh.
    The shop was beginning to fill up as the massgoers filed in. A discussion was going on behind my back between a neighbour and the young curate. I heard my name mentioned and, on turning around, was presented with the question, seemingly iniated on the previous night’s Late Late Show:
    ‘Do you think priests should be celbate?’ articulated by the priest.
    I acknowledged the question, looking at the interlocutors and, holding my silence for a few seconds, resisted a quick reply. I could not resist the answer, however, when it did came to me swiftly, and hastily said for all to hear:
    "We must be led by the Spirit into all these things.’ The words had the effect of ending the discussion and we all quietly took our leave.
    On the way home in the car I was surprised to hear the Lord address me with the words: ‘Didn’t I set you free? Why do you enslave yourself again?’ I hadn’t deliberately set about enslaving myself, I knew, and would have to search deep within myself to find the answers to his question. One fact was indisputable - that I had received a baptism in the Holy Spirit in the company of down-and-outs whilst living in a squat in London. I would have to retrace my steps, mentally and emotionally, and chart my spiritual development from that point. The Lord was telling me that I would have to make some adjustments to my life. All I could do, there and then, was to reply in the best possible spirit: Thy will be done.

Prophecy, Easter 1976
    via interpretation of tongues, at Cruise’s Hotel, Limerick
    I am going to do a new work in your life,
    I just want you to open the door.
    I am making all things new,
    I am beginning today to work in your life,
    I just want you to open up the doors.
    I have begun you on the way,
    I am drawing you to myself;
    By the power of my spirit I will bring you
    Into the completion of that work.
    I want to mould you to be like myself —
    You have but begun on this way.
    My father takes great delight
    You have begun to come towards me.
    Let there be no disunity among you.
    Be at peace with one another.
    The work I have begun in you
    I will finish.
    I am your God.
    I am faithful.
    I will bring you to myself.

Halting Train
    ‘All this in Jesus,’ he said joyously,
    Wrapping his sister in his embrace.
    Surprised to find him waiting when she turned
    In the midst of her isolation,
    After all the intervening years —
    ‘I thought you had long gone,’ she hailed.
    In the dimly-lit carriage of the train,
    The halting train to heaven,
    A woman opposite