A modern saint

Much as I resent going on courses AFTER my licensing, last night was very good indeed.

It was lead by the same guy that ran our pre-licensing training programme. Outwardly, he is a plain ordinary Church of England vicar – wears his vestments for communion, never seen without his dog collar etc. The green shirts and beard complete the image. Being with him for three years you also come to realise he is an outstanding story-teller, and more importantly he really really knows his stuff. And not just academic knowledge – he has a real gift for seeing in the text the blinding obvious fact that you have never seen because of your pre-conceived ideas about it. I have huge respect for him as a teacher.

All that I knew.

But last night I found out that although he is usually very scathing of all things remotely Pentecostal or Charismatic, he has also been involved in three bona-fide exorcisms, one or two miraculous healings, falling-over in the spirit, etc.

Take the healing for example. He was working at a kids’ summer camp, where one of the roughest lads was brought to him with a broken arm. You could hear the bones grate against each other. The vicar said ‘shall I pray for it?’ to which the lad replied ‘you can do what you like so long as you get me to hospital quick!’ So after a quick prayer off he went. Four hours later, he was brought back from the hospital, with the report that the X-ray showed there was nothing wrong with the arm. The awed lad said ‘I’m with the Christians now!’ and spent the rest of the camp pointing at his arm and trying to persuade his friends that his arm really had been broken and healed, because no-body believed him and even the vicar thought he must have got it wrong.. The lad went on to become a vicar in his own right, and 15 years later had another, unrelated x-ray. The doctor again said ‘nothing wrong’, but added ‘except for the old break’ – and sure enough there on the x-ray was a healed break. So the guy grabbed the x-ray off the doctor and shot off to show to all his friends again.

But this talk of healing etc was well balanced by a lot of other stuff abut how usually we are not exempt from the trouble of this world (which matures us as Christians), and usually we do not meet demons, etc. The overall message was one of keeping calm and sensible and not seeking the spectacular, while still being open for God to remarkable things in his own way.

Fantastic.

Shame I don’t believe in canonising saints.