In this darkest moment La Inca, The Divine, lets her soul hear the spirits of the dead. "...La Inca almost succumbed, let herself be lifted from her moorings and carried like a child, like a tangle of seagrape beyond the bright reef of her faith and into the dark reaches." In that hour her husband's spirit speaks to her, urging her to save Beli, or no one else will.
So La Inca listened. She prayed to La Virgen Altagracia. "There has never been prayer like this." Other women came to pray, women who were young and old, happy and sad. Women who had previously called Beli a whore came and whispered their prayers. The room filled up with faithful people praying.
The spirit in that room was so powerful that it made the very air pulse. And during all this La Inca barely noticed, she was concentrating so completely on her praying. She was so intense that not all the women in the room could go on praying and they experienced a spiritual burnout. At the end of the night La Inca, her friend Momona, and a pious seven-year-old girl remained, still hoping and praying.
The part of the book, the descriptions of La Inca's response to the tragedy of Beli's capture and horrific beating, is one of the most powerful descriptions in the book for me. Thinking of experiencing the spirit in such an utterly powerful way is incredible.
I've never experienced prayer in this way before, because I don't usually pray in groups for an extended period of time. I've known people who have participated in prayer in this way and for this long before, and they say it is powerful beyond belief. It makes you wonder what prayer can do. This kind of unique experience is life-changing, and life-saving.
Reading about what Beli went through was terribly difficult. It is hard to comprehend the pain she went through and the strength it must have taken to endure that kind of suffering. La Inca's prayer, I think, was part of Beli's rescue and mending.
I like to think of prayer in that way - healing. When we pray, we heal our own lives and spirits, and those of other people.
I like what you have to say about prayer, Mandy – particularly that last bit about how prayer helps the person praying, not just the person being prayed for. I know that one thing that I struggled with as a kid was the realization that things you pray for won’t always come true – that sick people don’t always get better, that world peace doesn’t happen, etc. one thing I’ve come to realize since college, though, is that prayer is (for me at least) primarily a way to work through my own emotions and reflect on things. La Inca’s communal prayer impressed me and made me think about how the act of praying could be just as reflective an experience with more people around.
ReplyDeleteMandy, you bring up interesting aspects of the novel in this post. We never really discussed this "religious" section of the book, and the power that prayer had for Beli. It's interesting to note that this group prayer actually did work in healing Beli, as the rest of the novel doesn't contain much religion.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting aspect of this prayer was that it was conducted by women who both liked and disliked Beli. Even though women in her neighborhood had previously called her a whore, they decided to partake in her pain by staying at her side throughout her suffering. What a change of heart for both parties involved!