The Sunday Miracle Service at St. Joseph’s turned a damp Sunday into a mass pilgrimage, bringing thousands to the field to see Alice Pagett and to hope for cures. Its central claims—Alice’s levitation and the healing of a man in public view—gave even skeptical observers cause to reconsider what they thought they had witnessed. Yet the service did not settle whether the events were divine: the Church’s inquiry remained divided, while the congregation’s shared expectation and the reported failure of recording equipment made the gathering itself part of the mystery.

Rumor and the gathering

The service followed a rumor that Alice had told her mother and the priest that the Lady wanted to see her again on Sunday the 28th. As Fenn, Sue, and Ben approached St. Joseph’s, activity on the village’s High Street and the volume of traffic were already unusual for a cold, wet Sunday. The crowd converged on the church grounds, and the gate to the path was so congested that Sue had to keep Ben close to prevent him from being jostled. Pilgrims, believers, and curious onlookers had come together, with some hoping to witness another miracle.

The crowd was not only a body of spectators. Fenn saw families helping people with serious illnesses make their way through the entrance, including a teenage girl whose movements suggested a neurological disorder and a boy in a wheelchair. Their presence made the stakes of the gathering concrete: for some, the service offered a possibility of recovery, not merely an unusual spectacle. Fenn recognized the hope in relatives’ faces, even as he expected disappointment and found himself uncomfortable at being able to observe their private distress.

By the time the Mass was due to begin, the field had filled across the benches and spread outward toward its entrance. Some places were reserved for Church and civic dignitaries, while people pressed forward for seats nearer the altar. Many wanted to see Alice; others hoped to be close enough to share in her holiness. The crowd’s excitement became reverential, and the priests and stewards assigned to manage it felt its pressure too. Wheelchairs had difficulty crossing the churned earth, prompting ushers to recognize that future gatherings would need a designated area for invalids. The scene joined devotional expectation to practical problems of access and crowd management.

The service and reported cures

Monsignor Delgard faced the congregation with a divided mind. The scale of the gathering troubled him, especially the sick people looking toward the altar with hope. He feared that the service would raise expectations that could not be met and wished it might end the cycle of public claims. At the same time, he could not dismiss Alice as insincere: he had witnessed events he could not easily explain, and he questioned whether his own doubt showed a failure of humility. When he began the service, Alice watched him with an expression that seemed fixed elsewhere, her attention drawn toward the oak rather than toward him.

Southworth later estimated that between eight and ten thousand people had travelled to St. Joseph’s, though most had not been able to enter the field for the service. Reports of improvement among those present ranged widely. Some people said they felt better or uplifted; others had conditions that might temporarily improve, making immediate conclusions uncertain. Southworth acknowledged that the changes could prove temporary, and that the sufferers’ expectations might influence their interpretation. The claims therefore varied in both gravity and how readily they could be verified.

One case stood apart in Southworth’s account. A man who had concealed his face because of a severe condition involving open sores stood below Alice as her small body rose into the air. His face then appeared to heal in full view of the congregation: the sores closed and damaged areas began to be covered by new skin. Some people in the large crowd said they had not seen Alice rise, particularly those far from the altar, but the healing was presented as a physical change witnessed by people nearby and then shown to the wider congregation. By the end of the service Alice had returned to the congregation, while the man’s recovery remained the clearest reported cure. Even Delgard, despite his doubts, found this case difficult to reject.

Evidence and institutional doubt

The service produced no agreed official judgment. At an Episcopal Council convened to question Alice, she remained certain that she had spoken with Mary, but could not explain why the visitations had occurred or what purpose they served. Her answer—that the Lady would disclose the purpose in time—left the bishops unsatisfied. Some considered a divine vision possible; others saw insufficient evidence. They also disputed the cures and Alice’s levitation. The latter might be an illusion, they argued, and comparison with stage feats or mass hypnosis offered a natural explanation for an event seen by a large audience.

The absence of a clear record sharpened rather than resolved the disagreement. No television or still camera captured Alice’s levitation; the film was blank. Some clergy who favored a supernatural explanation treated that failure as evidence of paranormal influence, while their opponents insisted that it did not establish holiness. The lectern microphones also malfunctioned. Delgard wondered whether the failures were connected to the physical weakness that overcame him during the service, when he fell to his knees and people close to him did likewise. The apparent disturbance of both bodies and equipment raised the possibility, for him, of an unexplained force that could drain energy from people and interfere with machinery, though he could not establish that connection.

Aftermath and significance

The bishops continued their debate late into the evening and planned to reconvene in London. They expected to offer a carefully worded statement, but not one that would affirm the miracles conclusively. The service thus generated a public demand for an answer without producing institutional certainty. Its significance lay partly in this gap: the reported healing seemed compelling to witnesses, while the wider claims remained vulnerable to questions about temporary improvement, perception, and the lack of reliable recordings.

For Southworth, the gathering also promised Banfield a renewed future. He saw the possibility that pilgrimage could revive a village threatened by decline and restore religious interest among its people, even while recognizing that the village’s new prospects would benefit him personally. His hope for local rebirth existed alongside Delgard’s unease and Fenn’s initial skepticism. The service gathered people into a temporary community organized around Alice and the possibility of healing, but it also exposed their different expectations: the sick and their families sought relief, local promoters saw opportunity, and Church officials struggled to distinguish spiritual significance from unproven claims. The crowd dispersed without a settled explanation, leaving the field, the oak, and the unanswered evidence at the center of Banfield’s growing controversy.