HAVANA -- The noise of rain outside does not diminish the powerful sound of prayer inside the darkened middle-class house decorated with watercolors of a Havana lit by sun.

``Pray for us,'' the circle of nine men and women implore as one. ``Pray for our families who are not united. Pray so that love prevails in all our homes.

``Pray so that when love enters, fear will be taken away. Pray so that the troubled can find refuge among us. Pray to be with those who suffer.''

This is a weekly meeting of one of the 13 casas de oración -- houses of prayer -- organized by devout Roman Catholic lay members of Santa Rita Parish.

They read the Bible out loud in these private homes. They deliver tearful testimonies of faith. They pray for love in a nation where many political sermons are laced with hate.

And while the casas in Havana's Vedado neighborhood truly are places of prayer, increasingly they are also places of spiritual refuge for Cubans who may not have prayed in public for years. This means some newcomers are Communist Party members, people of privilege seeking meaning in their lives.

Catholic dioceses began encouraging the establishment of prayer houses a little more than a year ago and there are now about 300 on the island. Through them, lay people help carry on the work of the church in a country with a limited number of priests. They reach out to the faithful and those seeking faith, conduct marriage and baptism classes, take care of the elderly and handle other tasks.

Other church groups also use private homes. The growing Protestant movement has few churches but makes do with an estimated 3,000 casas culto, homes that function as informal houses of worship.

Welcoming newcomers

On a recent Sunday in Santa Rita Parish, the newcomers to the casa de oración are a nervous-looking husband and wife introduced by the prayer group's leader, Ileana Ortiz. She does not give the group their names, describing them only as ``people who have great responsibilities in the Economics Ministry and who have represented Cuba at many international conferences.'' The other members all know each other.

Ortiz, 51, talks about each of them, slowly, respectfully. The rain is falling heavier now, pounding the wide leaves of the banana trees shrouding the open windows. A wind whips at the tall, dense trees lining the street. Ortiz puts on a tape recording of a gentle Bach cello composition.

A small, thin, 28-year-old man, she says, ``has been a prisoner of conscience.'' A tall, middle-aged woman, who came back to the church last month after a 38-year absence, ``spent her life as a government department director.'' An older woman gripping a paperback Bible ``came to us out of a personal crisis that caused her to resign her membership [from the Communist Party].''

Ortiz, who the day before the gathering was accorded the honor of reading one of the two lessons at Pope John Paul II's Mass in Havana, says of herself: ``I am like all the rest of you.

``I am a former Economics Ministry official who did her job. I lost my way. Now I come to these meetings, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to help my brothers and sisters from the bottom of my heart.''

She closes her eyes and prays silently. All eyes focus on this small, firm-voiced, determined woman the group calls the mother of their new family.

``Our leader,'' the tall woman whispers, ``is not afraid.''

Emotional release

The newcomers bow their heads as the prayers for peace begin. They share a missal and mouth the unfamiliar words. When they sing a hymn dedicated to reconciliation, the two newcomers start to cry, the wife shaking with emotion, her husband trying to comfort her by smoothing her hair.

``Oh, God,'' the wife sobs. ``I have not heard anyone read the Bible out loud in more than 30 years.''

When the prayers are finished, Ortiz asks the group if anyone would like to say something. The woman who has been crying raises her hand. As she starts talking, her voice cracking, its volume rising, her listeners wipe their eyes.

She tells a story of how she was filled with such despair at work that she started staying home in bed. By the end of the first week, she said, she felt as if she was paralyzed.

``I was afraid,'' she says. ``I could not move my legs. I was not really sick. I just felt as if I had nothing to live for.''

She said her husband, growing more concerned about her, talked to a friend who suggested prayer.

``But we did not know how to pray,'' she says. ``It was an alien concept.''

Finally, her husband summoned up the courage to walk through the door of a Catholic church and talk to a priest.

Later that day the priest was at her side.

``He showed me how to pray,'' she says. ``He told me to try to have faith. I struggled with this idea. But the priest stayed. Many hours later I finally let go of my doubts and at that moment my whole body seemed to be on fire.

``The Holy Spirit had entered me. My bones were vibrating in my body. My husband helped me stand up, I put on some slippers, and I started walking. The priest came up to me and placed his forehead against mine. I told him, `Father, I believe.' I was dancing, shouting.''

Brotherhood in prayer

And now, she explains, she and her husband have come to the casa to pray with other people who had gone through crises and had found comfort and brotherhood in prayer.

Ortiz asks the circle to stand and hold hands and to remain standing.

She starts talking about what she has just heard.

``For us,'' she says, ``this kind of story, of personal history, is easy to accept. For us, such experiences are reality. Our lives are hard. Many people have a pain in their heart.

``But prayer and faith can heal. We prayed in these casas de oración for the visit by the Pope to be approved. And now we have had God in our midst.''

For believers, she says, the fact that their prayers were answered ``is proof that you, Our Lord, have forgiven the Cuban people.''

``People like us who strayed from the path. People who had closed hearts, who did not know what it was like to be free. Old people who had fallen away from the church to pursue their careers. Young people who can't even recognize themselves as human beings but who believe they are servants of the state.

``But this is brotherhood,'' she says of the gathering. Her listeners are swaying, their heads uplifted, their hands still clutching the hands of their neighbors. ``Let us embrace,'' she says. ``Kiss one another.

``Let us welcome our new brother and sister,'' she says, finally using their first names. ``And let us pray for our houses of prayer so they can be refuges of peace for many more lost children of the Lord.''