Fr. Suarez Healing Ministry Draws Record Numbers
The blind see. The deaf hear. The lame walk.
The healings are not from the ancient gospel passage of more than 2,000 years ago, but real events that were being witnessed by an overflow crowd of people who packed the Good Shepherd Church in Mira Mesa, San Diego on Tuesday night, May 20, 2008.
According to church ushers, there were about 1,300 people behind church doors and an equal number outside the church waiting for their turn to be touched by the healing priest Fr. Fernando Suarez of the Companions of the Cross Healing Ministry.
The crowd started to trickle in about 11:30 a.m that morning for the 7:00 p.m. service. All waited patiently for the doors to open at 4:00 p.m. As the lines continued to grow and the doors opened for the crowd that had milled outside, a few got on cell phones telling friends and relatives to catch the service even though it was past 10:00 pm. It was the final visit for the popular healing priest in San Diego. Fr. Fernando’s schedule (www.fatherfernando.com) is booked months and years ahead.
The Mass and Eucharistic healing service was the second of two events. The first was held the previous night at St. Michaels in Paradise Hills beginning at 6:00 pm and finally finishing after 1:00 am the next morning.
The true healer
Fr. Jeff Shannon, who travels with Fr. Fernando in his healing ministry around the globe is quick to give credit for the miracles to Christ. “Jesus is the healer! Amen?!” he prodded the audience. “Jesus is the one who heals! You are already here. Many of you have already been touched. Many have been healed. Jesus has touched you!”
He also points out the reason why the Mass is said beforehand. “This is the only time Fr. Fernando heals, after the Mass because he wants you to know that Jesus is the one who is healing, not him! He is only an instrument whom God uses. Powerful instrument, but an instrument. So, it’s good to hear the answer in your heart.”
Fr. Jeff asked the crowd to reflect on their petitions for healing as each one waited for their turn. “What do you want healing for? Be specific. Because when you are healed, you know it is God who has healed you. When you come forward just imagine it is Jesus Himself who touches you. It is the gift of touch Fr. Fernando was given. He just touches the people and they are healed.”
Gift of Touch
Fr. Fernando estimates that this year alone he has physically touched one million people in similar healing services around the globe. He was 16 when he first discovered his gift but became afraid and ran away after praying with a lame beggar who was healed. He kept it a secret and went on to finish a degree in chemical engineering before answering the call to the priesthood and ultimately coming to accept his gift.
Both Hands
The expression on his face changes intermittently from exhaustion to joy, as he occasional breaks the silence to banter with people, moving swiftly as he does through the throng and touching the foreheads and throats of the line of individuals before him. He sometimes stops completely in deep prayer to rest both hands on the heads of two individuals at a time. More than a few fall backwards into the arms of ushers. Thirty other volunteers are called to help to keep order as the enormous lines converge towards the altar.
Power of Healing
In his homily, Fr. Fernando stressed that the power of healing belongs to God alone. However, he said that each person also has the capacity for healing.
But it is lost in the daily rush; in a life steeped in the stressful pursuit of material gain. Instead he offers an alternative; a truly powerful way of living marked by the pursuit of holiness in the small and ordinary things.
According to Fr. Suarez these attitudes and habits form the acronym for the word “power” itself —“P” praying from the heart, “O” in an openness to God, “W” in worshiping the Lord, “E” in engaging the Lord, and “R” in relying on the Lord in all things and circumstances.
In between, he enforces each lesson with a few universal anecdotes about people who have asked for healing. He also points out to his own faults as a human being for an example; imperfections common to humankind that have not kept anyone from being loved by a perfect Creator.
Sticking points
But healing requires one to leave years of emotional baggage behind. Fr. Fernando counts unforgiveness and anger, among other cardinal sins, as sticking points or obstacles to real spiritual and physical healing.
He takes on the spiritual poverty of modern culture by delivering another message that resonates with many, “You rely on yourselves too much. That is why you are so stressed! Rely on God to do the rest.”
For parents whose own children disrespect them, there is a lesson on the connection between teaching children to worship God and respect for parents, all of which, he points out, are in the top four of the Ten Commandments for a reason. The answer came after much prayer Fr. Fernando explains because he had actually witnessed and was shocked at the sight of a parent getting verbally abused by a child in this country.
He said he has seen so many youth in this country who are depressed and who are hurting from broken relationships. "Find your own prayer," he advised. "Make it authentic." He tells them to look beyond their circumstances and be open to the call of a loving God. He dares the youth and others who came out of curiosity to challenge God and be open to the response. “He will reveal Himself to you.”
Monte Maria Shrine
Earlier in the day, both priests made a presentation before donors in a Chula Vista residence about the Monte Maria Shrine, an ambitious project to build an international center of healing in Batangas, Philippines. The project consists of a basilica and a towering monument to honor Mary, Mother of the Poor. It is on a site that overlooks the sea in what scientists say is home to the planet's most biodiverse marine life, stretching past the Sulu archipelago at its southernmost tip. The area is comparable in importance to the sustainability of life as the Amazon jungle.
Testimonies
Among the people healed during the service was a man who had injured his knee and was scheduled for surgery the next morning. He walked out of the church without his wheelchair, stopping by to retell his story to all who called to him from the church pews. Another man who was legally blind for several years had his eyesight restored. He too walked away weaving his way past the crowd. His hands firmly grasped his mother’s wheelchair as he contemplated life with sight restored. “I can drive again!” he said. An elderly man who said he had trouble hearing for five years was finally able to hear again without a hearing aid device. Yet another who had knee replacement surgery in 2001 was able to walk briskly without a walker.
Among the first to share their testimony were senior citizens like Edna Sison who said she had “difficulty walking but now is able to walk good.” Corazon Bautista who happily announced she was “walking now.” Aurelia Flores whose knee was very painful and could not walk before, but now she can walk. A pain-free Valma T. Guillermo who was in constant, debilitating pain.
But not all who came in crutches or in wheelchairs or the blind were healed. Others left as they came with their infirmities intact and the purifying grace of the cross they carry lodged firmly in the center of their lives.
The connection to those who suffer reels one in.
Rosary Makers
Fr. Jeff restates the purpose of the visit, “Our real purpose is to promote the gospel of Jesus because people need to hear the good news that God is alive and that God is real. So we use this as an opportunity to do that.”
The phenomenon of healing has led to a source of local livelihood — rosary making — for the poor townfolk of Taal, Batangas from where Fr. Fernando hails. The ministry raises funds for community programs by selling rosaries that come complete with the prayer that Fr. Fernando composed for the healing ministry, a prayer anyone is free to reproduce and share. The prayer is from the heart. And the rosaries are a hit.
The work of evangelization called for by the late Pope John Paul II has caught on. Today the ministry has a selection of CDs and DVDs of several healing masses.
The proceeds support the charities of Mary Mother of the Poor (MMP). MMP at present has programs of feeding daily 3,000 malnourished children in the Philippines, livelihood to 200 indigent families and more than a thousand beneficiaries of its scholarship programs for basic, vocational and tertiary education.
Hard to grasp
How authentic are the healings? The stories are personal, grounded in one’s visceral relationship with God rather than in brilliant theological doctrine. But the Church itself, apart from banning the healing services from certain dioceses in the Philippines, is silent about it. The immediate concern is more practical, involving the public safety of the thousands who come to the service.
It is hard to grasp the miracles that retell the gospel. But one thing is for sure, next week someone who was legally blind will be at the DMV to retake his driving test. Someone who was in a wheelchair will be walking down the neighborhood. Another who once lived homebound in debilitating pain will be stretching and limbering up while the neighbors gawk in silence.
It is the reason why Fr. Jeff continues to talk to the incredulous about healings in the context of ordinary, how-did-your-day-go conversations.
But the reports do not stop there.
Unexpected
When the ministry brought the rosaries around, the stories started to trickle in, unsolicited and unexpected. Fr. Jeff explained, “We are hearing story after story of people who being healed by the rosary bracelets. Who says the poor have nothing to give? And here they are giving people all over the world healing wherever we bring these.”
He continued, “In Los Angeles last weekend, one woman was given a rosary bracelet right before she was to go have surgery for a lump in her breast and she took it right before the operation, wore it and said a prayer. When the doctor went in he couldn’t find the lump and he cancelled the operation. The lump was gone!”
More Healings
As a Catholic priest, Fr. Jeff is more pleased that the work of the poor has led to the resurgence in the traditional devotion of the rosary. “They are getting people to pray the rosary, which is the most important thing, a devotion and love for our Blessed Mother.”
Fr. Jeff regales the crowd with more remarkable accounts of the unexpected.
“People were telling us again that they were getting healed listening to him or by touching the TV screen when they are watching him. We don’t know why but they are telling us this…”
He follows up with another anecdote, “Just last week in Ontario, Canada, a woman said she got one of these, of Fr. Fernando. I couldn’t hear out of my right ear but when I touched the TV when he was on I was able to hear.”
Fr. Jeff is preaching to the choir, and he knows it. Just to get everyone's attention, he is slipping in some much-needed humor as the night wears on. “You can now listen to Fr. Fernando and all of his jokes 24/7. When people can’t sleep at night, they put on Fr. Fernando and he puts you right to sleep!”
Resting in the Spirit
Fr. Jeff again coaches everyone in the room. He explains what to expect. “Many times people feel like falling to the ground. You will see that. It is called ‘Resting in the Spirit.’ Do not be afraid. One hundred percent of those who rest in the spirit feel the presence of God. But you don’t have to fall down to be healed. Some people come up and say, 'Oh father, I hope I fall down!' Everybody falls down but they don’t fall down. Don’t feel bad. Just calmly receive and leave the rest to God.” – San Diego Asian Journal
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