Fr. Fernando Suarez -- the Healing Priest

As usual, electricity was out yesterday evening and we spent the whole night fanning ourselves. It sucked big time. The outage lasted until this morning. So, I was still sleepy when my mother forced me to go with her to Fr. Suarez healing mass.

If you are in the Philippines, I highly doubt it if you wouldn't know who Fr. Fernando Suarez
is. He is taking the country by storm, raising controversies left and right; and healing people left and right. He is not just healing people -- he is raising people from the dead!
Anyway, we went to the Cathedral and the place was packed. Really packed. A leecher could be standing behind you and rubbing his whatever on your whatever, but you can't do a damn thing about it because you have no space to move! The place was packed with thousands of hopefuls -- people on wheelchairs, stretchers; people with breast cancer, brain tumors; people with diabetes or hepatitis; and of course, people who are just there out of curiosity.

Fr. Suarez is a good speaker. I went there out of curiosity; and of course, my mother played a guilt-trip card on me. But I found myself in tears for no reasons. He spoke of the miracles that he was a witness to. He never claimed that it was him healing. He repeatedly exalted God. He repeatedly told everyone there that he was merely the instrument of Grace. The man beside me was crying all the while the mass was going on. I thoughts, "He must be really sick."


My mother was there for her allergic rhinitis. At one point during the mass, Fr. Suarez told us to touch the parts in our body that needed healing. I again could hear the man beside me sniffing, trying to muffle his sobs with his hanky. I was again almost in tears (the man's crying was tearing my heart out) but then I saw my mother surreptitiously touching her nose. I couldn't help but giggle. I nudged her and she started giggling too. I just found it so funny that the man beside me was praying for God knows what kind of grave illness and my mother was praying for her nose.

Anyway, did we witness a miracle?

My father said that there was a miracle. A priest who couldn't walk for years was brought up the stage and Fr. Suarez healed him. After the mass, the wheelchair was brought down and the old priest walked down the stage alone.

Unfortunately, I was busy begging my mother to climb down from the gate to see that miracle. Mama climbed the gate to shout out to the guards to open it so we could get out. I was so embarrassed and everybody was looking at her. Too bad, huh?