By Willy E. Arcilla, Contributor
INQUIRER.net
THE AWARENESS and popularity of Canadian-based Fr. Fernando Suarez has been soaring in recent weeks as increasingly more Filipino faithful and Christians worldwide attend and bear witness to his healing ministry at which the disabled walk, the visually-impaired see, the deaf hear and the mute speak. There are patients with cancer and other diseases who are cured. Yet, despite a cult following that seems to rival local celebrities, Father Suarez remains admirably humble, insisting that “I am not a healer” amid persistent labels as the “healing priest” or “miracle priest.” Raising his voice somewhat to emphasize the point and ensure that all can hear clearly, “it is not me who heals, but our Lord Jesus Christ, and He uses me merely as an instrument for His grace.” He draws an analogy to Christ’s healing power with “water passing through one’s hands.”
During a healing mass held recently at SM Megamall’s Trade Hall, Father Suarez repeatedly said in his homily, “I feel so embarrassed whenever people reach out to touch my robes,” again emphasizing it is God’s omnipotence that heals both the body and spirit. But despite this self-effacing attitude, he urged all the faithful present “not to feel embarrassed in praying for compassion and healing” for all afflictions — physical or spiritual — for nothing is impossible with God. He explains that the miracles people see or personally experience are demonstrations of God’s love that serve to help strengthen the people’s faith. If the source of all evil in this world is pride, manifested in being self-centered and an egoistic “ownership” of one’s accomplishments, he says the source of all good must lie in being “Christ-centered” and complete abandonment and surrender to God. “If we rely on Jesus, we will not be disappointed based on His promise that He will not fail us if we trust in Him.” However, while he urged all brethren to implore good health and a fullness of life with total confidence as children of God, he also admonished that God wants “holistic healing,” and not just “partial healing,” including the healing of one’s heart and conversion of one’s soul. He went on to pray for the moral illnesses and social injustices that bedevil the country, specifically the graft and corruption plaguing government and the wrenching poverty oppressing millions; for the deepest divisions to be healed and discrimination of all forms banished. In offering a reason for why God does not seem to answer all our supplications, he said perhaps “sometimes, what we ask for may not be good for us.”
In an interview prior to the mass, this writer asked Father Suarez if he can share what God tells him in his personal conversations during private moments of prayer, to which he replied, “God says He loves me, and He is happy with what I do in sharing the gift of healing with all the faithful.” This writer later learned that Father Suarez interacts, touches and prays over each and every person in all of his healing services — regardless of how long it takes or how exhausting it can get.
Before an audience consisting of the sick and the curious, the faithful and the skeptics, captured on digital cameras and video recorders, shown live on closed-circuit TV and later on nationwide TV, Father Suarez performed his individualized healing ministry on thousands, moving constantly and laying his hands on the old and the young, many of whom rose from wheelchairs and spontaneously shared poignant stories, testifying to God’s goodness through Father Suarez.
When this writer asked Father Suarez what he would like to tell the millions of Filipinos who may have desperately wished to attend his healing sessions, but cannot because they are preoccupied with earning a living or do not possess the means, he says reassuringly, “God heals in different ways, so we must all believe in his goodness. While it is God who heals, it is faith that saves.” Fittingly, Father Suarez reminds us of the gospel passages when Jesus brings back to life a grief-stricken father’s only daughter, and a woman suffering from years of debilitating illness touches the hem of His cloak, in which He says “Take courage… your faith has made you well.”
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January 26th, 2008 at 1:28 am
Please take the word of fr. suarez and understand . He is not a healer , Jesus is. It is your faith that heals you . With or without fr. suarez if your faith is real then you will be healed. Come to Jesus and not to fr. suarez. Come to your church, every priest has the authority to lay hands and to annoint the sick by virtue of their ordination, not jus fr. suarez. don’t be too fanatical, or you will be misled. Don’t make fr. suarez an instant celebrity. He is not Jesus . He too is a sinner . What is wrong with us filipinos is that we are over fanatical , that we tend to overlook the truth. As for fr. suarez , let us pray that he’s celebrity status won’t get into his mind. and that it will always be Christ-centered and not money-centered.
January 26th, 2008 at 1:19 am
‘Get up and go into Damascus,and there you will be told about everything appointed for you to do.’Acts 22:10
Friday January 25, Conversion of Saint Paul.
so nakikinig baga tayo?
There are so many ‘kababayans now’around the world,and like Fr.Fernando and the so many kababayans, lay people,doing their personal works/calling and joining communities and serving in a mission,helping not only kababayans but others too and the so many other kababayans now,praying, and calling all of us to do something especially for the good of our country,’so sana, we,or like St.Paul,we Filipinos really have to go to so many different parts of the world,and come back home, “oh what a blessing raelly!and be ‘healed and then start doing something too, “what was told them to do,”…and many,oh so many now,…and like Fr.Fernando around the world,… just look around and listen and pray too, as all of us can really or are being called too and be instruments too of HIS healing.So why not in our country?,’I myself and my family are here in Toronto and became a member of a community and met Fr.Fernando and here I am,doing also what I have to do too in some small ways,at bilang aking papuri at pasasalamat ay tulad ngayon ay ako’y makapag-share din .So ‘tayo na po,AHUNna! sa KRUS malaki ang ating matatamo at’ ‘talagang si JESUS ang pag-asa.’ Healing? marami at iba-iba,…para sa akin e eto,ako ay,…lumaya,nabuksan ang loob,lumakas at tumapang,…(ibang paglaya at tapang at lakas)… upang ipa-alam sa mundo at ibahagi ang mensahe tungo sa isang tunay na paghihilom na mula sa Kanya,para sa bayan lalo na,at pati na ang ‘physical healing na aking natatamo.’Isang bayan nga tayo na may patuloy na lumalagong pagmamahalan.”Patuloy tayong manalangin,magdasal at hingin ang kailangang biyaya sa araw araw.” At tumulong at sumuporta sa mga tutuo at tapat na gumagawa para sa kagalingan ng lahat,lalo na para sa mas maliliit at mas mahihirap.Maraming gawain,napakarami at gagaan kung tayo e sama-sama.
January 26th, 2008 at 12:46 am
hey listen to yourself . give the priest a break , he clearly said he’s not the healer , it’s Jesus . even medical doctors are not the healers , they too are only instruments. in the last analysis , it is still God who decides whether you will be healed.
January 25th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
That must be a super priest since even Jesus was not reported to have healed thousands, if ever he did.
There is (I hope it is still valid) a long standing award, as far as I remember 50.000 British Pounds, for anyone who shows healing somebody under the watch of scientists and camera footage. The patient, chosen by the scientists and unknon to the healer, must have a real medical history since some “healings have been just a cheat. There is no problem to play a deaf or lame and then jump up for being “healed”.
(It’s a bit like the ads of laundry powder companies that throw dirty cloths into a washing machine and then take out snow whitw cloths already ironed.)
It was never heard that any healer agreed to challenge that money.
Of course, there are some healings, esp. if the illness has mental reasons which even could one make lame after a psychological trauma. There is often a psychiatrist more helpful than medicines. Probably that is one reason why most healers refuse patients with visible problems so that the healing would immediately be seen. All the “operations” where a healer transforms a cancer into some rusty screws or a bundle of cotton are plain nonsense. A british variete “magician” showed already many years ago at TV such operation, even with plenty “blood” out of a simple chemical reaction of water and a colorless chemical at his fingers and the cotton.
January 25th, 2008 at 12:23 am
If that priest healed thousand by laying his hands on them, why he does not have a big hospital where he can go around and heal in minutes, no doctors needed? It could be very cheap.