Thousands of Cebuanos attend "healing Mass"

CEBU, Philippines - Wherever he goes, a crowd follows. While this is the kind of treatment that’s generally reserved for a movie star, this is the reaction that well-known healing priest Father Fernando Suarez generates wherever his healing ministry leads him.

The attention can be disconcerting, Fr. Suarez told The FREEMAN upon his arrival yesterday as fellow passengers and some airport staff surrounded him and eagerly reached out to him.

 “You also get tired, but I always hope that I will not be able to disappoint them, that I’ll be pleasing and be exhibiting what God would do,” said Fr. Suarez, who was in town to preside the healing mass that commemorated the Basilica’s long-running tradition of “Ang Pagkanaug sa Birhen Sa Lourdes.” 

A soft-spoken and smiling man in his 40’s, Fr. Suarez never imagined he would get tagged as “healing priest.” Born to “a very simple, and poor family” in a small barrio in Batangas, Father Suarez’s father was a farmer, while his mother, a seamstress. He became a chemical engineer, and worked in an oil company for five years before he was ordained priest for the Canada-based religious order Companions of Christ at the age of 35.

Fr. Suarez said to have discovered this “gift” at the age of 16 when he encountered a paralyzed woman, whom he decided to pray over out of feeling sorry for her. To her great surprise, she walked right then and there, but Fr. Suarez was so shocked that he scampered away. 

He would eventually accept prayer requests from parishioners as a seminarian then later on as a priest. When they returned to him claiming they were healed, he asked them to keep it a secret, up until his spiritual director told him that his gift was not for himself, but for others.

Nowadays, his healing masses organized by Catholic communities here and abroad are always packed out. In his website, fatherfernando.com, hundreds have posted their testimonies—of being cured of cancer, paralysis, or other mysterious ailments.

Thousands also turned up at yesterday’s healing mass at the Basilica, as people with serious illnesses lined up as early as 3 p.m. in the hopes of being touched and healed by him. 

During the holy mass, he ordered the sick to rise from their wheelchair and walk. “Lakaw! Lakaw!” he said, as some tentatively rose, stood unaided and then walked—a scene that so electrified the audience that people were moved to tears, and applause erupted.  

But along with the popularity, his ministry also has had its share of skeptics and critics even among some members of the Catholic hierarchy. He was banned by a couple of bishops, most notably former Lingayen Archbishop Oscar Cruz, from holding healing masses in their dioceses.

That’s why the organizers led by The FREEMAN chairman Jose “Dodong” Gullas are very thankful that yesterday’s healing mass came with approval and support of Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal and the Basilica’s Augustinian priests headed by Fr. Rodolfo Bugna, OSA.

After this Cebu visit, Fr. Suarez will hold healing masses at Cuneta Astrodome and Cultural Center of the Philippines, among other locations, for the next two weeks before he leaves the country for healing masses in the US and Mexico. — Nathalie M. Tomada/WAB    (FREEMAN NEWS)