God started using him in a powerful way to reach out to people who were in need when he was 16. He met an old, sick woman near Quiapo Church and took pity on her. He asked the woman if they could pray together. They deeply prayed Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be. Lo and behold, when he opened his eyes, the woman got up and started to walk. Scared and confused to see her walking, the bewildered lad ran. He did not know what to make of it and did not talk much about it. He kept his “gift” a secret for 20 years.
This is the story that Fr. Fernando Suarez, CC ceaselessly shares on how he discovered that God was calling him to pray for people who are sick. At first, Fr. Edo (as he is fondly called) struggled to understand the gift God had given him but he believed the Lord gave him a special mission to accomplish here on earth. “I believe that helping the poor among us is a blessing, a privilege, and a grace from God. In each and every one of us, there is goodness and a sincere desire to help our less fortunate brothers and sisters,” Fr. Edo says.
Fr. Edo is an ordinary priest who has a special gift from God. There is a tinge of innocence about him. He projects an ordinariness that is both pleasant and endearing. His boyish looks do not easily reveal “what God has wrought” through him. His eyes have that child-like wonder.
Fr. Edo came from humble beginnings. He was born in Barrio Butong in Taal, Batangas in 1967. He grew up like most boys in his barrio. At an early age, he already knew how to earn a living. When he was 12, the young Fr. Edo rented out inflatables at Butong beach. He went to Manila and graduated from Adamson University with a Chemical Engineering degree.
But the call for priesthood or religious life persisted. It was by destiny that Fr. Edo’s healing ministry would bring him to many parts of the country and around the globe. In 1997, he joined the Companions of the Cross, a Catholic community of priests and seminarians founded by Rev. Robert Bedard in 1985 in Ottawa, Canada. Fr. Edo was ordained in 2002. “I was 35 and I am the only one who was assigned to go worldwide after ordination,” he says. His superiors recognized his God-given gift and set him free like a bird to reach out to the world. His gift of healing first became known abroad and only later in the Philippines.
Despite reaching a celebrity status, Fr. Edo remains a very simple man. He says, “Many things have been said and written about my special gift from God. I am humbled by this gift, my being made an instrument of His great love and mercy. It is not me who heals, it is Jesus, the Holy One, the Mighty One, the Immortal One that Heals!” He treats big shots and taipans with the same love that he shows the poor who flock to him. His healing ministry brings him to the homes of the high and mighty in society but he is also at home sitting on a lonely stretch of beach with the needy. But for Fr. Edo everyone is a child of God.
Fr. Edo is still awed by all the reported cures from his prayers and healing touch. He still does not know how he does it but he attributes it to the saving grace of God. A few years back, in Ottawa, Fr. Edo was asked by a parishioner to visit a dying woman one night. For some reason, he could not go right away so he visited her the next day. The woman was already dead when Fr. Edo came. He prayed over her and suddenly she opened her eyes. She came alive! Today, the woman is an active parishioner who gives testimonials of Fr. Edo’s healing touch and leads several Catholic pilgrimages.
Fr. Edo established Mary Mother of the Poor Foundation to help the poor and disadvantaged in the Philippines and abroad. Through Fr. Edo’s efforts, a shrine dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Poor, will soon rise on the gentle slopes of Batangas City. The shrine will be called MonteMaria which will become a haven for pilgrims and a place of prayer. MonteMaria will be to Asia what Lourdes is to France, Fatima to Portugal and Medjugorje to Bosnia. Is it only a coincidence that Batangas becomes a Marian base where Mama Mary makes her presence felt and distributes her plentiful blessings to her children? The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared in 1948 to Carmelite novice Teresita Castillo in Lipa and called herself Mary, the Mediatrix of All Grace. It was reported that the apparition of the Virgin Mary was standing on a cloud, dressed in white with a golden rosary in her hand.
MonteMaria overlooks the azure waters of Batangas Bay and the Verde Island Passage which has been declared the center of marine biodiversity in the world by the United Nations. MonteMaria is 18 kilometers south of Batangas City proper. Architect Nestor Mangio is leading the team of designers in planning the sprawling healing center. The place is planned on a 20-hectare property where the tallest statue of Mama Mary will be built. The statue is said to be taller than the Statue of Liberty in New York and Christ the Redeemer in Brazil. MonteMaria will have chapels, prayer gardens, Stations of the Cross, retreat houses, campsites, lodging houses which are meant to draw pilgrims who want to renew their faith.
Thank you Fr. Edo!