Maximizing overall patient survival and providing quality of life to cancer patients are the utmost goals of cancer specialists. However, despite the most advanced technical facilities of the Cancer Institute and the professional expertise of its medical staff, doctors recognize that they are but instruments of healing. The Divine Healer, as the author of life, always has the final disposition. As the maxim goes, “Man proposes but God disposes.”
It was in this light that the healing Mass with Fr. Fernando Suarez was organized as one of the highlights of the Institute’s 20th anniversary celebration.
The Mass was scheduled at 3 PM, but the Trinity University of Asia gymnasium was already half-filled at 1:30 PM with patients, their relatives and friends. Although the place was warm and not big enough to accommodate the expected crowd, people kept coming. At 3 PM, the place was filled with 1,700 people. Fr. Suarez started the Mass and gave his homily. Upon listening to him, one can surmise that he is amiable and a man of prayer. He said that everyone present was there because God has wanted so. He pointed out that he was only an instrument of God and that his capacity to heal comes from Jesus who makes himself present in the Holy Mass. His virtues are reflected on his gestures and speech: his faith, humility, obedience, self-sacrificing love, and the passion to serve.
It was amazing to see that instead of praying over by rows or groups, Fr. Suarez did it individually. Moreover, it was surprising to witness patients falling on their backs whenever he would touch their head, chest, face or arms or other ailing body parts. Some men were ready to catch them before they fell flat on the wooden floor of the gymnasium. Many patients were healed during the Mass. A 50 year-old female, wheelchair-bound, due to breast cancer with bone metastasis, was able to stand up and walk without any support. A male patient about 52 years old who suffered left-sided hearing loss for ten years was able to hear clearly the voice of Fr. Suarez after he was blessed. A physician, who is a breast cancer survivor, was emotionally healed. She said that after she was touched lightly by Fr. Suarez on her forehead, she fell on the floor with her back and lost consciousness for some seconds. Upon coming to her senses, she knew that she gained a deep sense of peace of mind which she could no...
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