Father Fernando Suarez
Catholic Ping
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Posted on 01/03/2008 6:11:30 AM PST by NYer
MANILA, Philippines -- He could not believe his healing power. He wanted to run away from it.
A Canadian woman declared dead eight hours earlier, her organs ready to be harvested and donated, suddenly opened her eyes after Filipino priest Fr. Fernando Suarez prayed over her.
Suarez, who was then a seminarian, was stunned. “Let me out of here,” was all he could say, ready to flee.
He was supposed to go and see the woman earlier but he was not able to make it in time. When he arrived at the Ottawa Civic Hospital in Canada, it seemed too late. But Suarez went to see her anyway and, surrounded by doctors whom he requested to be present, he prayed over the woman.
The miracle happened.
The woman is now well, Suarez says, and has resumed her normal life.
That case, which happened almost nine years ago, is probably the most stunning of all, but Suarez continues to amaze, baffle and bring hope and joy through his ministry that has seen the healing of countless sick and infirm in many parts of the world, including the Philippines.
“It is not me,” he says casually. He is convinced that he is just a channel for God’s healing power.
The soft-spoken Suarez, a 2007 TOYM (The Outstanding Young Men) awardee for religious service, projects an ordinariness that is both pleasant and endearing. His boyish looks do not easily reveal “what God has wrought” through him. He does not have an electrifying aura nor does he shriek and shout to slay evil elements like some Bible-thumping televangelists do. Suarez goes about it gently, in his own soothing way, touching, praying over people, pleading for healing. And because he wants everything centered in the Eucharist, he always begins with a Holy Mass.
Like in the Bible
Miraculous healing continues to happen. People who have been assisting him for some time have witnessed the impossible.
Businessman Greg Monteclaro of Couples for Christ-Gawad Kalinga has seen it all. “Except the raising of the dead,” he says. “But the deaf hear, the blind see, the lame walk -- all that is told in the Bible -- I have seen it happen.”
In Bulacan, Monteclaro narrates, there was this young boy who was born with practically no bones. “He was soft -- like jellyfish. I was holding him in my arms when Father Suarez prayed over him. I myself felt the bones grow inside the boy’s body and suddenly there he was --walking.”
How does one explain that?
“My own problem here is that I have seen so many miracles, it has become so common to me,” Monteclaro says.
Not that he is complaining.
Journalist and documentarist Bernardo Lopez has his own share of miracle stories to tell and he continues to use his video camera to capture moments that he hopes would convince many of what God is doing through Suarez. He has avidly followed the priest and has uploaded images on YouTube which have been getting thousands of hits.
Boy from Butong
Born in 1967 (he turns 41 in February) in Barrio Butong in Taal, Batangas, Suarez grew up like most boys. (Taal’s antique basilica is touted as the biggest in the Far East. It is also known for the miraculous Virgin of Caysasay.)
His father, Cervando, drove a tricycle and his mother, the former Azucena Mortel, was a seamstress. The eldest of four children (he has a sister and two brothers), he attended public schools.
“We weren’t a particularly religious family,” he says. “Our family attended Mass maybe three times a year.”
At an early age, Suarez already knew how to earn a living. At 12 he rented out inflatables at Butong beach.
Healing at 16
Something happened when Suarez was 16. He came upon a paralyzed woman and took pity on her. “Naawa lang ako (I took pity on her).” He found himself praying over her and suddenly the woman was walking. He did not know what to make of it and did not talk about it much. It must have been discomfiting to a lad his age. Looking back, it all seemed so natural. But at that time, announcing it to the world was far from Suarez’s mind.
What was beginning to concern him was the call to the priesthood or religious life. “I didn’t respond. I didn’t know a priest.” How, where, when? He was waiting for cues and signs, but until they came, he just lived one day at a time, pursuing what needed to be done. He kept the call to himself, nurtured it “until lumago (it flourished).”
Going to the seminary was not an immediate option. Suarez went to Manila and graduated with a chemical engineering degree at Adamson University which is run by the Vincentian Fathers.
Mary appears
After college, Suarez entered the Franciscan Order (Conventuals). “After one-and-a-half years, I left. Then I joined the SVD (Society of the Divine Word) but I was asked to leave after six months.”
It was there, at the SVD Christ the King Seminary that, Suarez says, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to him. “She told me that I would go to a far away place which was cold and windy, and there proclaim the word of God.”
Suarez was in his late 20s when he met a French-Canadian student and tourist named Mark Morin who invited him to Canada and even paid for his fare. They could have been partners in a business venture but Suarez wanted to pursue the priesthood. That was 1996.
He again tried the Diocese of Winnipeg to study as a diocesan priest but again, it did not work out and he was made to leave.
“I was an expensive venture, they said,” he says, chuckling. “They’d have to spend four-and-a-half years on me.” They preferred already ordained Filipino diocesan priests who were seeking a life abroad.
Companions of the Cross
And then he met priests of the Companions of the Cross (a Canadian congregation founded in the 1980s) and here he has stayed since. Because he had had previous religious formation and studies in philosophy and theology, it did not take long for Suarez to be ordained.
“I was ordained in 2002 when I was 35,” he says, “and I am the only one who was assigned to go worldwide soon after ordination.”
His superiors were aware of and recognized his gift and set him free to reach out to the world.
“I was nonchalant about all these. There was no pressure. I acted upon obedience and not on what I wanted. Remember, I had kept this gift for 20 years,” he says.
Abroad
Suarez’s gift of healing first became known abroad and only later in the Philippines. He has visited many countries, some of them poor, like Uganda where he walked among refugees, orphans, people sick with AIDS, malaria and yellow fever and afflicted with evil spirits.
Fr. Jeff Shannon, who accompanies Suarez on his trips, recalls their bout with restless orphaned girls in Uganda.
“As they approached us for prayer after the Mass, they rested in the Spirit for hours, then cried, wailed and screamed as the Holy Spirit moved in to free and to heal [them]. After three hours of struggle they were delivered and they became as peaceful as doves, full of love. As they sang and danced their way back to their residence, they witnessed their dormitory light up inside, even though it was late at night and there was no electricity. One girl was healed of blindness.”
Miracle stories are recorded in the newsletter of Mary Mother or the Poor-Healing Ministry, a foundation Suarez established to help the suffering poor.
Mary Mother of the Poor
Eight years ago, while praying, Suarez had a vision where he saw Jesus pouring on graces upon him. He also saw poor children asking for help. He couldn’t understand the vision’s meaning at that time.
During a visit to the Philippines some years ago, 10 poor children approached him to ask for support for their studies. Suarez sent them money and as time went by, more support came from friends who shared his vision. Support came from Austria, Canada, USA, Germany, Japan, Italy, England, Switzerland, Uganda and the Philippines. This gave rise to the Mary Mother of the Poor Foundation (MMP) which aims to help the poor through better shelter, counseling and other programs, by coordinating with health and social services in order to help the sick and the aging, by teaching the tenets of the Catholic faith and by providing programs to help the youth become good citizens.
As high as Statue of Liberty
Soon to become the center of Suarez’s healing ministry is Montemaria (Matuko Point) in the outskirts of Batangas City. Set on a hill on 20 hectares of land, the center of the Oratory of the Blessed Virgin at Montemaria will have chapels, prayer gardens, Stations of the Cross, retreat houses, campsites, lodging houses, a center for the poor and even a replica of Mary house in Ephesus (ancient city in Turkey). The place is meant to draw pilgrims who want to renew their faith.
The Montemaria centerpiece is the 33-story-high statue of Mary Mother of the Poor which will be about as high as the Statue of Liberty and higher than Christ the Redeemer of Brazil. It will face the sea between Batangas and Mindoro, known to be one of the world’s richest in marine biodiversity.
The scale model was unveiled last August with Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales and Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles in attendance.
There are claims that the stones on Montemaria have caused healing for the sick and people have started going to the place to find out for themselves.
40-hour-vigil Jan. 11-13
Nestor Mangio, one of the architects and an avid supporter of Suarez, says the oratory is scheduled to be finished in September 2008. The project is not wanting in donors. In July, the Companions of the Cross, the congregation to which Suarez belongs, will put up a foundation in the Philippines.
A 40-hour vigil is scheduled from Jan. 11-13 and pilgrims are expected to come in droves. Suarez will be there.
And how does the healing priest relax? “I do sports, I love nature, I love talking to people. I read the spiritual classics -- St. Augustine, Francis de Sales. I also like Thomas Merton,” he says.
Has the surge of the crowds affected him? “Wala sa akin ’yun. (That’s nothing to me.)” He thinks people can easily approach him because “I am not threatening.” After Mass, he says, he prays and “this saves me.”
“I would like to think that after I’ve passed through this world, I’d have made a dent.”
For now, the words of Jesus to the suffering are enough to inspire him. “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28).
(For more info visit www.fatherfernando.com or www.montemariashrine.com.)
Quick, where’s the Benny Hinn with a cleric collar pic?
Eat your heart out, Oral Roberts.
Catholic Ping
Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
I am Catholic but the claimed miracles were always a bit of a stretch for me to believe. Why isn’t it enough simply to believe in a higher power?
I think I read about her only she woke up in the bath tub of her Las Vegas hotel room to find someone had stolen one of her kidneys.......
By any account, miracles, signs, and wonders were originally intended to provide proof of the power of God, Jesus, or a prophet/disciple. The only way they could serve as proof would be for them to be visible.
I’m not a believer in miracle (or Christian for that matter), but an old friend of mine was a Christian scholar and teacher, and he argued that biblical miracles were real and modern miracles weren’t.
This is a bunch of garbage.
but people want to believe what makes them feel good ... why be a wet blanket to the fantasy party ... .
This is a bunch of garbage.
but people want to believe what makes them feel good ... why be a wet blanket to the fantasy party ... .
Clearly anointed.
...because if you read the bible Jesus left us with the ability to heal, cast out demons, bring salvation...
How interesting. May God bless Father Suarez and all he meets.
I’m astonished that there seem to be so many people who don’t want others to experience healing.
For many it is, but you’ll never get everyone to agree on one thing.
Miracles like the Virgin Birth, the Eucharist, the Resurrection, the Ascension? Um, the Episcopal Church welcomes you ...
It’s certainly convenient for biblical miracles to be genuine, while modern ones aren’t.
sw
I agree that they are possible, but have they really happened?
. Christ himself drew the people to him through his reputation as a healer; his healing was taken as the principle sign of the authority of his words. Christianity spread quickly through the Mediterranean world in part through the healing powers of the Church’s ministers. One can read about the beginnings of this in the book of Acts. Physical and spiritual healings are closely related.
I found one doing reseach for a newsletter.This one is well documented.
http://www.clairval.com/lettres/en/2006/12/08/2061206.htm
The miracle that we are going to relate happened well before Renan’s time. It is not a dream, or a fable, but a fact, established with all its circumstances through irrefutable historical evidence. This event categorically refutes Renan’s claim... By a strange anomaly, it remained almost unknown outside of Spain for close to three centuries. The beneficiary, Miguel Juan Pellicer, is fully known thanks to a great deal of information preserved in the archives of the parish in Calanda (in the province of Aragon, in the north of Spain), which a courageous person protected from the pillage and destruction during the civil war in 1936.
Miguel Juan Pellicer received Baptism on March 25, 1617. He was the second of eight children of poor farmers who led a virtuous life. The only instruction the child received was catechism. This basic religious formation planted in him a simple and solid Catholic faith, based on regular reception of the sacraments and an ardent and filial devotion to the Virgin Mary, venerated in Zaragoza under the title of «Nuestra Señora del Pilar» (Our Lady of the Pillar), the Patroness of Spain. Around the age of nineteen or twenty, Miguel took a job as a farm worker for a maternal uncle, in the province of Valencia. At the end of July 1637, as he was leading two mules hauling a cart filled with wheat to the farm, he fell from the harness. One of the wheels of the cart passed over his leg, below the knee, fracturing his tibia.
His uncle Jaime immediately transported the wounded man to the neighboring small city of Valencia, about sixty kilometers away, where they arrived on August 3rd. Miguel stayed there five days, during which he received various treatments but to no effect. He then returned to Zaragoza, arriving in the first days of October 1637. Weak and feverish, he was admitted to the Real Hospital de Gracia, where he was examined by Juan de Estanga, a professor at the University of Zaragoza, the head of the surgical department, and by two master surgeons, Diego Millaruelo and Miguel Beltran. These medical practitioners, having observed advanced gangrene in his leg, concluded that amputation was the only way to save the patient’s life. When they provided testimony before the judges, these doctors would describe the leg as «very phlegmonous and gangrenous,» to the point of appearing «black.» Around mid-October, Estanga and Millaruelo performed the operation, cutting the right leg «four fingers below the knee.» Although they had made the patient drowsy with alcoholic and drugged drinks, as was the practice at the time, Miguel suffered excruciating pain: «In his torment,» the witnesses would later say, «the young man called upon the Virgin of the Pillar, unceasingly and with great fervor.» A surgery student by the name of Juan Lorenzo García, was given responsibility for recovering the amputated leg and burying it in a dignified fashion in a part of the hospital cemetery reserved for this practice. At this time of faith, respect for the body destined for resurrection dictated that even anatomical remains be treated with piety. García would later testify that he had buried the piece of leg horizontally, «in a hole as deep as a span,» that is twenty-one centimeters (approximately 8 inches), according to the Aragonian measure.
The Virgin’s power
After a hospital stay of several months, even before his wound was completely healed, Miguel went to the sanctuary of «the Pillar,» about a kilometer away, and thanked the Virgin «for having saved his life, so that he might continue to serve Her and show Her his devotion.» He then begged Her to obtain for him «the ability to live from his work.» In the spring of 1638, the hospital administration provided him with a wooden leg and a crutch. The young man had no other way to survive than to make himself pordiosero, that is a beggar authorized by the chapter of canons at the sanctuary of «the Pillar.» Zaragoza at that time numbered twenty-five thousand inhabitants, most of whom went to «greet the Virgin» every day. The suffering face of this young cripple drew the attention of these countless visitors, whose charity he solicited. Miguel attended Holy Mass every day in the sanctuary; at the end of each Mass, he would smear his stump with oil from the lamps that burned constantly before the statue of Our Lady of the Pillar. It did no good for Professor Estanga to explain to him that rubbing the wound with oil would make his wound heal more slowly. Miguel continued his gesture of devotion—this act of faith in the Virgin’s power took precedence, for him, over rules of good health.
At the beginning of 1640, Miguel returned to the place of his birth. He arrived in Calanda in March, mounted on a small donkey. His journey of about 120 kilometers had exhausted him, but his parents’ affectionate welcome restored his strength. Miguel was about to turn 23. Unable to help his family by his work, he went back to begging for alms. Many people testified that they had seen the young amputee in the villages surrounding Calanda, mounted on a little donkey, his cut off leg conspicuous, to call upon the inhabitants’ charity. On March 29, 1640, the region celebrated the 1600th anniversary of the Virgin Mary’s «coming in the mortal flesh» to the banks of the Ebro, according to the belief of the people of the area. This is the origin of the Spaniards’ ancient veneration of the Virgin of the Pillar. Around the same time, a book called The Augustinus by Bishop Cornelius Jansen was published in Louvain, Flanders, at that time part of the Spanish empire. The author’s notorious and eponymous doctrine, Jansenism, rejects Marian devotion, popular piety, pilgrimages, processions, and popular interest in miracles as unworthy of pure faith...
That Thursday, March 29th, Miguel did his utmost to help his family fill baskets of manure loaded on a little donkey. He filled nine baskets in a row, in spite of the trouble he had standing on his wooden leg. When evening came, he returned home, exhausted, his stump sorer than usual. That night, the Pellicer family was forced, by order of the government, to put up one of the Royal Cavalry’s soldiers who was marching toward the border to push back the French troops. Miguel had to give him his bed, and slept on a mattress on the ground in his parents’ room. He stretched out on it around ten o’clock. Having taken off his wooden leg, he stretched a cloak over himself that was too short to cover his whole body, because he had lent his blanket to the soldier. He then fell asleep...
Two feet and two legs
Between ten-thirty and eleven o’clock, Miguel’s mother entered the room with an oil lamp in her hand. She immediately smelled «a perfume, a sweet smell.» Intrigued, she raised her lamp — two feet were sticking out, «one over the other, crossed» from under the cloak covering her son, who was fast asleep. Stunned, she went to get her husband, who lifted the cloak. No doubt about it, there were indeed two feet, each at the end of a leg! They managed with some difficulty to wake up their son. Gradually becoming aware of what had happened, Miguel was amazed. The first words that came to his lips were to ask his father to «take his hand, and forgive him for the transgressions he had committed against him.» This spontaneous and immediate reaction of humility in this person who was the beneficiary of a miracle, is a very strong sign of the divine origin of this wonder. When asked, in a voice full of emotion, if he had «any idea how this had happened,» the young man replied that he knew nothing about it, but when he had been awakened from his sleep, «he had been in the middle of a dream that he was in the Holy Chapel of Our Lady of the Pillar and that he was rubbing his amputated leg with oil from the lamp, as he had the custom of doing.» He was immediately sure that Our Lady of the Pillar had brought back his cut-off leg and put it into place. The following Monday, his parents each in their turn affirmed before the notary that they «thought and regarded as truth that the Most Holy Virgin of the Pillar had asked her Son, our Redeemer, and had obtained this miracle from God, because of Miguel’s prayers, or because such were His mysterious ways.» These Christians clearly saw that the Virgin does not «do» miracles, but that, through her supplication, she obtains them from the Most Holy Trinity. As loved and venerated as she is, the Virgin is not like a pagan goddess, but rather an intermediary between us and her Son, in keeping with the maternal role her Son Himself bestowed on her when He told Saint John, Behold, your mother! (Jn 19:27).
When he had gotten over his initial shock, the young man began to move and feel his leg. Upon observation, marks of authenticity were discovered on it. The first of these was the scar left by the cart wheel that had fractured the tibia. There was also the mark of the excision of a large cyst when Miguel was a boy; two deep scratches left by a thorny plant; and the marks of a dog bite on his calf. Miguel and his parents were therefore certain that «the Virgin of the Pillar had obtained from God Our Lord the leg that had been buried more than two years before.» They swore this unhesitatingly and under oath before the judges of Zaragoza. A newspaper of the time, l’Aviso Histórico, wrote on June 4, 1640, the day before the opening of the proceedings, that, in spite of searches of the hospital cemetery in Zaragoza, the buried leg had not been found—the hole that had contained it was empty!
Everyone was dumbfounded
From dawn on March 30, Friday of Passion Week, at that time the feast of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows, the incredible news spread throughout the little market village. Don Juseppe Herrero, the parish vicar, arrived at the Pellicer home, followed by the justicia, who combined the functions of justice of the peace and person responsible for public order, the mayor and his assistant, the royal notary, and two doctors of Calanda. A procession formed to accompany the young man who had been miraculously cured to the parish church, where the rest of the inhabitants were waiting for him. According to the documents, everyone was dumbfounded to see him again with his right leg, since they had seen him with only one leg up till the night before. The young man went to confession and received Holy Communion during the Mass of thanksgiving celebrated by the vicar.
However, the leg did not look good at first—it was a purplish-blue color, the toes were bent, the muscles atrophied, and above all, it was shorter than the left leg by several centimeters. It would be three days before the leg took on its normal appearance, with its flexibility and strength. These circumstances, carefully observed and studied during the proceedings, confirm that this was not an illusionist act—they prove that the restored leg was indeed the same one that had been buried two years and five months before, more than 100 km away... That June, witnesses asserted before the judges in Zaragoza that Miguel could «press his heel on the ground, move his toes, run without difficulty.» Moreover, they stated that since the end of March, the recovered limb had «grown almost three fingers longer,» and that it was currently as long as the other. Only one mark had not disappeared—the scar that formed a red circle in the place where the segment of leg had been rejoined to the other. This was as an indelible sign of the miracle.
«A miracle must therefore be certified by a great number of very sensible persons who have no interest in the matter,» Voltaire affirmed. «And their testimonies must be recorded in good and due form; indeed, if we require such formalities for actions such as the purchase of a house, a contract of marriage, or a will, how much more necessary are they to verify things which are naturally impossible?» («Miracle» article from his Philosophical Dictionary). But one hundred and twenty years before, precisely such an act had taken place in Calanda. On Monday, April 1, 1640, the fourth day after the miracle, the parish priest and a vicar from Mazaleón, a small market village 50 km away, traveled with the royal notary of the area to verify the truth of the events and draw up an official record of them.
Not one conflicting voice
At the end of that April, the Pellicer family decided to go thank the Virgin of the Pillar. In Zaragoza, the council asked for a trial to be opened, so that all light might be shed on the event. On June 5, two months and a week after the event, the canonical process was officially opened. It was open to the public. More than one hundred people of all classes took part in it. Despite the rigor of this process, not one conflicting voice was ever heard. On April 27, 1641, the archbishop solemnly rendered his verdict. He declared the restitution of the formerly amputated right leg of Miguel Juan Pellicer, originally from Calanda, «wonderful and miraculous.»
One may apply to every genuine miracle the words Saint Augustine spoke of Christ’s miracles: «The miracles performed by Our Lord Jesus Christ are divine works that teach human intelligence to rise above visible things to understand what God is.» Pope John Paul II comments, «We can connect this idea to the reaffirmation of the close link that exists between the ‘miracles and signs’ performed by Jesus and the call to faith. In fact, such miracles prove the existence of the supernatural order, which is an object of faith. They lead those who observe them, and especially those who have personally experienced them, to observe, just as if they had touched it with their finger, that the natural order does not represent all of reality. The universe man lives in is not entirely enclosed within the order of things perceptible to the senses, or even to the intelligence, which is conditioned by perceptible knowledge. The miracle is the ‘sign’ that this order is superseded by the power from on high, and that it is also subject to this power. This power from on high (cf. Lk 24:49), that is, God Himself, is above the order of all of nature. It determines this order and, at the same time, through it and above it, this power tells us that man’s destiny is the Kingdom of God. The miracles Christ performed are ‘signs’ of this Kingdom... After the Resurrection, the Ascension, and Pentecost, ‘miracles and signs’ performed by Christ ‘continued’ through the apostles and then through the saints that follow one another from generation to generation» (GA, January 13, 1988).
The miracle of Calanda, unimaginable and yet perfectly verified, should strengthen our faith in the existence of an invisible world, that of God and His eternal Kingdom, in which we are called to participate as adoptive children. It is the supreme and eternal reality in relation to which we must consider everything else, as a prudent man orders the means to the end. Above all, miracles reveal to us God’s love and mercy for mankind, especially for those who are suffering or in need, those begging for healing, forgiveness, and mercy. Miracles help root us in an indestructible hope in God’s mercy and inspire us to say often, «Jesus, I trust in You!»
Dom Antoine Marie osb.
Indeed! He even said we would do greater miracles than he did, however we must be ever vigilant, because Satan also has the power to perform miracles: as God gave the word to John:
And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. Rev 13:14
I smell bias here on FR.
Nothing new here. You can not always buy it but it always costs you something.
I’m going to spend a little more time looking online later today. I still can’t call that account conclusive, but I’m also not calling the priests who have studied it liars.
Ping!
ditto
Maybe the poster meant only the other miracles, in which case he might try another denomination.
Not to nit pick but if the woman was already dead her organs would be no good for harvesting. If they were waiting to harvest her organs she wasn’t dead yet.
For believers, no proof is necessary; for doubters, no proof is sufficient.
"Confidence in God is the very soul of prayer and becomes the condition for supernatural intervention in our lives. God condescends to use our powers if we don't spoil his plans by ours."
Venerable Fr. Solanus Casey 1870-1957
I know what you are saying.I did find a atheist site where they pick it apart but not that well.I think the part of this story that makes it so believable is the soldier.They had to open the doors for him.It was the law.The soldier as an eye witness really adds to the story for me.I like this account too.
http://www.tracce.it/arch98/NOV98/ingl11/38in.htm
Miracles / Messori’s new book
Between ten thirty and eleven
On the great “milagro” of Calanda. With the author at the Sanctuary of the Virgen del Pilar, in Spain, where the apostle James “saw” the Virgin Mary. And in the house of Miguel Juan, where on 29 March 1640...
by MARCO BERCHI
“We affirm and declare that to Miguel Juan Pellicer, peasant of Calanda, was restored the leg that had been cut off two years and five months earlier; and that this was not an act of nature, but a marvelous and miraculous work, obtained by the intercession of the Virgen del Pilar.”
It was 27 April 1641 when, at the end of a very rigorous canonization trial in which dozens of witnesses were interrogated, the archbishop of Saragossa, Don Pedro Apaolaza Ramirez placed his signature and seal below these words, decreeing that “it must be judged and considered to be a miracle, as it fulfills all the conditions required by Law.”
More than three centuries later, Tracce is here in Saragossa to review the event of the “gran milagro,” an event that is at the heart of Vittorio Messori’s latest book (Il miracolo, Rizzoli, Lire 28,000), who rediscovered, investigated, and described it with the approach of a reporter and the critical rigor of the historian. Messori himself, in the chapter house of the basilica of the Pilar, with the dean of the chapter Antero Hombria and the archivist Don Tomas Domingo Pérez (responsible for the most rigorous historical investigation of the milagro), shows us the trial proceedings and the original document of the Archbishop’s sentence. Did the “miracle of miracles” truly occur here, the event that, going well beyond the inexplicable healings experienced, for example, at Lourdes, demonstrates in such an astounding and overwhelming way the intervention of God’s power invoked through the intercession of Mary?
The event
The author has no doubt: “I was more than skeptical,” he explains, “when, in the course of my long study of Marian devotion, I came across the first very vague ‘rumors’ about the miracle of Calanda. Even the great Mariologist René Laurentin had only vaguely heard about it. This was once more reason to consider it pure legend. Thus, like the reporter that I am and always will be, I came here a number of times. And I discovered that the fact is documented in a way to satisfy even the most skeptical and rigorous historian. This makes even more surprising (but, as I show in the book, explainable) the silence that, outside Spain, has descended on it for centuries.” Miguel Juan Pellicer, the protagonist of our story, was baptized on 25 March 1617 in the parish of Calanda, a small hamlet in sunlit, lunar Aragona. Between 19 and 20 years of age, he left his family and moved near Valencia to work as a farmhand at his uncle’s house. One day at the end of July 1637, while he was driving a cart, the young man fell off one of the mules, and a wheel of the cart ran over his right leg, under the knee, fracturing it. Messori’s book, with precise, rigorous documentation, reconstructs the young man’s story, his stay in the hospital at Saragossa, and the treatments given him by the doctors. He reports in detail the testimony of the head physician, Prof. Juan de Estanga, who during the trial described minute by minute the operation of amputation “four fingers below the knee.” Miguel Juan did not return immediately to Calanda, where he would have been a burden on his very poor family. Granted a “license,” he was authorized to beg in front of the sanctuary of the Pilar, leaning on his pierna de palo, the wooden leg furnished him by the hospital just like the beggar who held his hand out to me today, three centuries later.
The reader who wishes to go more deeply into this and other basic details of the extraordinary event will find in the book documentation of the devotion of Miguel Juan (and all the people in this land) to the Virgen del Pilar, a profile of the young man and his family, names, dates, events, concurring facts, up to that day in March (sometime between the 4th and the 11th) 1640 when Miguel Juan finally returned home, to Calanda.
29 March 1640
It is evening, and in the Pellicer house, besides Miguel Juan, around the fire are gathered six people: his parents, a young apprentice, a neighbor couple, and a soldier who belongs to a small group of military men on their way to the Pyrenees front and that the municipal administration has billeted for the night in various houses in the town.
The hospitality extended to the soldier means that Miguel has to sleep on an improvised cot at the foot of his parents’ bed. Here he retires a little after nine o’clock, tired after spending the day loading (”nine times”) manure onto a little donkey belonging to his father.
Messori writes: “Between ten thirty and eleven his mother.... comes into the room... lifts the lamp and moves toward the cot... She notes that he is sleeping deeply. But she also sees, thinking she is mistaken in that uncertain light, that sticking out from under the cloak, used as a blanket but too short, is not one foot, but two... The woman thinks that the place prepared for her son has been taken, by mistake, by the soldier. She thus calls her husband, who was still in the kitchen, to come clear up the situation. The man comes running, moves the cloak aside, and discovers the impossible: the sleeping man is really his son, Miguel Juan.” Two years and five months have passed since the amputation. Just two days later, a royal notary (not a churchman), coming from nearby Mazaleón, prepared an official affidavit, questioning just hours after the event the eyewitnesses and those who that evening had seen Miguel Juan with only one leg and then a few hours later saw him with two. In the Saragossa city hall Tracce was able to view the original copy of that sworn affidavit. Here is a passage from it: “And the notary Dr. Marco Seguer saw that the above named youth had two legs and that he had some signs of what had happened, so that on the tibia was the mark of where the wheel had passed over it... and on his calf, when the said youth had been a child, a dog had bitten him and the marks the dog left with his teeth could be recognized. And above the ankle bone, on the inside, could be recognized that when he was little he had had a cyst removed and it still showed the marks of where the cyst had been.”
Miguel Juan Pellicer found miraculously reattached not “a leg,” but his right leg that, two years and five months earlier, had been buried in the cemetery of the hospital in Saragossa. It is el gran milagro de Calanda.
The place
But, if the fact is true and documented, why has not tiny Calanda (3,600 inhabitants and only one hotel), known to now only for being the birthplace of Luis Buñuel, become a Lourdes, a Fatima, a San Giovanni Rotondo? The alcade, the mayor, Antonio Borrás, and Don Gonzalo Gonzalvo, 44 years old and parish priest here for the last five, explain: Calanda and its miracle exist because the Pilar exists. That is the sacred place, that the center of everything.
The tradition of the Pilar, observed by all hispanidad, affirms that the apostle James (the “Greater”), discouraged by the disappointing results of his preaching in Caesarea Augusta (known today as Saragossa) was about to return disconsolate to Palestine when, on 2 January 1640, the night sky lit up and there appeared a host of angels who, carrying on a column the Virgin Mary, stuck the granite column into the ground. It was not an apparition, then, but a “coming” (which took place chronologically long before Mary’s Assumption into Heaven), unique in the history of Christianity, just as this column is unique, the Pilar, topped by a small statue of the Virgin and Child, which we see in the stupendous chapel enclosed within the immense basilica.
Eight million pilgrims pass through here every year. And it was to this place, the Pilar, that Miguel Juan turned in his daily prayers, the prayers of a humble peasant of Aragona, it is in front of the Pilar that he pleads, a poor lame man, it is the Virgin about whom he dreamed (as he said in his trial) that evening of 29 March, it is to the little chapel dedicated to the Virgin which was located and is still located in Calanda that the whole town ran the morning of 30 March 1640, surrounding Miguel who walked there on two legs.
Covering the few hundred meters that separate that chapel in Calanda from the church (naturally dedicated to the Virgin) which now stands on the spot where stood the house of the Pellicer family, the archivist of the chapter of Saragossa, Don Tomás Domingo and the parish priest of Calanda, Don Gonzalo, explain: “The devotion of the people, very strong then as now, has been and is solidified by the miracle of Calanda, but it how can one say? has been and is naturally inserted into the wider context of Marian devotion. It is probably for this reason that such a great marvel has not captured the spotlight more than it has.”
Beyond any doubt
Vittorio Messori, while we stop in front of the side chapel that occupies the exact space of the bedroom of the Pellicers, adds: “The richness of the documentation on Calanda can stand up to any critical examination. Very few historical events are supported by a documentary foundation of this kind. I have always thought that God, in miraculous events, has deliberately wanted to leave enough light for those who want to believe and enough darkness for those who want to doubt. How can you distinguish with absolute certainty a temporary improvement from a definitive and instantaneous healing? An amputated leg, however, is a completely different thing. Emile Zola, at Lourdes, observed mockingly: ‘I see lots of crutches but no wooden legs.’ Well, here in Calanda we have a leg reattached in front of a notary... I have not managed to find even one element that could give a minimum of credibility to the negation of this miracle.” “In the end, the Christian is the true ‘free thinker,’” adds Messori as he observes the fresco in the church in Calanda showing the angels and the Virgin next to Miguel Juan. “The believer bases his faith on the Revelation of Christ, and the Church does not obligate him to believe in miracles. Because of this, his reason is open to the mystery and to the investigation of the traces it leaves on us. On the contrary, the unbeliever is forced to deny always and in every case, otherwise his ‘unreligious faith’ collapses.” “Certainly,” comments Don Tomás Domingo Pérez, “even when, after a meticulous verification like the one that took place here, the ecclesiastical authorities declare that a prodigious event is authentic, it does not intend at all to force its children to believe.”
The oblivion in which this event has remained constitutes, according to Messori, further proof of its authenticity. A reason is its connection with devotion to the Pilar, as said above, but also because el gran milagro was never instrumentalized by the political powers (which could have used it as a real “lethal weapon” of propaganda, involved as they were in the bloody war with equally Catholic France) nor by the Church. “Rather,” Messori recalls, “Archbishop De Apaolaza, by ratifying the miracle, did a great ‘favor’ to the chapter of the Pilar, in ecclesiastical controversies historically the enemy of the Archbishop’s See.”
The folksingers
The shadow of evening falls. A group of members of the parish in Calanda improvises for us some lines from the romance of Miguel Pellicer, a romance that has come down to us from the Pilar, transmitted by the blind men who act as folksingers in the town squares of Spain: “Los milagros de esta Virgen non se puede numerar porque son muchos y grandes, solo uno voy a cantar. Miguel Pellicer, vecino de Calanda, tenía una pierna muerta y enterrada. Dos años y cinco meses, cosa cierta y aprobada, por medicos cirujanos que la tenía cortada. A esta Reina Madre con todo fervor rezadle una Salve y un Credo al Señor.”
[The miracles of the Virgin cannot be counted, so many and great are they. Just one will I sing. Miguel Pellicer, peasant of Calanda, had a leg that was dead and buried. Two years and five months, a certain and proven fact, by the surgeons who cut it off. To the Queen Mother (the Virgin Mary) he prayed a Salve and a Credo.]
Matthew 21:21 And Jesus answered and said to them, "Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' it will happen.
Mark 9:23 And Jesus said to him, "'If You can?' All things are possible to him who believes."
Mark 11:23 "Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him.
Luke 17:6 And the Lord said, "If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and be planted in the sea'; and it would obey you.
John 11:40 Jesus said to her, "Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?"
Bless you, NYer, for again providing information that will help countless needy persons who believe and trust that Our Lord has provided those here on earth still performing miracles and doing His will.
I have a dear friend in the Philipines. I’ll ask her about him.
It SOUNDS LIKE God may be using him in dramatic ways. If so, PRAISE GOD.
MANY TIMES IN LIFE, GOD USES VERY FLAWED PEOPLE IN VERY FLAWED SYSTEMS. After all, he appears to use the very unlikely vessel Benny Hinn to heal folks, as well.
We do know from Scripture that counterfeits will arise in the END TIMES and do mighty micracles deceiving people that they are from God.
It does not APPEAR TO ME that this priest is a counterfeit. He sounds rather authentic with an authentic anointing.
The very flawed Marian stuff may be something God is overlooking as a result of poor teaching and choosing to work through him and bless people anyway. I think it’s very sad and unfortunate that Her name is plastered on the organization instead of Jesus’ Name. I suspect she feels the same way, if she’s aware of it at all.
No, I didn’t think Oral Roberts should have plastered his name all over his univ etc. either. But God seemed to deal with it according to God’s priorities, not mine. However, we can see that arrogance has plagued the organization in recent years quite destructively.
IF this is an authentic servant of God operating in an authentic anointing, then you can be sure that in his heart and mind and spirit, Mary is NOT given a usurping place beyond her historical station and purpose.
CHRIST MUST BE PREEMINENT WITH HUMILITY CLOSELY BEHIND IN THE LIFE OF AN AUTHENTICALLY ANOINTED SERVANT OF THE GOD OF THE BIBLE OR THE AUTHENTIC ANOINTING LEAVES—SOONER OR LATER.
I would like to see DarthVader comment on this fellow. Darth has a real anointing and discernment from Holy Spirit that is quite authentic.
IF this priest is operating with Biblical priorities as an authentic channel of God’s miricle working grace—PRAISE THE LORD. I have no need to throw rocks at him. At this point, it appears to me and feels in my spirit that he’s authentic—though I didn’t read every word.
If something else is going on, God will deal with it in His time and way.
Yes and no. Believers shouldn't believe every story without thought - some reports are false, for various reasons.
However, it is true that some will not be convinced by any amount of evidence. When we consider all the reports of healings which the Church has accepted in the process of canonizations - cures certified by neutral medical personnel as having no discernable medical cause - it's certainly reasonable to believe in miraculous healings.
None of the alternatives (conspiracy, deception, "just happened," crystal power) seems to me to be *as* reasonable.
Very informative discussion, Quix. I agree that DarthVader often has very good comments on this type of story. (I felt really funny typing that :-).
Without much more information than this report contains, I won’t venture an opinion on Father Suarez. There are some points in the article where I said, “Oh, great!” and others where I said, “Hmmmm,” but my response is no indicator of whether God is using Fr. Suarez to heal His people.
One of the names of God is Jehovah Rapha, which means God our Healer. Jesus Christ is still healing people today as he did 2000 years ago.
Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
John 14:12 Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.
Mark 16:15-18 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
From the last verse in the above passage, we learn it is “normal Christianity” for believers in Christ to “lay hands on the sick and they shall recover.” I have personally watched the Lord Jesus heal (through prayer) people afflicted with blindness, cancer, scoliosis, heart defects, paralysis, arthritis, demonic possession & oppresson, and so on.
It is “abnormal” when we don’t see these things happen regularly. If you are going to a church where these things never happen and the Gospel is not preached, you are probably in the wrong church.
You don’t have to be a Catholic or a Priest to do this. Jesus said these signs (Greek word for “miracles”) would follow those who “believe.” If you have received Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, you are now a Christian, a believer, and a member of the greatest spiritual army that gives you the power of attorney to lay hands on the sick and pray for them in Jesus’ name - and they WILL recover. Sometimes it happens instantly and other times it happens over a process of time, but it will happen.
May God bless Fernando Suarez.
I think it’s often wise to remember . . .
God used King David and called him a man after His own heart.
Yet he was a murderer and an adulterer.
Some mysteries, we do not understand from our perspective.
Nevertheless, HIS BIBLICAL PRIORITIES are SUPER IMPORTANT and need to be treated so by all of us . . . particularly if we wish to be true servants of God and walk in His MAXIMUM anointing, blessing and will.
Thank you so much for posting this wonderful news!
Amen, and Amen. Caution is always in order, but ultimately it is God's to defend His priorities from those who insist lunching on heads of grain is "harvesting." Miracles are one of the ways He does so.
This guy is the real deal, Quix. No theatrics but the genuine power of Almighty God. Totally awesome!!
We need to pray for ORU and Benny Hinn.
“The very flawed Marian stuff”
How very sad that you reject Jesus’ mother so coldly.
Thanks for the endorsement, DV. I didn’t see anything to indicate that his healing ministry isn’t genuine, but it’s nice to know what you think.
Nevertheless, HIS BIBLICAL PRIORITIES are SUPER IMPORTANT and need to be treated so by all of us . . . particularly if we wish to be true servants of God and walk in His MAXIMUM anointing, blessing and will.
Excellent points. When I get confused, I tell myself, "For as the Heavens are high above the earth, so far are My ways above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts." And I look forward to the time when "... I will understand fully, even as I have been fully understood."
True.
HOWEVER,
Miracles are NOT necessarily carte blanche 100% approval stamps of the channel of the miracle nor of the receiver.
PRAISE GOD.
Indeed in terms of the prayer suggestions!
I don’t reject Mary at all, much less coldly.
I reject the same junk about her that she would reject were she to appear on Larry King on CNN tonight.
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!
I sure long for that day.
Thx.
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