‘God took Fr. Suarez after his name was restored’

LAST RESPECTS A mourner at the wake of Fr. Suarez at Heritage
Park, Taguig City checks out a painting showing himat a
Mass for pilgrims in the Judaean desert outside Jerusalem.
—LYN RILLON

MANILA, Philippines — He was known as the “healing priest,” and stories abound on how Fr. Fernando Suarez had used his gift to bring people back to health and a life suffused with faith.

Suarez, 52, died on Tuesday of an apparent heart attack while playing tennis at Alabang Country Club.

“He healed me twice,” recalled Jimmy Virtucio, 71, of how it happened the first time some seven years ago when he was diagnosed with a condition that caused enlargement of the heart.

“I was in New Jersey, he was here in the Philippines. Over the phone, he told me ‘Let’s pray together. Do you believe that you are already healed?’ ‘If you say so,’ I told him,” Virtucio recounted.

“A few days later, when I got back to the doctor, my tests proved normal. It was a miracle,” he said.

Years later, Virtucio said, he was diagnosed with stage 3 prostate cancer.

“And just like the first time, he prayed over me and told me ‘Come home, you are healed. Mapapahiya sa ‘yo ang mga doktor mo (You’d embarrass your doctor),’” he added.

More than the healing, Virtucio said what he remembered most about Fr. Suarez was “his unconditional love for others.”

People from all walks of life would flock to him from all over the country and around the world, he said of his friend who treated him like a brother.

Virtucio, who was with Suarez when the priest collapsed at the tennis court, said they recently went to Batangas to distribute relief goods to evacuees from the volcanic eruption.

Meningitis

Suarez, he said, was born in Barrio Butong in Taal, Batangas.

“He visited evacuation centers that were not reached by other relief efforts, he celebrated Mass, fed the evacuees.  There was no camera, no media coverage,” Virtucio said.

Suarez’s nephew, James, also witnessed the priest’s gift of healing. His daughter Pia, now 15, had meningitis when she was 8, he said.

“The doctors had given up on her.  She was in a coma and the doctors said to just leave it all up to God because she would no longer wake up. Or if she did, she won’t be able to move or function normally,” he recalled.

“Fr. Suarez was out of the country then so he asked his friend, another priest, to come to the hospital. With the phone placed close to Pia’s ear, the two of them prayed over her. A few minutes after, my daughter woke up completely healed, and normal. It was a miracle right before my eyes,” James said.

Like everyone else in the family, James said he was shocked to learn about his uncle’s passing.

He recalled how Suarez recently officiated a funeral Mass and, pointing to the grave, said: “Lahat tayo balang araw doon pupunta. Ako, hindi ako sigurado kung kailan  (Someday, all of us are going there.  As for me, I’m not sure when),” James quoted Suarez as saying.

“I don’t know if you can call it a premonition,” he added.

“Misteryoso talaga ang Panginoon kung bakit sya kinuha matapos syang maabswelto  (Mysteriously, God took him after his name was restored), Virtucio said, referring to the Vatican ruling that absolved the priest of allegations of sexual harassment filed by two altar boys on Ilin Island in San Jose, Mindoro Occidental, in March 2014.

“Only God can forgive them,” Virtucio said of Suarez’s detractors.

Former Lipa archbishop Ramon Arguelles said Suarez had often been supportive of the local Church in Batangas.

“His work for the poor will certainly be missed. I pray that he will be rewarded for his great plans and achievement for the Church and for the least among the faithful,” he said.

Fr. Jerome Secillano, executive secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines’ permanent committee on public affairs, said Suarez’s passing “gives him the peace he richly deserved.”