E sino nga ba si Sr. Raquel Reodica. Kung interesado ka eto mahaba haba din. Basa...
A Cry in The Wilderness: Earthquake To Wreck Metro Manila
By Ma. Ceres P. Doyo
WHY me?" asked Sr. Raquel Reodica, a former activist nun whose past included joining protest rallies, plotting anti-establishment moves and being clamped in the military stockade, veil and all, during the martial law years.
Healing people of their ills was the last thing on her mind. And predicting the future-what did this have to do with her? Sister Raquel, by her own reckoning, did not fit the mold of chosen visionaries. There is nothing otherworldly about her, no ascetic air at all. A fun-loving nun, she is the first to laugh at her own jokes. In fact, she can pass for a high school principal minus the stern mien.
So why her? Well, why not?
While healing was not part of the work she had pledged herself to do, she followed when she was led. She realized that she was singled out, pulled into strange, unfamiliar ground to discover that healing was God's work and that she was only an instrument.
But the more daunting task was becoming the instrument as well of others gifted with visions of the future and bearing both good news and bad for the country. That, she has yet to come to terms with.
No longer the reluctant healer, Sister Raquel has, for many years now, been performing medical miracles, as she rids body and soul of the ills that plague them. Dramatic reversals of terminal cases and the treatment of painful and chronic ailments are not uncommon, as the blessed ones are the first to vouch for. For this former activist nun, it's been a long way from fist-shaking in the streets to the laying of hands warmed by "God's electricity."
Facing the Philippine flag, Sister Raquel shouts, "Espiritu ng sagabal sa kasaganahan sa Pilipinas, lumayas ka! Out! Ihampas, itapon sa sahig, tapakan, tadyakan!" (Spirit blocking Philippine progress, leave! Out! Hurl it, throw it on the floor, step on it, kick it!)
With the word "Out!" Sister Raquel grabs at something in the air and stomps on it. "Umm, out, out, out!" Stomp, kick, stomp. The crowd follows with the same verve. The exorcism choreography is repeated several times where applicable. It goes for espiritu ng cancer, espiritu ng diabetes and the variety of ailments countless people bring to the Mother Ignacia Healing Center in Bagumbong, in that far, bucolic end of Caloocan City.
The center is run by the Religious of the Virgin Mary (RVM), a Catholic congregation to which Sister Raquel belongs. (The RVM was founded in the Philippines in the 17th century by Mother Ignacia del Espiritu, whose cause for beatification is being heard.) Across the three-hectare complex are smaller centers where two other RVM nuns practice their own healing methods.
Sister Raquel says leaving the religious life never crossed her mind, not even during the post-Vatican II exodus of the 1970s. She joined the RVM when she was in second year college and later finished an education degree, major in English. She describes herself as a voracious reader.
"I do divine healing," Sister Raquel explains, "employing divine radiation therapy. I use the heat in my hands." She asks those wishing to be healed to employ the same technique on themselves.
Miraculous
Healing is held in the bright and airy chapel that is mute witness to many an "instant miraculous healing." Sister. Raquel also gives healing baths, using a dipper. Before the healing sessions, she speaks to the crowd about God, forgiving others and oneself, and changing one's ways. Anger is a poison, she reminds. She is a good storyteller in both Pilipino and English but she uses mainly colloquial Pilipino with an accent that betrays her Laguna roots. "Aba e, akala ko dedbol na (I thought he was dead)," she says, referring to Warren Paradero, 60, who had Stage 4 cancer. His recovery stunned doctors.
Sister Raquel also speaks about divine manifestations in the days to come which, she feels, have not gotten the attention they deserve. "The RVM's healing ministry is a way of spreading the gospel of salvation of Jesus Christ," the nun says. "Jesus wants to give total healing of body and soul. He must enter into our entire being."
Scores have been healed since Sister Raquel started her apostolate in July 1991 under cataclysmic circumstances. That was shortly after Mount Pinatubo in Zambales erupted for the first time in 600 years, darkening parts of the planet and burying under volcanic ash vast portions of Central Luzon.
How did it all start?
A woman claiming to be a visionary was seeking someone to whom she must deliver a divine message, but whose name or face she didn't know. Only when she met her would she know. The woman only had an address-214 N. Domingo in Quezon City, which happened to be the RVM motherhouse. It is a long story, this search, and it ended at the 11th hour at the dictated address when an unknowing Sister Raquel walked past the woman, who had refused to leave the RVM compound until she found the one she was looking for.
Sister Raquel, the visionary pleaded, must go to Botolan, Zambales, where the huge Ina Poonbato (the Blessed Mother of Poonbato) statue was half-buried in volcanic ash, there to pray for the volcano to hold back its wrath. The landscape was in ruins, and there was no appeasing the volcano at that time. A series of baffling events after Sister Raquel did as she was asked convinced her and the other nuns that the visionary's importuning was not a bluff.
Mystery
While people have come for the healing, there is another mystery that Sister Raquel is anxious to make known. And it is a frightening scenario revealed to seven "visionaries" who are in touch with her, she says. One of them, a French woman, has joined a lay monastic community, the nun adds.
What makes the vision particularly scary is that it isn't the first that the visionary has revealed. Three months before the deadly tsunami struck and killed 280,000 people across Asia and parts of Africa on December 26 last year, Sister Raquel was approached by a visionary who said, "I see ocean waters rising, rising, rising. Around 2004 to 2005, it will hit many countries and sow much destruction." The nun did not keep the prediction to herself, but the information failed to fly.
It was only after disaster struck that it was given some attention, says Bernardo Lopez, a freelance journalist who writes a column for a business paper. "It was too late," he rues. "It was hindsight, not foresight. And foresight is the essence of prophecies." Lopez is writing a book and doing video documentaries on Sister Raquel and her healing ministry.
In December 2004, just around the time the tsunami struck, someone came to tell Sister Raquel that "a series of massive earthquakes will hit Metro Manila in 2005." The nun's exact words: "This will originate in Quezon City and a portion of Manila will slide into Manila Bay." She also speaks of movements of the earth in the Pacific, Atlantic, China, the Indian Ocean.
Terrified? These need not happen, Sister Raquel says, if people change their ways and seek the way of God through prayer, repentance and good works. In other words, God can change His mind.
If the dire prediction does not come to pass, she could very well end up being ridiculed by the world. But that's fine with her, says Sister Raquel. She is ready to face humiliation and be called a charlatan, she says, citing the case of Jonah (the prophet who was swallowed by the whale and survived to tell the tale) in the Old Testament of the Bible. God held back his wrath on Nineveh when he saw the people repent. Jonah, who had warned the people, ended up looking like a fool.
Prediction
The prediction is not hers, the nun clarifies, but were simply relayed to her so she could broadcast them. And why this circuitous route? This is God's way, is all she could say. She takes these things with "positive indifference," she says, adding that she gave value to them only because in the past some had been fulfilled. By positive indifference, she means that although there is no certainty that the prediction would come true, one considers the message to be from God. Responding by turning away from evil ways could alter the dark scenario.
This precondition might give a picture of a punishing and petulant God, a God who needs to be placated and pleased. But Sister Raquel paints a portrait of a God who is loving and involved. She tells the crowd: "God came to earth (as Jesus) in order to be one of us. He is an adventurous God." She compares God to fire. "In this fire of God no disease will survive. God is supreme electricity. God wants to heal you. He says, 'gawin mo akong barkada' (make me one of your buddies), seek the Kingdom, be a model of humility. God is like a circle, without beginning and end."
Sister Raquel makes the corresponding gestures and the crowd does the same. They make imaginary circles in the air, rub their hands and apply heat on their aches and hurts. After her talk, the nun does individual healing, praying over each supplicant and rubbing oil on their head, forehead and afflicted parts of the body.
The patients are from all walks of life. Even activists of different ideological leanings have also sought her out.
The very ill who request a healing bath are brought to the bathing area outside. Sister Raquel douses each one with a dipper of cold water. The patients then proceed to their respective corners and pour on themselves five dippers more of water (representing the five wounds of Jesus), while reading the prayers posted on trees and posts. They should not towel themselves dry.
Some scenes are indeed moving and inspire salutary thoughts on mortality and immortality, pure faith and humility. What is it that really matters, what is essential, what is not? What does it take to be truly happy?
Sister Raquel makes sure she is within the perimeters of the Church and the policies of her congregation. "I have a spiritual director. Our bishop, Antonio Obias, approves of our work. My congregation claims this work as ours." She does not receive payment, but donations for the upkeep of the place are not refused. Those who need to stay for days in the infirmary pay a small fee.
A visionary, Sister Raquel reveals, predicted that she will have "a third eye" or the ability to see into the future herself. This scares her a bit. She had also been told that she must go to a cave on Mount Banahaw in Laguna to retrieve a tapayan (jar) that contains healing oil which has been kept there for centuries. "Guarding it is a spiritual snake which I must confront," she says. "Imagine a snake!" she exclaims with a laugh. "I'm not ready for it. I will know when I am."
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