Fr. Larry Tan Conducts Healing Service During World Day of the Sick
In celebration of the World Day of the Sick last February 11, the 7:30 pm anticipated mass was presided by Fr. Larry Tan. After the mass, he conducted the Healing Service. Parishioners had been encouraged since the week before to bring their sick elderly relatives and friends for healing of body, mind and spirit. And indeed, a large than usual percentage of the audience consisted of the elderly.
By 8:15 pm, at the end of the mass, no one was moving, a clear sign that nearly everyone had come for the healing service. The parishioners were instructed to line up in two rows in the center aisle, then those in front were escorted to form a line on the steps leading to the altar. Fr. Larry went up and down the line, praying over each devotee then moving on to the next. When he reached the left or right side, he made his way back even as the people who received the healing left their place.
Several parishioners fell backward, into the ready supportive hands of the Eucharistic Ministers of the Holy Eucharist volunteers. Technically, they had been ‘Slain in the Spirit’ or ‘Resting in the Spirit’. ‘I fell over backwards,’ said one such parishioner. ‘My knees just decided they didn’t want to hold me up and I lay on my back for a minute, fully awake but feeling peaceful and refreshed.’ Other comments overheard:
‘The healing service was very touching.’; ‘I felt really empowered by the Holy Spirit after I was prayed with.’; ‘I received a tremendous peace of mind.’ The healing service, held annually every February 11 in celebration of the World Day of the Sick, was sponsored by the LSS (Life in the Spirit Seminar) Prayer Group and Healing Ministry, headed by Bobby and Margie San Juan. Mila del Fonso was in charge of priest and reader arrangements.
Pope John Paul II initiated the World Day of the Sick in 1992 to encourage people to pray for those who suffer from illness and for their caregivers. The Pope himself had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s a year before, in 1991, and it is considered that his own illness was impetus for his designation of the day.
World Day of the Sick was first observed on February 11, 1993. February 11 is also the Catholic Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, which a name is given to the Virgin Mary in honor of the apparitions that were seen in and around Lourdes, France, by young Bernadette Soubirous. And did you know that Pope Benedict XVI declared his decision to resign from his post as the Pope on this day in 2013? He cited his failing health as the reason behind his decision.
From the Vatican, Pope Francis announced, ‘On this Twenty-fifth World Day of the Sick, I once more offer my prayerful support and encouragement to physicians, nurses, volunteers and all those consecrated men and women committed to serving the sick and those in need. I also embrace the ecclesial and civil institutions working to this end, and the families who take loving care of their sick. I pray that all may be ever joyous signs of the presence of God’s love and imitate the luminous testimony of so many friends of God, including Saint John of God and Saint Camillus de’ Lellis, the patrons of hospitals and healthcare workers, and Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta, missionary of God’s love.
