Monday, August 27, 2007 Cariño: Living in the presence of God By Linda Grace Cariño Paradigm Shift
I HAVE yet to have the fortune of being in the physical presence of the healing priest, Fr. Fernando Suarez. However, I have had the luck to enjoy listening to him on television and likewise, via the same medium, to catch part of a mass he officiated in Bulacan last week. I am thus now among millions who are determined to one day be in his actual physical presence.
Fr. Suarez maintains that those who seek him must go to him, not him to them. This because the gift he has -- that of healing -- is most precious, and must be guarded. He says too that the gift, as pearls, must not be cast before swine. I.e., we can presume that he who seeks the gift is one who indeed realizes its value. In truth, to listen to him speak is by itself an exercise of catching pearls, of wisdom, that is.
I have caught a big one. Fr. Suarez speaks of "living in the presence of God." Certainly I have heard the phrase before, but its impact on me at this present moment in time is so powerful that I must examine it. This pearl comes to me as a palpable God who is everywhere, bigger than everything and everyone, in the "nowness" of each moment, accessible as such, as real as the air we breathe, the sunlight on our backs, the afternoon rain, the trees the rain feeds. And then to live in that grand presence, my mortal brain can only rejoice.
Yes, Fr. Suarez is someone we must seek out.
That, even as our mortal selves bid adieu to banker and everyone's friend Terry Bugarin, of the ready smile, the hearty laugh, the booming voice, the chummy conversations. I am among those still in shock from his sudden passing; it will take a lot for me to go into Planters Bank anytime soon if I am to avoid just bursting into tears. Terry's absence will take some getting used to.
