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Holistic appreciation and treatment of the physical systems of the body

Holistic appreciation, care and treatment of physical, mental, emotional, psychological, psychic and spiritual health

Holistic appreciation, study and application of various modalities of health care and of medicine

Holistic appreciation of synergies among various roles of healers and care-givers in an effort centered on empowered patients.

  1. Total Human Development and Harmony Through Synergism

  2. Holistic Health Care and Medicine

  3. Deep Ecology and Harmony with Nature 

  4. Sense of History and Sense of Mission

  5. Civics and Democratic Governance

  6. Culture as Community Creativity

  7. Light-Seeking and Light-Sharing Education

  8. Gender Sensitivity, Equality & Harmony

  9. Reconstructive/Restor-ative Justice

10. Associative Economics, Social Capital and Sustainable Development

11. Synergetic Leadership and Organizations

12. Appropriate/Adaptive Technology

13. Mutual Enrichment of Families and Friendships

14. Human Dignity and Human Harmony: Human Rights and Peace

15. Aesthetics Without Boundaries: 'Art from the Heart'   

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The Human Chain*

By Bernardo V. Lopez

Lopez writes a regular column in Businessday.  He is a freelance contributor to other newspapers.  This article was first published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer.  He also shared it via the email list groups.

SISTER RAQUEL REODICA, RVM, about whom I have written often in the past, talks about a new dimension in her healing ministry, a new discovery she wants to share with everyone.

This is the communal dimension of healing. Healing is no longer just the personal touch of her hand on people who are sick, but the touch of the entire community at prayer on each other. She tells this amazing story.

At any given Saturday, the only healing day in the week when people can come without appointment, there is an aver-age of about 600 people at the Mother Ignacia Retreat House on 857 Bagumbong Road, Novaliches. On this particular Saturday, it was now early evening and Sister Raquel was tired. The whole after-noon, she was praying one-on-one over people, but there were a lot more.

She decided to shift to group healing. She asked everyone to hold hands and form a human chain. She held the microphone with her left hand and held another's hand with her right. She instructed the crowd that the chain must not be broken, that no one should let go of the other's hand during prayer, no matter what happens. The human chain extended for about a quarter of a kilometer, snaking around the open cathedral which had trees as its roof, gravel as its floor, wind as its air-conditioning, and sick people as its community. At the center marble altar stood the statue of the Sto. Niño.

Sister Raquel told everyone to close their eyes and repeat a prayer after her. And so they did, praying intensely, holding each other firmly. A 34-year-old engineer, Richard (not his real name), suddenly went into a violent convulsion, as if he was having an epileptic attack. His wife to his right and the man to his left, remembering Sister's instructions, tightened their grip. The wife timed his convulsion. It went for more than ten minutes.

At the end of the group healing, Richard was sweating profusely. He asked his wife to wipe his back with a towel. The wife started sobbing, for she discovered that Richard's advanced scoliosis (abnormal curving of the spine) was com-pletely gone. His spine was instantly normal and straight.

Sister Raquel normally asks people to speak out about their healing at the end of her talk before she began her one-on-one healing. Several weeks after the human chain incident wherein Richard 'sweated out' his scoliosis instantly, two women came up to speak.

The first woman recalled the same group healing. She asked Sister over the microphone if she came over to her. Sister said she did not as she was at the microphone at one end of the human chain. The woman, who had her eyes closed during prayer, said she heard footsteps approach her and stop in front of her. She felt someone stroke her gently on her cheek, the soft touch of a small hand, a child's hand. She was sick with 'palsy', in the words of Sister Raquel, whatever type of rare skin disease that was on her entire face. The woman showed her smooth face. Her skin disease was gone. Everyone clapped.

The second woman recalled the same footsteps in front of her while she closed her eyes in prayer, but instead of gentle strokes, she received two strong slaps on her left and right cheeks. But her stiff neck was gone instantly.

Could the strange invisible healer have been the Holy Child, the Sto. Nino, whose statue stood at the altar? The Holy Child is known to be a 'naughty boy' playing pranks on people, like the slap the second woman got.

Going down the convent stairs once, St. Therese of the Child Jesus, was sur-prised to meet small boy going up. The child asked her, 'Who are you?'. Amused by his aggressiveness, St. Therese replied, 'I am Therese of the Child Jesus.'

'And who might you be?', she asked with a castigating tone, since the place was cloistered and not open to outsiders. The child replied, 'I am the Child Jesus of Therese'. And the boy ran and was gone.

Sister Raquel laughs when she says the Sto. Nino was forced to do the one-on-one healing on people in the human chain because she was too tired. The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. And so, the Holy Child came to her rescue and went on His pranks.

The human chain is like a highway, only it is not cars that pass through but a strange healing energy that emanates from a source. It is not just Sister Raquel whom the Lord uses to heal people, it is every-one together at prayer, the community. The communal aspect of healing is a strange new phenomenon. People together, if they have the faith, if they pray together, somehow have the power to heal each other.

Sister Raquel says those who have been healed can some-times also heal. Shirley is such a person, whom I interviewed. Healed of diabetes and advanced glaucoma, she reports that she has also healed her daughter. Before going to Sister Raquel, she was virtually blind, seeing everything in a blur. Now she can see clearly and uses no glasses.

Many observers see the protracted Israeli-Palestine conflict as an omen of dire things to come. They say the attack on the birthplace of Christ, at the Church of the Nativity, is a message of a future cataclysm from an angry God on a sinful world, a cataclysm that would dwarf that of World War II. This doomsday scenario, they say, may be in fulfilment of the Revelations (Protestant) or Apocalypse (Catholic). It may come now or twenty years from now, no one knows.

A purported visionary once told Sister Raquel she will have the gift of prophecy, which she brushes aside today. Although she discerns the hand of God in the current Middle East war, she focuses not on sin and punishment but on repentance and the return to God, not on past mistakes but on present atonement. She says the Lord's healing has a role of bringing back people to God, the return of count-less prodigal sons to the His welcoming arms. Today, Sister Raquel is the only emerging woman evangelist in a world dominated by men.

Thus says this woman evangelist, the Lord heals to bring back His flock to Him. The Lord makes people sick only so they can seek His healing. He brings darkness so people can seek His light. He lets them get lost in the desert so they can find His path. Pain and sickness are instruments of the return to the Lord.

For those who want to see Sister Raquel, e-mail for directions, or send a message to <eastwind@edsamail.com.ph>.

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