Jesus is the Messiah ( I )
Jesus is the Messiah, part A
JESUS is the Messiah
The lame walk
The deaf hear
The blind see
Translation: Cathy Brenti
Original edition:
Jesus es el Mesias, Publications Kerygma, 1989, Mexico
IMPRIMI POTEST
RAYMOND SAVARD m.s.c.
Provincial Superior
Imprimatur:
Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez
Archbishop of Santo Domingo, D.R.
March 15, 1989
Also by the same author:
Jesus Made Me a Witness,
Cover illustration: French illuminations of the thirteenth century by Master Ermengol de Béziers, entitled the Breviary of Love, depicting three miracles of Christ, preserved at the Royal Library of El Escorial. Photo: Giraudon Agency.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
I - ARE YOU THE MESSIAH?
1 - The blind recover their sight
2 - The lame walk
3 - The deaf hear
4 - The lepers are cleansed
5 - The Good News is proclaimed to the poor
Conclusion.
II - INNER HEALING
III. JESUS IS ALIVE
IV - INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR
V - THE NEW EVANGELIZATION
1 - New in its fervor
2 - New in its method
3 - New in its expression
4 - New ways of evangelizing
5 - The New Evangelization is integral.
6 - The New Evangelization, work of the Spirit
7 - New evangelizers
8 - A new strategy
Conclusion
Preface
It was in 1985 that we began preparing these pages. We never ceased to select and to classify with great care the best testimonies and letters that reached us.
I was once invited to preach a series of retreats in Venezuela.
Before leaving home, I had carefully taken my briefcase containing some thirty fine, very interesting testimonies of healings from these recent years, intending to hand it to my preaching companion, with whom I was going to write my new book at the same time. We first preached a retreat for priests at Los Teques, then one for leaders of the Charismatic Renewal. On the last day, the archbishop of Barquisimeto drove us in his car to Caracas, to a stadium where more than ten thousand people had gathered to listen to the Word of the Lord. We preached in an atmosphere of great fervor and recollection. The faith of these people was such that healings began to take place even before we began the prayer for healing.
At the end we were tired but also very content, in this region where the figure of the liberator Simon Bolívar, who had declared: “I shall take no rest until my people are set free,” is still very much alive. As we left the stadium to go and rest, we realized that thieves had opened the car and taken away all our belongings: my briefcase with everything it contained, my wallet with my passport and my airline tickets. Everything had disappeared.
Without contest, what was hardest for us was having lost the folder containing those precious testimonies. I then said to the Lord: “Lord, if you want us to write this new book, you will perform more healings. One can lose such testimonies, but you cannot be lost.” The pages that follow are a response of the Lord to this prayer, but above all they are a testimony to what God accomplishes in the world he loves so much. He has not been lost; on the contrary, the signs, the wonders and the miracles that accompany the proclamation of the victory of Christ Jesus over sin and death seem to have multiplied. The Lord Jesus takes no rest until his people are completely free: free from sin and from death, free from oppression and from captivity.
Father Émilien Tardif
Emiliano Tardif M.S.C.
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic,
On the feast of the Annunciation, March 25, 1989.
Introduction
Jesus is the Messiah, and we must not wait for another. In him are fulfilled the prophetic signs that identify the Messiah, savior of this world. There is no other name given to men by which they may be saved. There is no other mediator between God and men than Jesus Christ, the Lord, who has all power in heaven and on earth and was sent to his Church to proclaim the Good News of salvation and to establish the Kingdom of God. These pages plunge us into the Gospel, which is the same yesterday, today and always, showing how the risen Jesus never ceases to give proof that he is alive and that he gives life to those who believe in his name.
Finally, I must confess that on every page we sought to center ourselves on Jesus, and Jesus alone, and on no one else. We had so much material and sometimes so many expressions of gratitude that we must set down as a principle what, here and there, we shall repeat on every page: Father Emiliano is only the little donkey of Palm Sunday who carries Jesus everywhere. The ministry of Father Emiliano Tardif is like the finger of John the Baptist that points clearly to us: “Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Let us therefore keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, and on Jesus alone.
Let us not look at Father Emiliano but rather at the one he contemplates: Jesus, the Messiah, who today never ceases to manifest the signs that identify him as the promised Messiah come to save this world. The world of today does not need a new Gospel, but rather a new evangelization with the power of the Holy Spirit, accompanied by healings and miracles that show the victory of Christ Jesus over sin, sickness and death.
José H. Prado Flores, Guadalajara, Jal., March 25, 1989.
ARE YOU THE MESSIAH?
(Lk 7, 18-23; Mt 11, 2-6)
Each day the desire for liberation grew in the people of Israel. The sons of Jacob dreamed of the day when the descendant of David would appear to lead the people in justice and freedom. The imperialist domination of Rome sent cries up to heaven that the new Moses might appear to free the people from the claws of the Roman eagles, whose standards floated over the Antonia Tower. The people, laden with the green branches of hope, were ready to welcome the one who comes in the name of the Lord. It was then that a powerful voice broke the silence of the arid wilderness of Judea.
John the Baptist became the brightest star of Israel’s religious scene. From the capital, soldiers, scribes and religious authorities came down to the Jordan to hear John and to be baptized by him. He rose in importance so quickly that he once again raised the disturbing question: “Could he by any chance be the Messiah?”
John confessed the truth that disillusioned many: “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who comes after me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie” (Jn 1, 26-27). To add to the disillusionment, his voice was quickly silenced by Herod in a dungeon of the royal palace. Once again the hopes of Israel were dashed, and nothing remained but to wait, and wait still longer, for the coming of the Lord. John was the voice... but who would be the Word? John was the friend of the bridegroom... but when would the bridegroom appear so that the wedding could be celebrated with the new wine of gladness? John was the witness to the light... but when would the new day that knows no sunset dawn?
Very soon, from fertile Galilee and precisely from a small village, Nazareth, there appeared a man named Jesus whom everyone followed and listened to. He did everything well. He did not preach like the scribes or the Pharisees; he was gentle and humble of heart and he spoke of a kingdom of justice and peace. Expectation grew around him. Some thought he was Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one prophet more. Others thought that God had visited his people. John, Jesus’ cousin, knew certain things that others did not. The Baptist realized that his relative was the model announced by the messianic prophecies: Son of David: According to the prophecy of Nathan, a son of David would sit forever on the throne of Israel (2 S 7, 13-14). John knew that Jesus’ ancestors belonged to the royal house of David...
- Born of a virgin: The sign given by Isaiah to Ahaz was that a young woman would give birth to the one who would be Emmanuel, God with us (cf. Is 7, 14). That virgin was his cousin Mary. Born in Bethlehem: Micah had assured that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (cf. Mi 5, 1-3). While everyone assumed that Jesus was from Nazareth and for that reason called him “the Nazarene,” John knew that he had been born in Bethlehem and that thus the prophecy was fulfilled. He was called “the son of man,” echoing the prophecy of Daniel (cf. Dn 7, 13-14).
- His name, Jesus, reflected the messianic ideal described by Jeremiah (cf. Jr 23, 6). Anointed by the Spirit: John had been the closest witness when, in the waters of the Jordan, the Spirit of God rested upon Jesus and filled him with his power, as the prophet Isaiah had foreseen (Is 11, 1-2). In Jesus each of the prophecies was fulfilled, but there was something missing that John could not observe from his prison: the signs that the prophet Isaiah (Is 35, 5-6) had described as revealing the messianic times. Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf will be unstopped; then the lame will leap like a stag, and the tongue of the mute will cry out for joy.
In order to see more clearly, John then sent two of his disciples so that they could see for themselves. The Baptist wanted the answer to history’s fundamental question, but above all he wanted his disciples to see the truth. In fact, this was the Precursor’s most important teaching: “Do not believe because I tell you. Go and see for yourselves.” The question was twofold: “Are you the one who is to come...?” If you are, show it. Do not lead us down the garden path. It is not a matter of words.
Many have come claiming to be the expected one, and some have been killed; others have failed in their liberating purpose. What sign do you bring to prove that you are truly the Messiah? “...or should we wait for another?” Will we always be pilgrims who never reach the Promised Land? Must we go on imploring endlessly for the heavens to send us the Savior of this world? These questions sum up the thought and feeling of Israel: We have already travelled the path of history. We have already been wearied by false messianisms.
Must we continue to wait without hope? Will there still be many who want to claim the title of “Anointed Ones” to come and establish the kingdom of justice, joy and peace? Must we go on with our oil lamp until the sun of justice appears with healing in its rays? We have had enough now. So many have usurped that glorious title, and we doubt whoever claims to be the Messiah. We will no longer be so naive, until we have first seen the oracles of the prophets fulfilled and the signs of authenticity revealed.
Show us then the traits that identify the Messiah, so that no doubt remains and we can entrust ourselves to you without conditions. If you are the Messiah, then we will follow you and surrender our whole lives to you. Jesus listened to them and answered them not with words, but with deeds: healing the sick, freeing those possessed, cleansing the lepers, raising those who were paralyzed and raising the dead.
It was finally the fulfillment of the messianic age described by Isaiah: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring the Good News to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim release to the captives and freedom to the prisoners, to proclaim a year of grace from the Lord (Is 61,1-2). This text was the one Jesus had chosen to show his program of action, and he had proclaimed it in the synagogue of Nazareth (cf. Lk 4, 18-19).
Thus he seemed to be saying: “If I can fulfill this word of Scripture, it is because I am the Messiah...” This was not only for that time, but for every man of every age. If Jesus today answers to this pattern, it means that he is the Messiah announced by the prophets, the one the nations awaited and the Savior of the world. As for me, because I am his disciple, I want to bear witness that Jesus is the Messiah, because in him the signs that show him as such are fulfilled today.
Throughout the world, Jesus continues to show that he is the same yesterday, today and forever. Filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, he makes visible the signs by which the Messiah must be recognized. Jesus was the Messiah for the people of Israel two thousand years ago; but for us, who believe in him, we are the Israel of God. That is why he continues today to bring proof of his messiahship. These signs are meant for all men of all times.
Even today Jesus gives us proof that not only was he the Messiah, but that he “is” the Messiah, because the messianic prophecies continue to be fulfilled in our time. I cannot stop speaking of what I have seen and heard. I feel impelled to carry out the mandate Jesus gave to the disciples of John the Baptist: “Go and report what you have seen and heard:
The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the Good News is proclaimed to the poor” (Lk 7,22).
1 - The blind recover their sight
The messianic healing par excellence is opening the eyes of the blind. Jesus is the light of the world, and he communicates this light to the blind: it is the sign that his light draws us out of the darkness of error and falsehood. When he heals a man blind from birth, he reminds us that he has brought us out of darkness into his wonderful light (1 Pet 2, 9). Whenever a blind person recovers his sight, it shows that Jesus is the light that comes “to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Lk 1, 79). This testimony shows us that Jesus is light for the man of today.
We were ending a day of evangelization in Mbandaka, in Zaire. During the closing Eucharist, in which about fifteen thousand people were taking part, a child of eight, blind from birth, began to cry out: “I see, I see.” Everyone surrounded her. Then she asked: “Who is my mommy?” Two open arms, two eyes full of tears and a mother’s smile gave her the answer.
Then, in her mother’s arms, the little girl exclaimed aloud: “Oh, mommy, how beautiful you are...” This was the first healing of a child blind from birth that I had ever witnessed; but most importantly, we all realized that Jesus is the light of the world, capable of illuminating the lives of all those who understand that they need salvation. When a person blind from birth recovers his sight, we stand before the evident sign that Jesus can draw man out of the deepest darkness and can transform even a congenital condition, sin being the worst and most serious of all.
The testimony that follows, from Panama, shows how the sign of recovering sight can be repeated, but its meaning is always the same: Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. One Saturday, during the healing Mass, Father Emiliano announced that the Lord had healed a woman with a serious eye condition. Without hesitation I told myself: “It cannot be me.” On Sunday, the Father announced that he was going to pray for the sick and asked that each person place his hands where he wanted to be healed.
I placed my hands on my eyes and heard that the Lord had healed several women suffering from cataracts. I exclaimed: “Lord, if it is me, thank you!” As we returned to David, the neighboring town, I asked for the tape of songs to be played and we all took out our hymnals. What was my surprise when, on opening it, I discovered that I could read clearly. I exclaimed: “The Lord is healing me, I can see the words.”
I began to weep for joy as I looked at willow branches, a tree laden with fruit, a banana grove, the grass... and then I added: “Thank you, Lord, for letting me contemplate what you have made in nature.” I could also see the road lit by the headlights of cars. I had planned to go to Panama to see Dr. Rubén Orilla so that he could fit me with lenses to improve my vision, which would have been a great help in taking care of my daughter, who was about to have her first child. Without a doubt, our plans are not the plans of the Lord.
He had set a time for my healing, and he knew that I was waiting in confidence. I give thanks to the Lord for his love and his mercy; he continues to accomplish so many wonders in the midst of his people. I give my testimony so that all may know that Jesus is alive and that he performs the same wonders as two thousand years ago.
In Guadalajara, Maria M. Pérez, a reporter for the newspaper “El Occidental,” reported the following facts on March 26, 1987: On the afternoon of Tuesday, March 24, in the town of Espiritu Santo, Father Tardif announced many healings of skin diseases, of the spine, of the shoulders, of the eyes, of hearing, of cancer, of the heart, of arthritis, of asthma, of the kidneys, and many more. Without a doubt, the one that most moved those present was that of an eleven-year-old child, Alejandro Anguiano Contreras, who had arrived at the meeting almost blind.
Despite his young age, Alejandro already counted four operations to his hospital record, and the doctors had told his mother, Mrs. María Contreras, that “her son could not be treated and that the best thing would be for her to find him a school for the blind.” That afternoon, during the prayer, Alejandro opened his eyes and recovered his sight. Both he and his mother wept with emotion, because the little boy could once again enjoy the colors, the flowers and the people around him.
The following testimony of a person healed before forty thousand people at the Renewal Convention in Rimini, Italy, in 1988, is very beautiful because it is told by a child of barely twelve: My name is Luca Pib and I am from Canegrate (Milan); I am twelve years old and in the second year of middle school. For about a year I have been part of a Renewal in the Spirit group. This year I came to the National Gathering with my aunt Luciana and some members of the group. What happened to me far exceeded my expectation.
I was born with a lesion of the optic nerve and could not distinguish colors. I was operated on in a clinic in Varese in 1984. Since I could not walk on my own, I always had to be accompanied to go to school, to church and everywhere. A few days ago I said to my friends: “I am going to the Rimini Gathering, and there, either the Lord will heal me, or he will take me to Paradise.”
I prayed in a very special way yesterday (April 23) for my healing.” During Father Emiliano Tardif’s healing service, I felt as if someone were taking me by the hands, and I realized that something like scales was falling from my eyes, which made me think of Saul’s conversion. I told my aunt, who was nearby. She had taken my hand, and since it felt ice-cold, she thought I was feeling ill again. But I kept repeating to her: “I feel fine, I would like to take off my dark glasses, because I can see.” I looked for a white handkerchief to show my healing.
Just then over the microphone it was announced that a child had been healed of his sight. I was deeply moved to feel, in this healing, the love of Jesus. I stood up from my bench and came down from the stands. My glasses have been since yesterday in my aunt’s bag in the hotel closet. Thank you, Jesus!
The prophet Isaiah had identified the messianic times by declaring: Then the eyes of the blind will be opened. If Jesus today opens the eyes of the blind, this means that we are in the “then” to which the prophet refers. We are in the messianic times! If Jesus today opens the eyes of the blind, this means that we are in the “then” to which the prophet refers. We are in the messianic times!
2 - The lame walk
Although it is the most disputed of all the signs, that of the paralytic who rises is a privileged way of showing that Jesus is the Messiah and Savior. He declared it himself when he said to a paralytic: “But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins — I say to you,” he told the paralytic, “rise, take up your pallet and go home” (Mk 2, 10-11). Today, Jesus is generous in his signs. The testimony that follows is magnificent.
Giovanna tells us all the stages of her healing, which came to completion on July 6, 1986, in Laureana Cilento, Italy. It is very important to observe the evangelizing role of a community that leads her to the feet of Jesus. My name is Giovanna Monzo, I am nineteen years old, and I would like to tell of the wonders that Jesus accomplished in my life. He made me be born again after fourteen years of vegetating in a life that had no meaning. From the very day of my birth I was afflicted with a rare bone disease, known to few doctors; rare were those among them who knew how to treat it (osteoporosis).
It is a hereditary disease that weakens the bones, little by little rotting them through chronic decalcification. I was forty days old when, because of my constant crying, my parents realized that I had a fracture of the right femur. They took me to the hospital, but the doctors, unaware of what was happening, only made things worse. After seven operations and four years of hospitalization, my parents were told that when I reached adolescence, I would either die or remain paralyzed.
But my parents, despite their poverty, did not consider themselves defeated and took me to the Rizzoli Orthopedic Institute in Bologna, where a series of surgical operations began: in all I underwent eighteen, the last one five years earlier. At the age of fourteen, my heart was full of bitterness. The only faces I knew were those of my parents and of many doctors in Italy. I was tired and desperate. I wanted to destroy myself, and others just as much. Why was I condemned to spend the rest of my life in this wheelchair?
It made me furious to hear the neighbors my age playing in the yard, while I was condemned to stay in my bed or sometimes in an armchair, because of a new fracture. This situation made me choose the only solution within my reach: suicide. I could no longer bear this life so stupid and empty. I wanted someone to show me God, and yet I could not reconcile the existence of a good and all-powerful God with my suffering. For me, God was an invention, and if at times someone spoke to me of him, I answered that if he existed, he was a cruel God.
During the summer of 1985, I tried in various ways to put an end to what others still dared to call life. One morning in July I found an infallible way to carry out my plan: hang onto the balcony of the terrace and throw myself into the void; I would never have the chance to save myself. So I approached the balcony step by step, and when only one last small effort remained before I threw myself into the air, the Lord intervened in a completely unexpected way. At that very moment, my grandmother called me because some people were asking to meet me.
I was furious, realizing that I was not even free to die... That summer, Father Miguel Vassallo had opened the “Saint Michael Prayer House” and had invited several young people to a week of prayer and evangelization. They had divided into groups and had begun to go through the streets and neighborhoods, bringing the Word of Jesus. Two of them, Rossellina and Sabina, arrived at the precise moment when I was about to kill myself... I came into the dining room in my wheelchair. As usual, I showed all my anguish and my rage.
They neither reacted nor imposed their point of view on me, but understood me. Instead of showing me that I was sick, they offered me a big smile and spoke to me with a gentleness and a tenderness that I had never met before. This love disarmed my aggressiveness, and so I could not fight with those who had not come to attack me.
Then they told me they wanted to introduce me to a friend. I expected to see him come in, but they told me his name was Jesus and began to speak to me about him. I asked them why this Jesus had made me suffer in this way. When they told me that he loved me, I answered them that if this was how he wanted to show it to me, I did not want his love.
They strove with great kindness and gentleness to answer my questions and entered into the mysterious drama of suffering in the world, in the light of an empty cross, witness to the pain and sign of the victory over suffering. I felt a deep warmth in my body, without being able to explain its cause. It was like a gentle caress of the love that had always been lacking to me. On one side, I wanted them to have already left, so that I could go back to my balcony and jump, but on the other hand I longed for them to go on giving me this balm that softened my life.
I accepted their friendship, but on one condition only: that they no longer speak to me of this Jesus who made me share his cross... They agreed and left, promising to come back another day. Meanwhile, I asked myself, astonished now and then: what has happened? They came back that very afternoon with twenty other people, all with the same smile and the same gentleness. They had prepared a great celebration for me and gave me all their time without asking anything in return. That day, for the first time in eighteen years, I smiled.
After we had talked, Rosa Maria proposed that we all pray together. This displeased me greatly, because she was breaking our pact, but I agreed only in thanks for all they had done for me, not out of conviction. During the prayer, Rosa Maria asked Jesus to tell us whether he wanted to heal me. She opened the Bible and drew out the passage of the paralytic who could not get down to the pool by himself when the angel stirred the water, but Jesus came to him and healed him (cf. Jn 5, 1-18). At the end of the reading everyone was weeping and embracing me, assuring me that Jesus was going to heal me.
I understood absolutely nothing. I thought all this was a premeditated fair or even that they were making fun of me. I resisted, not wanting to hope for my healing, for fear of being deceived. But all the same, why were they doing all this when I had nothing to offer them in return? In September, I had to face a new, very complicated surgical operation, similar to the last one, during which I had risked my life.
But since I had nothing to lose, I had decided to attempt this operation: it was a matter of transplanting ten centimeters of bone to the femur from which, years earlier, they had removed it. They tried to make it grow by means of a course of “Calcitar,” but it was such a strong medication that I had to give it up, to avoid a collapse. When I saw the doctor again, we had proof that Jesus had begun to act in my life. The bone had grown and the wound had healed perfectly.
I returned home, but was constantly pursued by this question: Is Jesus truly taking care of me?
The following summer, Rossellina came with Rosa Maria, accompanied by two young people, Pino and Simon, two new angels who, together with all the others, helped me to come to know Jesus. Pino turned out to be the best older brother I had ever had: he took my story very much to heart, understood that I needed deeds more than words, showed me how to love and not to depend on him or on other human beings, but only on God. He then formed a prayer group in which I had the opportunity to come to know the immense love of God. It is there that I learned to listen to the voice of Jesus in the silence and to speak with God as with an intimate friend. At that time, my physical healing no longer interested me. For me, the miracle had already taken place: Jesus had given me back a taste for life. I loved and was loved.
One day, Father Miguel Vassallo spoke to us with great enthusiasm of the forthcoming visit of Father Emiliano Tardif, who prayed for the sick all over the world and who would very soon cross the mountains of the Cilento to speak to us of the wonders of God. We were all very happy, praying and preparing the retreat. While everyone assured me that “the great day of the Lord for my life” was approaching, I, from my wheelchair, offered my suffering for the success of this retreat. Without hesitation, Alessandra assured me that this wheelchair would soon be empty...
Finally the long-awaited day arrived. Everything was celebration, joy, hope. People came from all over Italy, and even from other European countries. On Saturday it was proclaimed that Jesus heals both interiorly and physically. The next day, many bore witness to their healing amid the praises of the crowd. One of the young people of the group, seeing so many healings, called out to the Lord: “Jesus, you heal people who come from Switzerland. You healed this deaf woman from Milan. You have poured out your blessings everywhere, but here, where we have prepared the celebration for you, you are not going to heal anyone? You cannot go on like this...
What are the people here going to say?” On Sunday the teachings were on Jesus, who has all power in heaven and on earth. During the prayer for the sick, I heard the Father announce that the Lord was healing a person who had problems walking, and that she felt a strong warmth in her legs because the Spirit of God was strengthening her. Indeed, I felt the strong warmth rising little by little into my legs, and I thought it was due to emotion and to the joy of taking part in the Gathering.
Then the Father added: “At this very moment, the Lord is accomplishing a very great healing...” My heart was beating fast. After a moment that seemed to me an eternity, he added: “Jesus is healing a paralytic.” Alessandra, who was sitting next to me, cried out to me: “It’s you, Giovanna, it’s you!” I felt the gaze of all those who loved me. Alessandra was weeping, but I could not make the step of faith. “You feel a deep warmth in your body,” Father Emiliano specified. That was precisely what I was feeling. But was it not because of the climate or the emotion?
“In the name of Jesus, rise,” the priest ordered. I did not think of myself, but of Jesus, for whom nothing is impossible. I stood up all by myself, and for the first time in my life I went to approach the altar. My friends were weeping, others were laughing, all were embracing one another, others covered me with kisses. It looked like a madhouse. I felt very light, as if my body weighed nothing. Without anyone’s help, I climbed the steps where the altar stood and I glorified Jesus for what he had done in me. Alessandra was weeping; others could not believe it.
A companion remained speechless for five hours, shaken to have seen me walk. The wheelchair is empty. I no longer need crutches. From now on I lead a normal life. I work in the office of Father Miguel. Every day I go up and down the steps. God has been good to me. My aggressiveness is now only a memory of the past. There remains only one thing that irritates me: the unbelief of those who do not know the emptiness of my past life. I have put my health at the service of others; I have discovered that my life is useful and that others need it.
This very beautiful testimony is charged with several lessons: Giovanna was evangelized with love by a community that committed itself to her. Before being healed, she was freed from her bitterness, and finally she put her health at the service of others. When the Lord heals the body, his action extends to the whole person. Myriam Lejeune, of Lyon, France, shows how physical healing is accompanied by the complete rehabilitation of the person. Jesus did not come to heal paralysis, but the paralyzed; that is, the whole person.
Before giving my testimony, I would like to thank Jesus for having revealed to us the true face of God, that face which is all love. I want to bless him for his look upon each one of us, now and at every instant. I personally felt that look during the evangelization campaign of Geneva in 1981. I am the third of ten children. I was brought up in the Christian faith by the love of my parents. We prayed daily and visited the church regularly.
I was very happy as a medical student when, during a night of duty in the surgery department, while lifting a patient, I fractured an intervertebral disc, thus causing a serious herniated disc, with an acute spinal syndrome that required urgent surgery. The diagnosis was given by the head of the neurosurgery department, but I do not know for what reason he delayed the operation by forty-eight hours, which caused me irreversible harm. The slightest movement made me suffer.
On the scar of the herniated disc there settled an ankylosing spondylitis, confirmed medically, radiologically and biologically. For me this was the prospect of a progressive and evolving paralysis. My suffering was such that all my inner being cried out, begging for help. I went through terrible states of mind: I rebelled against the Lord, for I held him guilty of my infirmity; against my family, against myself, and above all against medicine. I hoped for nothing. I hated my body, which was good for nothing, only being a source of continual suffering.
My journey of salvation began in Strasbourg, with a Renewal community called “the Jacob’s Well,” and thanks to the help of my brothers I agreed to forgive medicine. After taking this step, I was reconciled with medicine and finished my studies. I then went through a stage in which I felt truly listened to by the Lord when I knelt before him. Later, in Lyon, I met brothers of the “Chemin Neuf” who taught me to let myself be loved by the Lord. Above all, I learned what forgiveness is. My sufferings had established a caricature of a God who is a judge, terrible and punishing.
I asked him for forgiveness and gave up my rebellion against him and against my family, but I still had to walk a good while before I could forgive myself. All these stages of forgiveness and reconciliation were decisive in my life. Forgiveness revives one in an effective way. While the pains persisted and grew worse, I had become accustomed to suffering.
At that time the pains were so strong that I spent my nights walking; it was the only way to calm the crises. I had consulted all the best-known neurosurgeons in France, without result. During a retreat of the “Chemin Neuf” community, a sister said to me: “Have you asked the Lord for the healing of your back?” The question surprised me. I was supposed to be living a journey of inner healing and I answered her very confidently: “Not for myself, but for my brothers, yes.” This question led me to the Geneva evangelization campaign, with Emiliano Tardif.
I journeyed there accompanied by my parents, lying down in the car, because the pains were so strong that I could not sit. At one point, I began to weep, crying out to God to have mercy on me. This pain was a grace, for I made myself poor before him, feeling obliged to ask his help. I prostrated myself before the Lord, with empty, open hands, and he revealed to me the true face of his merciful love.
During the prayer, Father Tardif said: “A person who suffers greatly from the spine and who is disabled feels a warmth that rises from the spine up to the head.” I heard the Father and began to pray for the brother who was beginning to receive this grace. Then I thought, astonished: “But, Myriam, this is what you are feeling.” Indeed, a wave of warmth passed through my spine and covered my head. It was wonderful! I knew the Lord was touching me, and I remained with this interior grace.
There was still more from God: beside me, a young woman I did not know took my hand and told me: “Tonight the Lord has touched you, I am sure of it.” It was the confirmation that the Lord was healing me.
We returned home, but this time I was sitting in the car. I had the absolute inner conviction that the Lord wanted to give me back my health to accomplish my mission. The healing was progressive, six to eight months. Little by little the pains disappeared; first I spent two nights without suffering, then a week, and toward the end the pain came only sporadically, allowing me to sleep entire nights. It was the response to the appeal I had addressed to him: “Lord, if you have need of me as a doctor and if you want it, give me back a healthy body.” The Lord had healed me!
Thus, having already healed me in my body, the Lord made me follow an interior path. When one perceives the look of the Lord, when one accepts his love in our life, comes the healing of the body, of the soul and of the spirit, so that in turn we may be the Word of the Lord, his joy and his light.
After having long had a great disgust for medicine, now I am happy to be a doctor. I wanted to be a Christian woman doctor; after this healing of my body and my soul, I am a Christian doctor. Therein lies the difference. In my profession, I have the grace to touch the mercy of the Lord, to transmit his look of love and his life which I receive every day, and I love to quote this saying: “The doctor assists, Jesus heals and grants life.” Jesus has completely healed me, because he has forgiven me all that period of sin and darkness that I had lived through. He gave me the interior light, he strengthened me so that I might reflect the light of life. He gave me back my identity as a daughter of God, latent since my baptism. May the Lord be blessed for his plan of life for each one of us!
If Jesus was able to heal the paralytic in order to show that the Son of Man has the power to forgive sins, now, by healing the paralyzed, he asks us to teach the same thing: that he is the Messiah who was to come. Paralysis is the reflection of the death in which we remain because of sin. That is why Jesus many times made the paralyzed rise and made whole men who had a paralyzed member. In this way he manifests his power to forgive sin.
A healing bears fruit not only for the sick person, but also for his entire community, as the testimony that follows confirms, told by the brother of the one who was healed: José Ramon Rosario Sanchez was born in San Victor, in the commune of Moca, on January 2, 1949. From birth he had serious health problems. He always needed permanent clinical supervision. The first problems detected by the doctors were of a diabetic nature.
For a long time the quacks maintained that the child had an insulin deficiency, obliging him to submit to a rigorous diet, which was not long in leaving traces of anemia in this delicate organism. The problem grew such that he had to be hospitalized at the Angelita hospital in the capital. The medical efforts were fruitless. The effects of the anemia consumed the child’s body more every day. With time, it became necessary to reconsider the clinical framework, but his diabetes presented unusual signs. The doctors began to study the case more seriously.
Meanwhile, José suffered in his body the agonies of pain. In the end, the conclusion was this: José suffered from aplastic anemia. His red blood cells had an abnormal structure. The crises followed one after another, causing him indescribable pains. The doctors could only give him palliatives, for one was in the presence of an illness so far incurable. At age 22, José was hospitalized at the Salvador B. Gautier hospital, in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic). There, for a year and three months, he strove to recover his ability to walk, lost because of the development of the illness.
Dr. Gonzales Cano, a specialist in aplastic anemia, declared that it was impossible that José could ever walk again, because the spinal cord was very badly affected. Walking would irremediably cause him a cerebral hemorrhage, the specialist told the patient’s parents. The doctor advised them to bring him home, to try to make this invalid’s life bearable. José had already lived four years confined to bed, unable to walk. For us, the family, everything seemed lost, and we found ourselves in a world of inexpressible anguish.
But there had always been among us a search for solutions to our great problems, through invocations to the Supreme Being. Together we all begged for his healing, although it seemed to us more distant every day. Thus three more years passed, but June 17, 1975 was a memorable day for our family. On the morning of that day, without warning, there arrived a group of faithful Christians, members of the flourishing Charismatic Movement, accompanied by Father Emiliano Tardif, a Canadian priest.
Once in the house, and after speaking with José, the priest prayed for him, invoking the Lord to grant him his healing. A few moments later, he ordered my brother to rise from the chair in which he had been seated for more than four years. José was astonished. How was it possible that he should walk, since the specialist had told him he could never do so again? He did what the Father ordered and took a few steps. Sweat covered his body. Astonishment spread through everyone’s mind: José was walking.
The family hesitated to believe it, and our house was crowded with people. Everyone was astonished; many wept with joy, others applauded and had their eyes wide open with surprise. As for me, I confess that I felt dizzy seeing my brother walk. It seemed to me a dream. Only on the third day did I accept the reality: my brother was healed, and he no longer had that pain that for years had kept him immobile.
José returned to everyday life in a normal way; he travels to many cities of the country as the fittest of all men. My brother has devoted himself to giving testimony of his healing in various places, and people see through his testimony the power of God over the illness of a man condemned by medical science... The faith of the inhabitants of Moca has not ceased to grow since they learned of this miracle. No one doubts anymore that it is God who has all power in this world. What happened to José stays in people’s memories.
Today, eight years after this miraculous event, I am known as “the brother of José, the one of the miracle,” more than as a lawyer, the profession I have exercised for several years. Me Pedro Rosario Sanchez
In the Gospel times, a man was carried by his friends on a stretcher to go to meet Jesus: this is what happened to Fernande Gobert at Cordes on the day of her healing. The circumstances are similar, and Jesus is the same. I was a teacher and led a life paced by students and studies. I had heard the Lord’s call to live only for him, and I was to enter a Benedictine convent. But in July 1975, because of an acutely painful sciatica caused by a herniated disc, I was hospitalized and operated on.
After my convalescence, I entered the Monastery, but because of the continual pains and numerous operations, I had to leave it. I took up a very simple job. Despite the constant pain and the resulting difficulty in moving about, I considered myself happy to still be able to move. I did not know that the worst and the most wonderful awaited me at the same time.
New operations confined me to bed with intense, permanent pains. I could no longer sit, and I walked only a few steps with the help of a cane. Medically speaking, there was nothing to be done: I was condemned to a lying position and to suffering. I would spend the rest of my life prostrate in a bed of pain. I endured six surgical operations without the suffering diminishing; quite the contrary. And even, at the end I was injected with morphine twice a day so that I could bear the intense pains.
In the midst of this agony, the brothers of the prayer group came to offer me their company, their courage, their friendship and their prayer. On September 16, 1982, a sister of the prayer group proposed the crazy idea of going as far as Cordes because, she told me, “Father Tardif is going to come and celebrate the Eucharist there.” Thank God, I did not think of the suffering or of the pains it would cost me. I agreed and we set off in an ambulance. During my prayer, the Lord gave me the reading of the healing of Hezekiah, but I did not attach great importance to it. The celebration began.
Father Tardif’s homily was centered on the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist; a presence real and life-giving. He gave us different testimonies of healings that had occurred after the sick person had received the Eucharist or during the procession of the Blessed Sacrament. When the moment of Communion came, two brothers carried me on my stretcher from the back of the church to the altar. I thought of those four friends who had carried the paralytic into the house where Jesus was.
Father Tardif knelt to give me the Eucharist. He then asked Jesus, present in the host, to heal me. Finally, he placed the ciborium on my head and said: “Lord, one day a woman touched your garment and was healed. We know that you are present in the Sacred Host. Touch your child and heal her as you healed the woman who suffered from a hemorrhage.” When he had finished, he told me that I had to make an act of faith, to rise and begin to walk. It was for me the “rise and walk” of the Gospel that Jesus addressed to me. I took his hands and rose from my stretcher. With his help, I began to walk. Then he let go of me and I took five steps alone. I could not take more. The Father added: “The Lord has healed you. Tomorrow, walk ten steps, even if it is painful. Little by little you will experience your healing...”
Time passed without my hearing from Fernande Gobert. But two years later, I received a postcard from Lourdes containing this message: September 5, 1984, Dear Father Tardif, on September 16, 1982 at Cordes, in the community of the Lion of Judah, in your presence, the Lord made me rise from my stretcher through the power of his presence in the Eucharist. Today I come to share with you what I have lived: in thanksgiving, with a group of friends we came by bicycle as far as Lourdes: 287.5 kilometers! God is great. Alleluia! Fernande Gobert
Since then, Fernande has married and has returned to her mathematics classes. She is not a religious, but she has devoted herself to singing the praises of the Lord. Those who see her cannot recognize the woman weakened by pain, seated in her wheelchair, but all recognize that the power of God is wonderful. Isaiah glimpses the messianic times describing that the lame will leap like a stag. That is precisely what happened in Mauritius in September 1985.
During the prayer for the sick, the Lord made rise and walk a man of sixty who could barely walk with a cane. But once he was healed and had given his testimony before the ten thousand people gathered there, he began to run; another also left his cane, and there was one more who walked. It was almost excessive to see so many lame walking in all the aisles, some with their crutches in the air, others without their cane. Our God is generous. At the wedding at Cana a little wine was lacking and he changed six hundred liters of water into good wine.
He made so much that one could have celebrated another wedding.
3 - The deaf hear
When the Lord opens the ears of the deaf, it means that Jesus revives the communication that had been destroyed by sin. In Jesus all the obstacles that prevent communication are overcome. Opening the ears of the deaf is a sign of the liberation the Lord brings about from isolation, from individualism and from the impossibility of communicating. Jesus comes to re-establish broken relationships, thus allowing us a deep communication. He makes us sensitive to listening to the Word of God and at the same time makes us capable of hearing the cries of our brothers.
In May 1986, I was preaching in Zaire. On the second day, after the prayer for healing, a young girl, her face frightened, was crying out in the midst of a crowd of twenty-six thousand people gathered in the stadium of Mbandaka. She was deaf-mute from birth, taken by surprise by the songs and praises, and she was crying out while covering her ears. The next day, in great peace and with a great smile, before the crowd, she gave her testimony of healing, pronouncing the words she had learned that morning: “Thank you, God, Jesus, amen, alleluia.”
I asked her age, but she did not yet know how to answer. Without hesitation her sister, who was beside her, answered: “Fourteen years.” And the one who was formerly deaf-mute repeated: “Fourteen years.” It was a very beautiful testimony that moved the whole crowd, seeing the healing power of Jesus. Once again, we saw that the prophecies were written for us; literally, what Isaiah foretold had come to pass: Then the tongue of the mute will cry out for joy (Is 35, 6).
In the same line, the most astonishing healing is that of Celia Covarrubias. So unbelievable that the first time I shared it with my companions, they all remained silent and no one made any comment. Afterwards, one of them came up to me and said very seriously: “You should not tell this story, because not only will no one believe you, but you will also give the bad impression of speaking of illogical things, and everyone will laugh at you...” However, one year after her healing, Celia, medical reports in hand, gave the following testimony in an arena, in the city of Mexico, before fifteen thousand people: Twenty years ago I began to suffer from a cholesteatoma in my left ear. The illness worsened until it became infected.
In 1976, I had a trepanation, emptying my inner ear: I thus lost all hearing in that ear. Because of the progress of the infection, I had another trepanation, during which my inner bones were also scraped out. Until then I did not mind not hearing, since I no longer had any auditory organs. The only interest this could have was to eliminate the infection, which was gaining ground. In January 1986, I began a Seminar on Life in the Spirit of Renewal. The accompanier told me that God had permitted all the sorrows of my life to glorify his name.
I answered that I would rather glorify him with praises. My life had been very difficult, with problems of every sort. In February of that same year, I went to the Charismatic Gathering of Querétaro (Mexico) to ask for the healing of my heart, which was so wounded by sufferings and misunderstandings. When Father Tardif said the prayer for healing, I interceded for the salvation of my children, my brothers, my friends. I barely remembered that I wanted to pray for my healing, for I was resigned to never hearing again.
I knew that God does impossible things, but I asked for nothing because I was accustomed to hearing with only one ear. I simply said to him: “Lord, here I am. You know what I lack and what I have too much of. I put myself into your hands,” without asking anything concrete. Then the Father said into the microphone that a thirty-eight-year-old woman had been healed in her left ear. At that moment I felt a great warmth and heard a very loud noise. I covered my right ear.
To my great surprise, I was hearing with my left ear as if I had, very close to me, a loudspeaker as big as a wardrobe. I asked my neighbor whether the volume had been turned up, but she told me no. Had the Lord healed me? I could not believe it, since at no moment had I asked for the healing. What is certain is that, against all medical possibility, I was hearing with my left ear. Father Tardif went back to Canada and I to Irapuato, to my home, accompanied by Jesus.
The Lord surrounded me with people who taught me many things and who live very close to him; he led me onto his path, and now I am another person, totally renewed. I spent the whole night weeping and giving thanks to God and praising him. I enjoyed all the noises. Everything seemed so pure to me. But the most important was the joy that flooded me, and certainly it was not only the fact of having been healed, but of being at peace with God and with myself. From that moment on, all my life changed. The Lord transformed me in a wonderful way.
Before, I felt alone and depressed. I knew that God existed, but I considered that he was far from my problems. My life was filled with sorrows. Sometimes, it seemed to me that I could not go on like this. I knew that I was the temple of the Holy Spirit, but since I did not experience it, I could not manage to believe it.
He who truly knows the Lord must follow him. One cannot resist. I could no longer turn back. When a person has all his organs and God heals him in prayer, we are facing a miracle. But if the person has no auditory organ at all and begins to hear again, then it is no longer merely a miracle, but a call. God gives a new direction to his life. That is how I understood it. When God calls, one cannot resist by arguing: “I cannot, I do not know how.” Before, I lived very oppressed by financial problems.
I thought that the day I did not weave, I would have nothing to eat. Now I go as long as fifteen days without weaving, because many people come to the house to ask me to pray for them, and I have never again had that financial worry. When people hear what God has done in my life, there are hardened hearts that convert to the Lord. Some weep and others are deeply touched by him. I have even had visits from priests and religious who suffer greatly from their lack of faith.
I tell them that it is not their fault; that their problem is that they have not experienced the love of Jesus and that that is why they do not know him. Before, I asked myself what drove the evangelizers to speak before the microphones, and how they dared to preach before so many people. Now that I have lived this experience of the love and the power of God, I understand it perfectly: one cannot stay silent about what one has lived.
Once a priest attacked me, because he thought that I had never been ill in my ear and that I was lying. But I answered him: “Father, nothing is impossible for God.” Two years have passed since my healing. The doctors ran hearing tests on me again and cannot explain how I can hear. Now my problem is not hearing, but knowing how to proclaim to the whole world that we have a God who is a Father, and that since he has given us his only Son, how will he not give us all the rest...?
In this healing, God teaches us that his plans are much vaster than ours. It is not only Celia’s left ear that he opened, but her whole life has changed, and now this is the testimony that there exists a new life and a mission for those who believe in the infinite power of Jesus. If you make the “52” (462) 63 319, it is likely that it is Celia who will answer and who will put the receiver to her left ear.
During the month of October 88, I was preaching in the Ivory Coast. We had a healing service with four thousand people, and one of the words of knowledge I received was that two deaf people were being healed in the assembly. I asked the two deaf people who had been healed to come forward and give their testimony. A thirty-year-old man stood up, very moved, and said that for a long time he had not been hearing, but that his ear was finishing unblocking and that he could now hear. Then I asked who the other was. I insisted, but no one answered.
Then I said: “Let us continue to pray.” The next day, we had the meeting of the clergy of the diocese. A priest raised his hand and said: “Father, last night you did something anti-evangelical: when Jesus healed a sick person, he forbade him to speak of the miracle, whereas last night you asked those who had been healed to proclaim it to everyone.” I answered him: “But, Father, that was the ‘messianic secret.’ At the beginning of his public life, Jesus did not want to reveal his messianic identity abruptly, and that is why he said: “tell this to no one.”
But on the day of his Ascension, he commanded us to proclaim the Gospel to the ends of the earth. This is how the “messianic secret” was revealed. Now not only do we know it, but we must proclaim to the ends of the earth that Jesus is the Messiah and Savior. That is precisely the mission of the Church. Otherwise, what reason does it have to exist?” At that moment, a priest raised his hand.
I thought it was for another objection, but he explained: “Father, last night, when you announced the healing of two deaf people, only one came to give his testimony; the other did not come forward, but it was me. I realized that I was hearing well, but I did not dare to stand up, thinking: let us wait to see whether it is really true... But this morning, when I woke up, I heard the singing of the birds for the first time in three years. This afternoon, I was able to hear confessions for more than an hour, hearing perfectly without a hearing aid.”
When he had given his testimony, everyone applauded. Then I asked the first priest: “Father, do you not believe that it glorifies God more that we proclaim his wonders?” And there the discussion ended.
Each healing is an opportunity to show that Jesus is the Messiah. Each testimony is a cry of evangelization proclaiming that Jesus is the Savior of the world.
4 - The lepers are cleansed
Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. What he did two thousand years ago, he does again today, because he has the same power today as yesterday. After I preached a retreat for priests at Sagmeline, in Cameroon, I was invited to pray in a government leprosarium where there are more than three hundred patients. We arrived before this suffering crowd. It was very impressive to stand before such a tableau of pain: the worm of leprosy eating away at human flesh.
Some with limbs amputated in order to go on living; others, blind because of their illness, the smell of rotting flesh... After having spoken to them of the healing power, we prayed, asking the Lord to heal these sick people. A short time after I returned home, I received a letter from a religious sister who was a nurse in the leprosarium, telling me that the Lord had healed ten lepers. Ten lepers who were able to return to the normal life of their village and who give their testimony!
I asked the Lord: “Why were there ten healings and not nine or eleven?” I felt the Lord answer in my heart: “So that they may know that the one who heals today is the same one who healed the ten of the Gospel.” I believe that the leprosy of our time is cancer. A word that has become synonymous with a death sentence. That is why I am going to tell you how Jesus heals from the leprosy of cancer. Faced with illness and evil, we are before a mystery. Some stumble against it and fall, but whoever deepens the mystery in the light of the empty cross values it. That is what happened to this woman who was on the brink of death: My name is Hélène Gaspoz, I am from Evolène in Switzerland, I am 43 years old, married for 21 years, and I have three children.
I was suffering from generalized cancer, which began in the bones in 1975. A bone sample was taken and three weeks later the doctor announced the result to us: a malignant tumor. Bone cancer. “I do not want to die,” I answered, “I have three daughters to raise, one of them has a serious illness, and my husband has just had an accident.” The doctor, pensive, answered me: “As long as the spine is not affected, something can be done.” That affected me in every sense of the word. Unfortunately, the illness grew worse and quickly reached the spine.
There was talk of a herniated disc, but I learned from another doctor that one could not operate because of the wear of the bones and that the illness was fatal. I spent my time going up and down, until one day an intense pain in the back was followed by a paralysis of the legs. Hospitalized for three days, I was examined carefully. I was given powerful painkillers and I spent three whole months in bed without being able even to move my head.
My husband was wonderful, never ceasing to support me and to help me pray. This illness united us more and made us more attentive to each other’s needs. When one is in the shadow of death, one realizes the importance of love, and one cannot scorn any opportunity. My healing began on Saturday, June 1, during the meeting with Father Tardif at Sion. When God showed him my case, I did not immediately realize that it was about me. I had not yet asked for my healing; I had come to this meeting to pray and to entrust my husband and my three daughters to the Lord, because the unbearable suffering I felt made me think that my life was coming to an end.
I felt an intense warmth invade my body; my daughters told me that I was all red. After the meeting, I noticed that I no longer had pain in my back and that I did not need to look for my balance to walk. Friends who had come with their son, a doctor, told me: “But Hélène, you are burning hot.” I answered them that it was without any doubt the warmth of the Lord... On arriving home, I pointed out to my husband that I could turn my head, and during the night I was able to turn over in bed without difficulty, something I had not been able to do for years.
It was like a dream. Several times I turned on the light to examine myself, and I understood that the Holy Spirit had healed me. On waking in the morning, I was a new woman: all my pains had disappeared and, contrary to habit, my mouth was no longer full of blood. I got up without help, feeling small and light as a feather; I ran to wake up the whole family, crying out: “The Lord has healed me!”, weeping and singing all at once. Imagine my joy, for I had been ill for ten years. The three weeks that followed, I lived them in extraordinary joy.
Now I can affirm that these long years of trial have made faith and love grow in our home. Today we live in a different way, not only thanks to the healing, but also to the illness that threatened my life. I would like to say to all those who are ill that if their family, their friends or their doctors abandon them, the Lord remains close to them.
Thank you, Lord! You are wonderful! One can no longer doubt your resurrection. Every day you prove to us that you are alive among us. Alleluia! The testimony that follows shows us how, when the Lord accomplishes a healing, his saving action reaches very deep and brings about a reaction in the person, which will lead him to the healing of the most serious of all illnesses: sin.
On July 5, 1981, I was preaching a retreat at the church of the Reformed (Les Réformés) in Marseille. A 34-year-old Belgian young man was brought for the prayer of healing; he was suffering from a very advanced cancer of the right foot, where he had two wounds. Two doctors in Marseille, after seven months of treatment, had decided to amputate the leg. He did not want that, and resisted in every possible way. When F.G. learned that there was a celebration for the sick, he did not think of his life of sin and decided to attend.
During the prayer for the sick, he felt in his right foot a very intense warmth, as if it were being brought near a fire. At the end of the Eucharist, he went home feeling different. Something had happened that afternoon, although he himself could not explain what it was. For the first time in seven months, he went to bed without taking sleeping pills, and he slept wonderfully. The next day he was very happy and astonished. He then said to the Jesuit priest with whom he was staying: “How strange, I no longer feel any pain in my foot!
Let us see what is happening!” Together they removed the bandage that wrapped the right foot and discovered with admiration that it was perfectly healthy and that new skin covered the wounds; the healing was so perfect that the tissues had been renewed and one could not even see the difference between one skin and another. Leaping for joy, the young man went to the clinic to show his foot to the doctors who were treating him. They asked him with curiosity what had happened to him; the healing was so perfect and so rapid that they could find no explanation.
Then the young man told them: “The Lord healed me yesterday during the Eucharist.” They, being atheists, did not know who the Lord was, let alone what the Eucharist was. They answered him: “We need to find an explanation for this...” When F.G. telephoned me to tell me the whole story and repeated that the doctors were looking for an explanation, I answered him: “Tell them that we have the explanation: Jesus is truly alive and present in the Eucharist.
Since Jesus is alive, he can do this and much more, because he is the same one who raised Lazarus and healed so many lame and crippled people, so many blind and deaf people. Jesus is the health of the sick!” Without any doubt, the most important healing was not that one, but the healing of the cancer of the heart called sin. F.G. had led a sinful life. The Lord gave him the strength to renounce all that in order to take a new path. A short time later, he entered the seminary.
As the Lord had healed him during the Eucharist, he wanted to draw as close as possible to this mystery and one day be able to celebrate it. Years later I returned to France; I found him ordained a priest, in a house of contemplative life, celebrating the mystery of faith, in which we proclaim the death of the Lord and proclaim his resurrection. Jesus is alive and acts in the consecrated bread and wine. If we had more faith and let him act with all his strength, we would not lack so many arguments to affirm his real presence in the Eucharist.
It would suffice to let him act, and he himself would take care of proving his real presence in the consecrated Host, with signs and miracles. Then our Eucharistic celebrations would be transformed into wondrous celebrations.
Finally, although at some length, Don Pedro Martinez, from the north of Mexico, tells us in a beautiful way not only his healing but also his transformation: Dear Father Emiliano, Writing to my friends is one of my favorite pastimes, but today I find myself at a loss; I do not know how I am going to begin properly the account of the testimony I have been asked to give. In the past, I travelled a great deal, and given my physical strength, no one could have convinced me to devote more time to my family.
I believed (like many people) that my sins were light; if one started from the principle that not killing, not stealing and being “fair” with one’s fellow men was being right with God. In fact, I considered myself a good Christian. However, I had not received Communion since my marriage, which went back thirty years. About three years ago, following a work accident, I began to have difficulties with my right leg, and also with my right arm, which could barely support the weight of my bag.
Along my whole spine terrible, intense pains began that I could not bear, although I was given very strong sedatives. The day came when I had to be injected regularly with muscle relaxants to prevent the fainting spells that kept recurring.
We visited a number of medical centers in Mexico and the United States. Some said it was the kidneys; others, my weight. But they all agreed that I should be operated on in Houston. I was hospitalized for two operations, for I was losing all feeling in my lower extremities and cruel pains had appeared. From then on, I began to depend on the help of my loved ones, particularly of my wife, who devoted all her time to me. I seemed so ill physically that I was not even accepted on a regular flight; we therefore had to charter a medical plane.
The neurosurgeon who had operated on me the previous times commented that the operation would be delicate, and he considered it dangerous. That is why, very coldly, on the night before the operation, he told me: “Don Pedro, do you believe in God? Then entrust yourself to him, because we are going to need all his help.” The operation had no success. I was worse than before, unable to move and numb from the chest down.
From that moment on, I noticed a very notable drawing together among my loved ones and my friends, because, upon opening my spine again, they had discovered that the cancer had reached the bones and the prostate: clinically it was impossible to do anything for me. The doctors gave me a life expectancy of three months.
Several weeks passed and I began to notice that I was losing weight alarmingly. To calm my pains they kept me unconscious most of the time. This is how I chose to ask my wife that, as soon as the radiation was finished, we return home, for I felt very ill. On this second return home, some relatives and friends did not want to come visit me again, because, instead of comforting them, they left the house dismayed to see this person, strong and vigorous, that they had known a few months earlier, go from 105 kilos to 55 kilos, with, in addition, a death sentence. My wife did not accept the idea that I might leave in this way, leaving her alone, so she desperately sought every means within her reach.
Encouraged by the fact of having passed the three-month deadline of life, I was taken to Monterrey. The group of doctors bent over my case was very cold with my wife, telling her not to build up illusions, that the fact of having passed that deadline was not sufficient basis to prevent my finding myself, from one moment to the next, in a bad state. For months we attended radiotherapy sessions in Monterrey, and one day we had a visit from a prayer group. After the first meeting, we felt the necessity of that group’s presence.
During the third visit, we were evangelized. We were told of the love of God as I had never heard it before. I recognized myself as a sinner and accepted Jesus in my heart as my Savior. I proclaimed him Lord of all my life, and hands were laid on us to receive a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit. During my baptism in the Holy Spirit, I had something like a vision: hands were reaching out toward me, from which came a resplendent light surrounded by a very thick snow, and they took mine.
I felt the strange presence of something divine, very disconcerting, which even now I find impossible to describe, but it caused me a profound emotion. Friends told us that you, Father Tardif, would be present at Guadalajara in November. As we were very eager to attend the gathering, we asked them to get tickets for us. The whole house was filled with joy and hope. It was a contagious joy for the whole family. We prepared the departure by plane and arrived on the 22nd. For this trip, as for every journey, I needed a wheelchair.
On arriving, we were surprised to see thousands of people surrounding the stadium, waiting and wanting to enter. It was a true pilgrimage of people in expectation, singing, many of them carried on stretchers of every sort; there were lines of invalids in wheelchairs, paralytics carried in their arms, some with crutches or canes, and others, like human burdens, were supported at the shoulders by smiling beings who seemed not to mind the weight; in their eyes one could only read the desire to hear the Word of God.
For the simple of heart, how easy it is to hope! We attended the unfolding of all the ceremonies, taking part in them without getting over our astonishment at seeing sixty thousand people drinking avidly at the source of the Word of God. When it came your turn, Father Tardif, to pray for the sick, we were astonished at the healings that could be observed: a man was walking raising his crutches high, a blind woman could see, etc. Thus the time passed until you announced that only five minutes of prayer remained.
At that instant, my wife began to pray to God in this way: “Lord, I thank you with all my heart for having allowed us to attend this meeting. The time set for the healing is coming to an end and I have not heard that you have taken an interest in my husband’s case. But if on this occasion you do not give him back his health, you know why. I ask only, Lord, that you continue to sustain him in his faith, and if today is not his day, do not allow him to become discouraged or his faith to waver.”
She was finishing her prayer, when you said that at that instant five people were receiving healing, two women and three men. When it came to the men, you specified that one of them was being healed of a cancer of the bones: that he should not be afraid, he was going to feel a very intense warmth throughout his body and a deep anguish.
My wife turned to look at me. I was bathed in sweat, feeling a fire invading all my body. In addition, an indescribable emotion-anguish, which I expressed through a long groan. I was certain that you were speaking precisely of me, and I told my wife so. Despite the great emotion of those so intense moments, we managed to hear you ask that the person not give his testimony immediately, but wait fifteen days. Together with all those who rejoined us backstage, moved and happy, we praised God, because I was the last person our Lord had healed that day.
During the Eucharist, we gave thanks to the Lord for all the wonders he had allowed us to witness. On Sunday the 25th, we set off again for the airport. My wife told me: “I have just seen Father Emiliano Tardif.” I answered her that it was not possible, that the distance between us and the place where you were officiating and had said the prayer of healing was too great for her to be able to recognize you. She went toward the place where you were seated and came back all excited, telling me: “It is Father Tardif, it is Father Tardif,” and asked that we go up to greet him. Such was her enthusiasm that I expected nothing for myself, when she went to where you were speaking with other people and said: “Forgive me for interrupting you, but I would like to know whether you are indeed Father Emiliano Tardif.”
Then you asked her whether you could help her in any way. She, quick, asked you whether it were possible for you to offer her a minute of your time, for we wished to greet you and meet you personally; it had been more than a year and a half that we had been waiting for these moments. You did not wait, seated, for me to come to you, but you came up to the place where I was standing, leaning against a wall and on my canes.
So I began to tell you, briefly, my whole story, and finally told you that I felt I was the person concerned by the last case of cancer. Then you laid your hands on me and began to pray in a strange language that I had never heard, but which made me feel a deep communion with God. My wife wept with emotion. You recommended that I not be afraid, that I was going to be healed, and that within fifteen days I had to give my testimony. Then you asked me to read Jesus Is Alive.
We then answered that it had not been possible for us to find it in the stadium nor in the bookstores of the city, but that a friendly couple was going to send us one. At that very instant, from the midst of the crowd around us, a man emerged holding the book in his hand and said: “Here it is, I give it to you.” You took it and told me: “My son, the Lord is with you,” and you showed me the page where the prayer for the sick is found.
N.T.: The original title of Emiliano Tardif’s first book is Jesus Is Alive. It was published in French under the title Jesus Made Me a Witness.
From that moment on, I no longer needed my wheelchair. I got on the bus that was to take us to the foot of the plane’s stairway and, without any help (except my canes), I climbed the steps. Ten days later, dear Father Tardif, I picked up the telephone: it was our neurologist from the city of Reynosa, who wanted to take advantage of his stay in Monterrey to greet me. It was moreover the moment for me to see the various specialists again.
The next day, I had a telephone call from the nuclear medicine specialist, informing me that he had just received a new capsule of radioactive material and that it would be good for him to see me again. We began to count the days. The date on which they were to see me again coincided with the fifteen days to which you had alluded in the stadium... On December 7, 1984, the first bone scans in nuclear medicine were done on me, sending new samples for my clinical laboratory analyses.
In the afternoon, the doctor informed us that he wanted to be sure of the results of the plates he had in hand and that he was going to send them to the oncologist to confirm the result... During our conversation with this doctor in the afternoon, he watched the tests attentively, looking on every side for the “hot spots” of my bones. He found nothing; we had to wait for the laboratory to give the results of the phosphates, which are the parameter that indicates my real state of suffering.
That same afternoon, we also had an appointment with the urologist, who after examining me attentively exclaimed: “Don Pedrito, you are not well; you are excellently well! We must be vigilant.”
It was with anxiety that we awaited Monday. We were prepared and certain that everything would go well. The nuclear medicine specialist was waiting for us in his office. He told us he had the results, but that he was waiting for confirmation from the laboratory because it did not correspond to what had been recorded in the previous tests. Ten minutes later, the telephone rang. It was the answer from the laboratory. He listened with great attention and hung up. After a few moments of silence, he simply told us: “Medicine is good, but not that good. You are healed.
The radiation is finished. All my best wishes, Don Pedro.” When we went to take leave of the nuclear medicine specialist, he told us: “Do not believe that because today you are well, it will always be so.” Feeling that my Lord was with us, I answered him: “How much do you want to bet that it will?” Laughing, he replied: “Well, that would be one of the bets I would lose most joyfully, but it is better to stop there.” Father Tardif... it has been about three years, I was leaving for Houston to undergo a delicate surgical operation. It was on a grey, cold day.
A few minutes before the ambulance left, I had turned around to look at my house one last time, saying to myself: “Lord, I do not know whether I shall come back to see these lands, but I love them, as I love all the human beings who have given me so much through their love.” Today, three years on, I want to share with you that God has showered me with innumerable graces. He limited me almost completely physically, in order to teach me and to give me the necessary humility; so that with it I might learn, with modesty and simplicity, to receive tenderness, affection and delicacies.
During these three years, the Lord has increased my faith and the certainty that through him one can receive everything. I have learned that life is only a succession of changes, and that I must adapt to my new life; in this particular case, to live without haste. To try as much as possible to let go of preoccupations and mortifications, to forget grudges and false attitudes. This is another wonderfully beautiful stage. I bless the Lord, because during all this time he has replaced that grey day of the past with the radiant sun of the present. I have learned to compare myself with no one.
I no longer ask myself: why me? I know that there is a God who loves me, that the whole past has been a good for me. Blessed illness, through which God gave me salvation!
5 - The Good News is proclaimed to the poor
Through preaching all over the world, through crossing the steppes and deserts of Africa, the leprosariums and the prisons, I observe everywhere the same phenomenon: it is the poor, and almost always the poorest of the poor, who welcome the Gospel with simplicity. They are the most open to receive, perhaps because they are the ones who need it most. When I preach in certain places in Europe, it is a quite different matter: Cartesian mentality, theological, medical and psychological analysis.
Furthermore, I have discovered another poverty: the disgust and the little interest in life of those who are showered with material goods. Sometimes they are poorer than the others, because they lack what is most important: love. They live in gilded prisons. They have cars and planes, but they do not know where to go. They are provided with everything and nothing satisfies them. The Gospel proclaims good news to the poor, but at the same time it calls us to a poorer life, free from compromise and covetousness; free of every attachment, so as to live in fullness.
Conclusion
Jesus is the Messiah who was to come. He fulfills the messianic prophecies, and in him are realized the signs that characterize the Messiah. We must not wait for another. The promises have been fulfilled. The time of lighting a lamp to discover the Messiah is past, because he now shines brightly and it is he who illumines us with his light, which knows no sunset. There is no other Name given to men by which we may be saved.
Jesus is the only savior, who still today says to us again: so that you may know that the Son of Man has the power to forgive sins, “rise and walk.” So that you may know that I am the light of the world, “may your eyes open.” So that you may know that I am the resurrection and the life, “come out” of the tomb of sin. So that you may know that I am the way, “walk.” Jesus is the Messiah announced by the prophets, awaited by Israel and of whom the whole world has need. Today, Jesus is the Messiah. The prophet also speaks of the dead who return to life.
I believe that inner healing is a form of resurrection, because it shares with us the victory of Jesus Christ over death. The chapter that follows is devoted to this point.
II
INNER
HEALING
What I have found most beautiful in the Charismatic Renewal is what is called inner healing. In the same way that our body is attacked by different illnesses, we can also be affected interiorly by traumas, complexes, fears, grudges and insecurities of every kind. And what is more, many physical cases are only the outward symptoms of psychological imbalances, and when these latter are healed, the former also disappear. If we have been wounded in our feelings, we can find ourselves weakened by it.
If we remember someone who betrayed us, we are angry with everyone. Sometimes our love has been trampled on, and ever since our heart closes to every manifestation of affection. However, Jesus came to heal the brokenhearted and to offer us a new heart. It is wonderful to discover how the Gospel is full of this sort of healing: his disciples, Jesus healed them of attachment to riches and of covetousness (Mt 19, 16-26), of authoritarianism (Mt 19, 27-30), of the fear of death (Mk 4, 35-41; Lk 12, 4-8), of anxiety (Jn 14, 1-6), of legalism (Mt 12, 1-8), of the fear of failure (Mk 4, 30-32), of hatreds, resentments and grudges (Lk 6, 27-31), of pride (Lk 18, 9-14) and of error (Jn 7, 31-33).
He healed the centurion of his inferiority complex (Mt 8, 8-13), the Samaritan woman of her racial hatred (Jn 4); he freed Zacchaeus from injustice (Lk 19, 1-10); the woman caught in adultery, from her feeling of guilt (Jn 8, 1-11); the prostitute, from impurity (Lk 7, 36-50). And most important, which is at the root of all evils: he healed the paralytic of his sin (Mk 2, 1-12). How often do we desire to move forward, but we cannot! Our will is overcome and our character does not have the strength to resist adversities.
Other times, we believe that it is others who must change and we demand it, with no result. On the contrary, it seems that it only makes the problem worse. In fact, we are all wounded, and that is why we do not have the strength to go beyond our limits.
I personally lived this grace of inner healing: Throughout my life, I had a problem at the slightest contact with blood. When I had to go and administer the holy oils to a dying person who was bleeding, it was a great sacrifice, because I would begin to break out in cold sweat and, no matter how much effort I made, I could not control myself. One day I was watching a war film that had many bloody scenes. I began to break out in cold sweat, I lowered my eyes; I could not take any more; I thought I was going to faint.
I felt so unwell that I had to leave in the middle of the film. One day Bishop Alfonso Uribe Jaramillo came to preach a retreat. During the Mass, he prayed for the healing of the wounds of memory, recalling the different stages of life. While he was praying for the healing of the wounds of childhood, I remembered that when I was five years old, one day I quarrelled with my six-year-old brother. I had a penknife in my hand and threw it at him. It fell on his arm, and a lot of blood flowed. I was very frightened to see his arm stained red.
Although I had forgotten the incident, I always had a problem when I saw blood.
While Bishop Uribe Jaramillo was praying, that event I had lived through when I was five years old came to my mind, and I asked the Lord to heal me of this memory. Since then, I have gone to many hospitals to visit patients with wounds from serious accidents, and I no longer have that reaction of hemophobia. Thanks to this inner healing, I am healed. The Lord has healed this wound of my memory, and, from this healing of memories, I now understand better the importance of inner healing.
If I myself felt unwell when I saw blood, for others an emotional wound made them ill before authority, because on such and such a day, their father, their mother or their teacher had treated them harshly. Many children are rebellious because of their emotional wounds. Their revolt is there, as it were, to protect them from all authority. However, we do not need so much to know the root of the problem as the solution to that same problem, and it is a prayer of inner healing that frees us.
A little boy had such delicate features that everyone said he looked like a girl. This caused him a very great trauma, so that on one hand he tried to appear more of a man than others, but at the same time he began to reject all his companions who criticized him or made fun of him. As he grew up, he wanted nothing to do with women, because they reflected what he did not want to be. When he reached adulthood, his problem grew worse and he fell into homosexuality. One day, while praying for his inner healing, the Lord freed him from this problem, filling his heart with the love he had lacked. Thanks to inner healing and the strength of the Lord, he was able to come out of homosexuality. Today he leads a completely normal life.
The testimony that follows shows how an emotional wound can have physical consequences, but that once the interior is healed, the symptoms disappear, as Sister Madeleine-Danièle shows in her letter: Lord, your five wounds have healed my wounds. Jesus came to seek me out in the midst of my lukewarmness, and moreover of my sin. I was in a deplorable state: pains in the back, ankylosing arthrosis in the knees which kept me from kneeling during mental prayer, migraine two or three times a week, and a hiatal hernia. I had lost the taste for mental prayer and spiritual reading. I spaced out my confessions greatly and even often missed the Eucharist. My only prayer was: “Despite everything, you know that I love you.”
In these precise circumstances, Jesus revealed his face to me. On July 5, 1981, a friend called me to tell me she would come to get me to attend a prayer for the sick. I remained in the back of the church. A priest with a friendly Canadian accent gave a meditation so full of faith on the five wounds of Jesus that I still remember it. He then began to thank the Lord for the healings he was bringing about. He said: “There is here a religious sister who has received a great wound in the heart, and after several years it still has not healed. Jesus heals this wound, and she finds a joy that no one will be able to take from her.”
At that precise instant, I felt a deep happiness within me. At the same time, the circumstances that had wounded me came back clearly to my memory. At the end, the priest gave the blessing from the altar. I knelt spontaneously and, to my great surprise, I was able to get up the same way. I then thought that perhaps it was I who was the sister healed of an emotional wound, but I was seized with doubt, for there were about twenty religious sisters in the church.
Father Tardif, when you got back into the car, I came up and told you: “Father, if no religious sister identified herself for this healing, it is because it is me.” You looked at me in silence and answered: “I believe so too.” It was from that moment on that the healing began. One day I said to myself: “If Jesus healed my knees, perhaps he has also healed my feet...” I then removed the orthopedic insoles I had been using for four years and walked without any problem.
But the most astonishing was when someone struck me precisely at the scar of my old wound. I nursed the vexation. But I remembered the parable of the two debtors: I, who owed Jesus such a great healing, would I not be capable of forgiving a small wound? I forgave and felt a great peace. I returned to the fervor of mental prayer. The migraine disappeared and I am a new person at the service of the Lord. Seeing all that God has done in my life, I note that in truth all things work together for the good of those who love God, and I acknowledge with all my heart: “Lord, how much I must thank that person who wounded me. Fill her with your love.” Sister Madeleine-Danièle
Inner healing produces two effects: it frees us from the cause that affects us, and it strengthens us to persevere in good. The traumas of childhood have repercussions on our present conduct. An alcoholic cannot stop drinking if the root of his problem is not healed. He will continue drinking; otherwise, instead of that, another symptom of the same origin will appear. The Lord goes to the depth of our life, right into the most hidden and distant zones of our childhood, to rebuild what affects us in the present.
During a congress in Caracas, we were praying for inner healing. A Canadian religious sister came up, a missionary in Honduras, who could not pray because she lived with a chronic sadness. We began to pray for her. Very quickly, a mental image came to one person on the team. She saw a little girl alone, crying in a wood where there was a lot of snow. We asked the sister whether this reminded her of something. She began to weep and told her story: “When I was little, I lived in Canada. One snowy afternoon, I went out alone into the wood.
The snow covered my footprints on the path and I got lost. When I wanted to go home, I did not know which way to go and I felt abandoned. I wept for more than two hours, until my family found me. It was something very painful for me. It is from that moment on that I began to have many fears.
We then prayed to the Lord in these terms: “You know, Lord, what our sister has suffered. Make her feel that she is in the palm of your hand and that your eyes will never leave her, for you have watched over each of the steps she has been able to take. For you, there is neither past nor future; everything is present before you.
We place before you what happened to her in the wood and ask you to heal the emotional wound she received from it.” I saw this religious sister again several years later, when we went to preach in Tegucigalpa, and she told me that her life had changed since she received this inner healing. Furthermore, a healthy person is strong in the face of pitfalls; he faces problems without fear, he does not dread criticism and does not let himself be affected by “what people will say.” He who has been healed by the Lord possesses an inner fortress capable of resisting attacks.
With the psalmist, he can exclaim: If an army camps against me, my heart is without fear; if war breaks out against me, in this I put my trust (Ps 27, 3).
The testimony that follows shows us very clearly how the healed person can persevere in his new life. In my family, I lived in an atmosphere of Christian customs and norms. I did my studies in an excellent convent school and I always fulfilled my duties of piety. I could say that I had excellent Christian information, but not necessarily Christian formation, because I did not know this living God and had never experienced the New Life brought to our world by Jesus.
At the age of 15, when I approached the Sacrament of Confession, I was deeply traumatized by the priest. Because of that I never went to confession again. Why go to confess to someone who was worse than me? I did not even go to be reconciled on my wedding day. Like every bride, I arrived with illusions about marriage, hoping to give everything and receive everything from my husband. I had several children, but little by little I lost my illusions. We lived in selfishness, and I lacked the one thing I needed: love.
Some dreams turned into nightmares, and the heavenly joy I expected from marriage turned into hell. The worst of hell is not the shouts, nor the blows, nor even hatred, but the lack of love. After seven years of marriage, I was hungry for the love I did not receive from my husband. I was farther and farther from the Lord, so I did not seek him... but I tried to receive the love of a person who was trying to help me.
I thought that thus would be filled the void that was every time deeper. That is why I fell into conjugal infidelity. What I believed to be the solution only made my marital problem worse, for each time I moved a little farther from my husband. I felt very bad in my behavior, but I could do nothing else. I fell again, a new time, and then it was a catastrophe. Emotionally, I suffered a trauma: I hated and despised myself. I even went so far as to stop taking care of myself physically.
My own person no longer interested me. On the other hand, the conjugal aggressions increased and I ended up losing all hope in life itself. I wanted to die, because I found no meaning in a life so empty where love did not exist.
However, I justified myself, laying on my husband the blame for my sin: “If he loved me, I would not have done what I did.” I even sometimes rejoiced in my infidelity, but in the end I felt even worse. I lived two years in fear, accusing myself and feeling guilty. I was afraid that others would know and that my husband would realize it. But what did it matter that they did not know, since I myself knew? It kept me in a terrible anguish. Every day I felt less human, less a woman.
The rare times I went to Mass, I even received Communion, without heeding the word of Saint Paul that he who eats the body of the Lord unworthily eats his own condemnation (1 Co 11, 29). In any case, I already felt condemned, bitter and worse than before. It is in these circumstances that I attended a retreat of the Charismatic Renewal, during which I received the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
I thought that the Holy Spirit was not for sinners, but I understood that the Spirit allows us to draw near, repentant, to ask God’s forgiveness. I alone condemned myself for my sin. The Spirit gave me repentance and the assurance that God was disposed to forgive me. During this retreat, the Lord gave me the gift of prayer in tongues. That touched me even more. How could God love me, a sinner, so much that he went so far as to give me this mark of his tenderness? I could not understand so much love, and it was only the beginning. Something within me told me that the best was still missing.
The following Sunday I went to Mass but, despite my attempt, it was impossible for me to receive Communion. God was protecting me by keeping me from committing a new sacrilege. I then made the difficult resolution to return to confession, difficult because I remembered the wound of my youth. But if in a confession I had lost the faith, to return to it I had to pass through the same door. On July 22, which I did not know was the feast of Mary Magdalene, I went back to confession after fifteen years.
I presented myself timidly to the priest, like that woman who had drawn near to Jesus to wash his feet. It was terrible to recall what anguished me so much. It was like reliving, with the same intensity, my pain and my emptiness. However, by obliging me to do it, the Lord took from me the great weight that I could no longer bear. I experienced in all its grandeur the love and the forgiveness of my Jesus. The priest was not Emiliano Tardif, but Jesus Christ himself welcoming me with tenderness. He did not push me away, he did not condemn me.
For me it was like the love of Jesus for the sinner of the Gospel. The Lord had forgiven me! Not only did I receive his forgiveness, but the Lord healed me of that trauma of confession, as well as of the lack of love and of the infidelity. This confession filled me with the love I so much needed. I felt human, restored, rebuilt. It is there, at the same place, that love for my husband was reborn.
I knelt and kissed the feet of the priest, bathing them with my tears. I was flooded with a total peace that could not be described. That afternoon I lived a new birth, but this time with hope, joy and strength. An hour later, I received Communion; it was not I receiving Jesus, but rather Jesus receiving me, accepting me, loving me and filling all the emptiness of my life. Thanks to this blessed confession, I received a new strength in my weakness. I am conscious, more than ever, of my fragility; but now my heart is no longer empty; I no longer have to ask for alms, since I have found the Precious Pearl.
Before, I wanted to die because I had not found a meaning to my life. Now I want to die for the joy of seeing face to face the Lord who has been so good to me. That trauma I had has been healed and I am a renewed woman, totally new, like Mary Magdalene. Years later, I met that person again. As I asked her how she was doing, she told me: “Very well, thank God. Not everything has always been easy, but it is much more difficult to live far from the Lord than under his Lordship. However, even if I found myself alone or abandoned again, I would no longer seek that deceptive love that destroys life.” Inner healing is at the same time like an operation that allows one to remove a tumor and a vitamin that strengthens our life.
The account of the text of the disciples of Emmaus (Lk 24, 13-35) perfectly illustrates what inner healing is: It is told that on that very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were conversing with each other about all the things that had happened. As they conversed and reasoned together, Jesus himself drew near and walked along with them; but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. He asked them: “What are these discussions that you are having with one another as you walk?” And they stopped, with gloomy faces.
One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply: “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?” “What sort of things?” he asked them. They replied to him: “The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and before the whole people: how our chief priests and rulers handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him. But we were hoping that it was he who would redeem Israel; and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place.
Some women from our group, however, have astounded us: they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his body; they came back and reported that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who announced that he was alive. Then some of those with us went to the tomb and found things just as the women had described, but him they did not see.” And he said to them: “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the Scriptures.
As they approached the village to which they were going, he gave the impression that he was going on farther. But they urged him, saying: “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, then broke it and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him... but he vanished from their sight.
And they said to one another: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem. There they found gathered together the Eleven and those with them, who said: “The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!” Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way, and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
The disciples were deeply wounded in their hearts, because Jesus had been condemned to death and so had died all their hopes and illusions. The cross had been incomprehensible to them, and they remained frustrated in their desires for restoration. Because of this trauma, their eyes could not see reality clearly.
“We were hoping, we — as if they no longer hoped — that Jesus would be the savior of Israel...” Jesus began to remind them of the Scriptures, of the Prophets and that all this had to happen. The first part of their healing was due to the Word. The Word of God purifies and heals: “You are already pruned because of the word I have spoken to you,” Jesus told his listeners (Jn 15, 3). And in fact, it was neither herb nor poultice that gave them back their health, but your word, Lord, the word that heals all things! (Wis 16, 12).
The Lord nourishes us through his healing Word. The Word of God, which brought light forth from the depths of darkness, illumines us and gives us life. The disciples walked eleven kilometers receiving the healing. Their treatment lasted the whole length of the road, as if to make them understand that, while journeying through life, we have need of the healing Word of the Lord, which is like a lamp. Jesus gave the impression of going farther. Then they said to him: “Stay with us, for the evening is falling.” Jesus entered their house and sat down at table with them.
He then took the bread, said the blessing, broke it and gave it to them. At that moment, their eyes opened. The Eucharist, Word and Bread, opened their eyes so that they might understand the mystery of suffering. What heals us is not the suppression of the pain, but its very understanding. When we place ourselves before the One who died on a cross, but who conquered death, then we find hope again, and the wounds are healed. One takes part in the resurrection, and so one recovers the new life.
Jesus the Eucharist is a sacrament of healing, or better yet, his saving presence heals physically, but in a particular way heals hearts. When they recognized Jesus, their attitude changed. For them, who were returning home disappointed and sad, when they received their deep healing, this bitterness vanished and their eyes opened. We have already been witnesses, many and many a time, of the same phenomenon: emotional wounds cause physical upheavals. The most frequent are: insomnia, ulcers, nervous illnesses, paralysis, disorders of the digestive system and even blindness. However, as soon as the root of the problem is healed, the physical symptom disappears.
The disciples, now healed, had a new mentality, new eyes; they saw the world differently; they were no longer desperate or oppressed, but filled with joy because they had seen the risen Jesus. They rose promptly and returned to Jerusalem, to proclaim the Good News to the Eleven, who were gathered in the upper room. He who has been healed interiorly rises from his prostration. It cannot be otherwise. He becomes a witness and proclaims the resurrection of Christ Jesus.
He who has been healed does not speak only of his healing, but becomes a witness to the resurrection of Jesus. He shows on his very flesh the fruits of the resurrection of Jesus. There are so many people wounded in their memory because of events of the past, who need to heal, because this deep lesion produces fear or sadness. I have met people who carry in their heart a great bitterness that makes them disagreeable, and they themselves reject every gesture of affection. These people do not need that we push them away; on the contrary, they need that we pray for the root of their problems. They want neither to suffer nor to make others suffer, but they are wounded, and because of that they contaminate with pain everything around them.
Jesus heals the wounds of the heart when we ask him. As we read in the book of Malachi: For you who fear my Name, the sun of justice will shine, with healing in its rays (Mal 3, 20). Jesus is the sun of justice and he can heal the wounds caused by the injustices of life. Just as one takes sunbaths to heal skin lesions, in the same way, if we place ourselves before Jesus, he heals us of the emotional wounds of life.
As the healing progresses, the heart is freed from the feeling of hatred, grudge or bitterness, and that place is occupied by love, which gushes in torrents from the heart of Jesus. We strive to free ourselves of this grudge, but alone we cannot manage it; we have need of a higher power that heals us. This power, Jesus has it, he the renewer of wounded hearts.
The testimony that follows shows how inner healing is not something magical, but requires a cooperation on the patient’s part. One must pay the price of conversion, whether it be forgiveness or something that keeps life from unfolding in fullness. A couple had serious problems. The wife had abandoned the home and gone to live with another man. However, shortly after, she repented of her error and wanted to return home. Her husband did not want to receive her, but at the urgent request of the parish priest, he opened the doors of the house to her... but not of his heart.
It was impossible for him to forgive and put his trust in his wife once more. Communication was lost and his heart was so wounded that he became impotent. He went to see specialist doctors, who gave him treatments based on hormones and electric shocks, but with no positive result. During a prayer of inner healing, he was told that the origin of his impotence was that he had not been able to forgive his wife. He confessed that he could not. Then the first thing we did was to ask the Lord to give him the strength to forgive.
Finally, by an act of the will, he did it. It was such a powerful moment that he fell in a faint for a few minutes. He got up and returned home with a new face. The next day, he commented: “We are in a new honeymoon, even better than the first...”
This man had no need of advice or treatments for his sexual impotence, but his problem’s root had to be healed: to forgive his wife. As soon as he had done it and prayer had been said for his inner healing, his problem disappeared. The Lord wants to give us a gentle and humble heart like his, but for that we need him to heal us, as he healed the disciples of Emmaus, who were sad and discouraged. In the time of Jesus, when there was a leper, he was removed from the community because he was dangerous and could contaminate the others.
But Jesus, who was the fullness of life, touched the leper and was not contaminated; quite the contrary, he freed him from his pain. It is with reason that the prophet says: It was our infirmities that he bore, and our diseases that he carried, and in his wounds we find healing (Is 53, 4-5).
This is what Jesus gives: life, health, joy, peace and happiness, because for him there is no impossible. If you are wounded, do not say “I am a hopeless case.” There are no hopeless cases; there are only men and women who despair because they do not know Jesus. But from the day when you live a personal encounter with him and discover his healing love, everything will change. “If you believe, you will see the glory of God” (Jn 11, 40). And you will see it in your own life, for he will give you a new heart, new eyes, a new mentality.
You can be a man — or a woman — bitter, full of hatred, criticizing everything, speaking ill of everything, for whom nothing is good; but in the measure that Jesus changes your heart, he converts you into a man — or a woman — full of the feelings of his own heart. Then you can be a witness to the Kingdom and to the power of God. Many condemn others by saying: “That one is bad.” But in fact, there are no bad people: there are only men and women who struggle with problems that crush them. Jesus came to break the chains and give us freedom.
What seemed to us perverse was only something that Jesus had to heal.
When the thief on the cross implored him: “Remember me when you come into your kingdom,” Jesus did not answer him: “Well, you have been very bad, you stole from many people and you killed. We shall think about it.” Nor did he tell him: “I shall speak of it tomorrow to my Father, to see what he thinks of your case.” To Jesus has been given all power in heaven, on earth and in the underworld. That is why he assured him: “Today you will be with me in paradise.” This is how the Holy Spirit produces in our lives the fruits of his love.
There are people who change their feelings completely, and others ask: what has happened to him, that one? Before, he was sad, critical and bitter, and now, wherever he goes, he does not walk, he flies, happy and affirming that the Holy Spirit gives him the feelings of the heart of Jesus. We cannot judge others. They have been wounded, and that is why they wound others. Instead of condemning them, we must pray for the healing of their hearts. We shall have great surprises.
You will see how the Lord will make use of you to heal the wounded heart of your son, your husband or your wife.
Here are two examples of inner healing.
The Samaritan woman: healing of racial hatred. This woman was healed of the ancestral hatred between Samaritans and Jews. After her inner healing, she recognized Jesus as the Messiah and went to tell her friends in Samaria: “I have met Jesus,” and she brought him to them, and he entered the city of the Samaritans.
Peter: healing of the wound caused by his denials: Lk 22, 54-62.
Peter’s healing can be clearly seen in the Gospel: Peter, who on Maundy Thursday denied Jesus three times. While the Master was being questioned by the High Priest, the latter’s servants and guards had lit a fire in the middle of the courtyard and were warming themselves around it. A servant girl asked Simon: “Are you not also one of this man’s disciples?” Peter answered: “No, I am not.” Shortly after, the others came up and insisted: “Are you not also one of his disciples?” Peter answered: “No, I am not.”
About an hour later, another servant girl said to him: “Did I not see you in the garden with him?” Peter denied again, and at that very instant the cock crowed a second time. The Lord, turning, fixed his gaze on Peter, who remembered the words of Jesus: “Before the cock crows today, you will have denied me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly. Peter met the gaze of Jesus, who was looking at him with gentleness. It was a look of understanding and forgiveness, not of reproach. It is with this look of love that Peter’s inner healing begins.
But after his resurrection, when Jesus appears to the disciples on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias, he himself lights a fire to prepare the fish for the meal. He then takes Peter aside from the group and asks him three times: “Do you love me?” And Peter’s answer to each question is: “Lord, you know well that I love you.” The wound caused by the triple denial was healed by the triple profession of love. In the same way that every fire would have ceaselessly reminded him of his denials, the fire lit by Jesus on the shore of the lake will always remind him of his love for Jesus.
III
JESUS IS ALIVE
Five years after the publication of the book Jesus Is Alive, I realize that it was in God’s plan, even before I thought of writing it. After a retreat, I said to Faith Smith: “I pray for a great many people, but few pray for me. Would you do it?” She accepted with great pleasure. She laid her hands on me and, after having prayed in tongues, began to laugh. She then asked me: Have you ever written a book? No. Only simple letters for my friends and a few articles in certain reviews. I have a vision in which I see a great many people laughing and rejoicing, reading a book that you have written...
Time passed, and one day José Prado asked me permission to publish some of my teachings recorded on cassettes. I answered him: But why would you not help me write a book? I would like to thank God for these ten years of evangelizing ministry. We came to La Romana, visited Nagua, went to Pimentel, interviewed a few people, and I handed him the documents I had. We reworked them together, and six months later Jesus Is Alive appeared, in 1984. To my great surprise, it was immediately translated into several languages.
The most curious thing is that the people who had read it always told me the same thing: “Father, I felt great joy reading your book. It did me good, and it gave me much hope.” Others told me they had wept, and a good number of them were healed. I received a magnificent comment in the following letter of November 27, 1984: Dear Father Emiliano, first of all, I want to ask your pardon if I address you with a certain familiarity, but it is true that after reading Jesus Is Alive, I have the impression that it is as if the whole book had been a long letter written for me alone, for its message is so clear and the feeling of the love you have for your brothers in Christ is so perceptible, that the least one can feel is gratitude and love for the one whom Jesus has used to transmit this message.
Receive my admiration, my respect and a warm greeting from him who is your brother in Christ Jesus, Rafael Gutiérrez Gutiérrez.
During the Ecumenical Gathering of Kansas City, USA, where forty-five thousand people were gathered, Sister Briedge McKenna prayed for me and had a vision: “I see,” she told me, “the globe of the earth and little lights springing up in different points. You will be led to preach in many countries the love of Jesus that heals.” The most surprising is that from then on, I began to be invited to many countries of Latin America and to others of the French language. After I had witnessed the love of Jesus that heals, many lights of faith lit up in many hearts.
Today, I have already travelled through more than fifty countries where I was able to witness the merciful love of our God. However, through the book, I have entered homes that I do not even know. This is how I passed into Hungary, where I have never gone to preach. I received the following letter:
Budapest, February 88
Toward the end of 1987, I read with great pleasure the Hungarian translation of your book Jesus Is Alive. This simple and joyful account of the wonders of God filled me with great hope. But it is not for that that I write to you, but for something much more important. I was ill in my right hand. I had a tendinitis that kept me from writing, and from doing the daily work in the house. One day I even had to stop working, because the objects fell from my hands.
It is then that I began to read your book... I reached the chapter where you speak of the Eucharist that you celebrated for the sick readers. I did not read the prayer, but I prayed this so simple prayer. I felt wrapped in the strength of the Lord and moved to raise my arms during the prayer. Very quickly a current of warmth went through my arm and at that very instant the pain disappeared. Not only was my right hand healed, but it is now stronger than the left. Eszther Molnar
The most curious thing is that we did not even know that the book had been published and distributed behind the Iron Curtain. There is such a desire to evangelize that we are not even asked permission to publish it. Like Saint Paul, I repeat: I will rejoice that the Gospel is proclaimed (Phil 1, 18). The healing of Eszther Molnar is my reward, and I know that I owe it only to the Lord. There are other testimonies just as beautiful. The first was given by the person herself on the radio in this form: My name is Augusto César Victoriano Baldera. I am a cadet of the Dominican Air Force. I am twenty-two years old and I live with my parents at 188 Club de Leones Street.
Today, I come to give the testimony of something that affected me personally and which shows that Jesus is alive. On October 8, 1984, I was admitted to the Ramón de Lara hospital of the Dominican Air Force, suffering from strong pains in the back, having lost all feeling in my right leg, with a total neutralization of the sciatic nerve of the same leg. I could not walk without leaning against the wall, which quickly led me to need a wheelchair. The doctors diagnosed a herniated disc between the fourth and fifth vertebrae.
After fifteen days of hospitalization, I was sent home with a prescribed rest of at least six months. It was very difficult for me to accept my illness. I, who flew in combat aircraft and jumped with a parachute, now found myself incapable of walking on my own... The dream of my life, to be a cadet of my country’s Air Force, was about to vanish. When I came home, my mother worried, but with her faith in God she gave me a book entitled Jesus Is Alive.
At midnight of that same day, I took the book to read it. I had barely read nineteen pages when I felt that I had to pray. Afraid that my little brother and my cousin would hear me — they slept in the same room as I — I began to pray in a low voice. Without knowing how, I suddenly found myself praising aloud. Meanwhile, in the bed next to me, my brother, without my realizing it, was also praying for me. At that moment, I experienced a sensation of peace and tranquillity within me, as well as a slight tingling all over my body.
I called my brother and said to him: “Listen, something is happening to me. I feel a little suppleness in my body.” Then I sat up, began to fold myself in two in my bed; when I realized that the Lord was beginning to bring about a process of healing, both bodily and spiritual, I called my brother and told him: “Let us pray and give thanks to God.” Toward one o’clock in the morning, my cousin woke up, asking what was happening. “The Lord is healing Rudy,” my brother answered him with assurance. My cousin did not doubt and burst out with a “Glory to God!”
At three in the morning, mother joined our act of thanksgiving. The Lord healed me that night. The doctors say it is incredible, because I would have needed a convalescence of at least six months. However, it took me no more than two months to be completely back on my feet. I was reinstated in the Air Force. Since my healing, I have jumped six times with a parachute and have more than fifteen hours of combat flight to my credit for that same period. I can play sports, I run, I do everything that a healthy man can do, for the glory of God. I am a new man, in body and in spirit alike. But the most extraordinary is not that the Lord brought me back to the army, but that he calls me to be his witness among the cadets. I now belong to a new army, which proclaims the truth: Jesus is alive, and he gives life to his own.
To evangelize through a book is similar to the work of the sower who casts the seed of the Word in every direction, confident that it is the Lord who makes the seed grow.
The testimony that follows shows where all this can lead. Santiago del Estero (Argentina), November 1988, Beloved brother and Pastor in the Lord,
May God bless you, Father Emiliano. My name is José A. C. Mirkin; I am a Jew, circumcised, great-great-grandson of rabbis. Although I was baptized in the Catholic faith, since I did not see “the power of the Spirit in full action,” I joined the evangelical Christians. I became an evangelical preacher. However, the Lord Jesus brought me back “home” a short time ago. You have been one of the people who most influenced my return to the great Catholic family, with your book Jesus Is Alive.
The testimony, full of peace, gentleness and joy, is that of people who have made a deep encounter with the King of kings and the Lion of Judah: Jesus. I praise and bless the Lord for the work he is accomplishing in you and through you. In Christ Jesus and Mama Mary.
José A. C. Mirkin
Of course there is a share of the cross. The work increases and the hours of sleep are thereby disturbed. Every day I receive letters in languages I do not know, but I place them before the Tabernacle and ask Jesus, since he understands them, to answer these intentions. I am often woken by telephone calls coming from Japan or Italy asking for prayer. They call me by day, but at my place it is night or early morning.
One day I was called from Saudi Arabia. I only answered: “Um, um...” Afterwards I thought: Why do people spend so much on international calls, since they have Jesus in their heart and can ask him directly? In truth, the Lord is wonderful. Much greater than we imagine. Sometimes I ask myself: How is it possible that people find the faith again, that their hope is rekindled and their bodies healed by the mere reading of such a simple book that gives testimony to the saving power of Jesus? I then remember the word of Saint Paul: God chose what is foolish and poor in the world to confound the wise (1 Co 1, 27). And if I realize that this is so, I have nothing to boast of vainly, since it is his work, and all glory belongs to him.
I take delight in the Gospel of Saint Mark, and I find no account simpler and more beautiful than these pages full of candor and simplicity. If there are people who read my book, I myself prefer to go to the original source, the Gospel. To tell the truth, I am going to make a confession that may be taken for audacity. For our book, we took as our model the Gospel of Mark. One day when I said this to someone, I was answered: What audacity! To want to write something similar to the Gospel! However, I would be more afraid of trying to write something that would not resemble the Gospel.
Here is another testimony that recounts more than healings, for it led to action and commitment.
Santiago, Chile, September 1986, Father Emiliano, first of all we all give thanks to God for your
coming to our country, because it strengthened more than one in the faith. Every meeting we had with you, we came out of it converted into “new men,” sure that Jesus is alive in our hearts.
This is what moved me to write to you: I work in a company of about eight hundred people. We had the desire to be bearers of the Lord’s message, but we did not know how to carry his Word. We wanted to evangelize but, apart from the fact that no one had taught us about it, we met many problems and all our projects failed.
But since God is great and all-powerful, he can go beyond our limits and made use of a very simple detail: Dr. Ivan Franjic and Luis Silva each offered me your book Jesus Is Alive. I read it at least three times, thus realizing the wonders the Lord accomplishes.
It was the opportunity to begin a work of evangelization in my section, where there are about ninety of us. Every time someone fell ill, we brought him the book and prayed for him.
As time passed, this work of good will developed, better and better known, in silence, and one day we found ourselves obliged to create the “House of Saint Mary,” for the sick. Now, in the company, everyone knows your book and says it is the most beautiful one ever to pass through their hands. What is most magnificent is not that all received a physical healing, but that it served for the conversion of the greatest number.
During a retreat at the “House of Catherine Labouré,” I was very happy to meet again so many people from my work, praising and singing. It is thanks to God that one can contemplate the fruits of the Lord. Our group grows every day in number and in fervor. During our prayer meetings, we intercede for you and your community, that the Lord may continue to fill you with his graces and blessings, and that the light of the Lord may always accompany you, so that you may thus carry the message of Christ to every corner of the world.
Eternally grateful for the wonders of the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Patricio Ordonez Gonzalez
Doctor Marino Ariza wrote the article “Considerations” in the newspaper “El Listin,” of Santo Domingo, on April 14, 1983, in which he said: We delighted in the reading of your beautiful, so tender book Jesus Is Alive, which, more than a book, is a testimony: “A cry that rises, giving hope to all those who dare to believe that this Jesus who died on the cross has risen and is alive, and that thus everything is possible.” This testimony, risen from the heart of a simple witness of Jesus, must be read by everyone. Our soul will be strengthened in hope at the reading of this so judicious testimony.
Go forward, Father Tardif, even if sometimes Holy Week stands in your way!
In the Dominican Republic a report appeared in “Biblioteca” on July 13, 1985. The author stresses that the most important aspect is not the quantity of books sold, but that he discovers the reason why people read it: Catholics, unlike evangelicals or those belonging to other Christian denominations, are not accustomed to being very well-versed in the purchase of religious material, unless it be pious images, scapulars (objects of devotion made of two small pieces of blessed cloth, joined by ribbons that fasten around the neck) or objects of doubtful religious value.
Then, how does it happen that the book Jesus Is Alive sold like “hot cakes” when it speaks only of meetings, assemblies and prayer groups? What happened? In a world troubled by affliction, frustrations and anxieties of every sort; in a society consumed by hatred, falsehood and false prophecies; in an atmosphere where one breathes so much hypocrisy and slander; finally, in a world simply sick and thirsty for peace, Father Tardif testifies that God is the only real and effective solution to human problems and, consequently, the only possible path of physical and spiritual healing.
The story of this faith and of Tardif’s encounter with Jesus Christ is related in this book. Some read it out of curiosity, others out of the need to revive hope, but all realize that God acts in our lives.”
Conclusion
Does the book heal? That question would amount to asking: Was it Paul’s garments that healed? Did Peter’s shadow heal? In no way. Jesus, who is alive, is the only one capable of giving life. To attribute healing to an object, a place, a formula or even to a person is very close to paganism. This book is only the finger that shows that Jesus is alive today, and that we must keep our eyes fixed on him, and on no one else, nor on any instrument of which he makes use to transmit his salvation.
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