CEBU, Philippines - Did Blessed Pedro Calungsod appear before a parishioner in Toledo City, or was it just a case of seeing a look-alike of the soon-to-be saint’s image?
A 57-year-old female vendor claimed to have seen Calungsod last Thursday inside the Blessed Pedro Calungsod church in Barangay Cantabaco, Toledo City .
Rosenda Camomot said she was arranging flowers by the altar around 12:30 noon when she noticed a man by the back pews, walking in circles with his head down, seemingly looking for something.
She said she stared at the young man and observed if his behavior posed any danger.
When she passed by the man on her way to get a pail by the church’s entrance, she noticed that his features were similar to that of Calungsod.
She described the man was neat-looking and of average height. His black hair was also parted in the middle, in the same fashion that Calungsod’s hair is depicted in statues and pictures.
He was wearing black pants, slippers and a white long-sleeved shirt, said Camomot. This was similar to official portraits of the Visayan martyr, where he is dressed in a camisa de chino, black trousers and slippers.
After getting the pail, Camomot turned around to see the man already gone. “I said to myself, ‘Nagpakita nasad si Beato,’” she said.
Camomot was the only one who noticed the young man since the church carpenters were taking their lunch break.The mother of four said this was not the first time she saw ‘Calungsod’, recalling another incident last year when she saw a young man in his likeness.
Her first sighting happened after a wedding held at the still-unfinished Blessed Pedro Calungsod church.
She noticed a young man inside the makeshift chapel built in the area before, staring up at a poster and eating a piece of bread. He was also a splitting image of Calungsod, she said.
She asked some parishioners if they knew him, but no one recognized the boy. She described him as wearing black pants and a white long-sleeved shirt with specks of dirt.
“Pinapikas sad iya buhok. Kamay-ong man jud ko ani niya uy, mura man jud ni si Beato. Hala si Beato ay, nagpakita uroy sayo sa buntag,” she thought to herself then. (He looks exactly like the images we see. I said to myself that the Blessed Pedro Calungsod has shown himself to us this early in the morning.)
She said the next time she sees ‘Calungsod’, she’ll make sure to approach and talk to him.
Camomot believes that since she began praying for Calungsod’s intercession, most of her wishes were swiftly answered.
“I bring a Calungsod novena with me all the time. Everytime I ask for something, it comes true. It is really given to me. When I am in dire need of money, for instance, I pray to him and blessings will come in. When I wasn’t yet a devotee of Beato Pedro, my prayers weren’t often answered,” said Camomot.
Tino Lombrino, a lay minister in the Blessed Calungsod church since 2004, also recounted his own ‘Calungsod’ experience.
He said back in 2008, an electrical outage hit Cantabaco, so he was surprised to see that the church was blanketed with bright light when he arrived at the area at seven o’clock in the evening.
Lombrino recalled that the altar’s Calungsod statue was missing. When he woke up at 2 o’clock dawn, he saw that the statue was back in its place.
He said he believed Calungsod was making his presence felt, and this overwhelmed him. He remembered crying for a week after the incident and was transformed into a Calungsod devotee.
Fr. Russel Emmanuel Sungcad, parish priest of the Blessed Pedro Calungsod church since March 2006, said that lately, more than ten parishioners have shared to him experiences of Calungsod making his presence felt.
Aside from stay-in laymen claiming that Calungsod’s statue mysteriously disappears and re-appears right back after a few hours, he recalled of a stage 4 colon cancer patient who asked for the Beato’s intercession. After a month, he said, the patient had regained her energy and had stopped medication.
Board exam takers and employment seekers were said to credit their success to Beato Calungsod, after taking a pilgrimage to the Cantabaco church, Fr. Sungcad said.
He said that he does not doubt people’s claims of seeing Calungsod. Instead, he advises them to pray for spiritual discernment.
“How can you argue with personal experience? As clergy people, we always believe in apparitions or spiritual signs and wonders. That is one of the manifestations of God’s presence to his people. Others call it a miracle. It is the saints’ way of giving someone a message,” said Fr. Sungcad.
Fr. Sungcad encourages them to share their experiences, so that others may also be inspired by Calungsod.
“I tell them to ask for guidance and wisdom. Maybe they are being called to be instruments for the betterment of the parish or to make them closer to God,” he added. He said that now more than ever, because of the distractions of the modern world, people tend to forget to nurture their spiritual faith.
“That’s why God will use apparitions to remind people of his presence,” he said. —/JPM (FREEMAN)