We also learned, even as children that holy places like churches and chapels where prayers are usually said are also guarded by angels especially when such places house the relics of some holy person like a canonized saint.
San Sebastian Church which we visited recently is such church. This is the same church where Elizabeth Masue Masuda-Almazan, the heroine savior of guerillas, was baptized as an adult in the town of San Narciso in Zambales. Rev. Father J. Dusemond, SVD, the parish priest baptized her with Villanueva Guerrero acting as her godmother. Masue herself chose the name Elizabeth to become her Christian name in honor of her best friend, the warrior hero of San Narciso. This happened on December 7, 1948, the grim anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and eve of the feast of the Immaculate Conception.
We do not know much about Masay’s baptism sponsor but her name evoked “a blessing for the warrior of the new town” which aptly describes how Elizabeth lived in her adopted town. For those who are not familiar with her story, Elizabeth Almazan was a Japanese national who as an interpreter saved countless lives during the Japanese occupation. San Sebastian church was the site of at least two alleged apparitions to her made by an unnamed lady who for many Catholics is none other than the Virgin Mary apparently please with her works of charity even before she was baptized.
San Sebastian Catholic Church must really be a holy place if the apparitions were indeed true but one must know that it is the sanctuary of San Sebastian’s relic. San Sebastian and not San Narciso is the town’s patron saint and even the Aglipayan church honors the martyr popularly known as the one shot by arrows. In his real story however, he was nursed back to health by a faithful woman and went back to scold the emperor further for his evil. This time he was bludgeoned to death to suffer martyrdom. Hence, we have two great sufferings shown by this saint as well as two alleged apparitions involving the church, one outside when Our Lady manifested herself atop the church and inside by the altar when Elizabeth Almazan was already baptized. We have now two reasons to consider the church as a hallowed place, as a place of a martyr’s relic and as a site for apparitions. Do we have other reasons?
Yes, we have as not one, but two other reasons why we believe it is guarded by angels. The first incident involved Bonifacio Undajon who worked as an altar boy for Fr. Vincent Lyons. One afternoon, the sacristans went to the roof of the church to clean it. on the way down, they decided to remove some bat guano which accumulated on the ceiling. However, the ceiling gave way Bonifacio’s weight and he fell about 40 feet high to the floor. To their amazement, he fell landing on both feet missing the pews below. Except for the momentary shock from the fall, Bonifacio Undajon was completely unharmed and the miraculous incident became the talk of the town in 1964. Fr. Lyons told the young John Fontillas then that the angels must have guided the boy down as he fell while they inspected the gaping ceiling hole. Decades later, another group of altar boys were racing to ring the bells and this time as one reached the top of the 20-foot ladder, the railing gave way and Reynaldo Paras fell down the floor. And yet, Reynaldo Paras landed on the cemented floor standing up and unharmed. He was shaking because of the fall but he was not harmed in any way. One of the sacristans, Freddie Gonzales, Jr. retold the story which was again the talk of the town.
Now, need we explain more about this church?
