DURING THE PAST 40 YEARS four successive parish priests assigned at the St. Isidore the Farmer Parish Church in the backwater town of Agdangan in Quezon’s Bondoc Peninsula, had a collective vision of a soaring shrine that would rise in the Philippines to illumine the rest of the world with God’s love. The town’s current cura paroco, 43-year-old Fr. Raul Enriquez, better known as “Father Puti” due to his longish salt-and-pepper curly locks and fair complexion, had a similar dream in 2002, while he was still assigned in a coastal village parish in his hometown in Sariaya that shares the same shoreline with Agdangan along Quezon’s east coast.

Through discernment, Father Puti, who was given the spiritual gift to prophesy, pinpointed where to dig the foundation of what is to become known as the Luminous Cross of Grace Sanctuary, the gold-colored 12-story chalice cum monstrance-shaped superstructure with a gilt glass dome towering beside the Agdangan parish church. Its one-of-its kind design was done by a non-architect, Aia Santos-Halili, a gifted landscape artist and interior designer from San Mateo, Rizal who is one of the original “servants” (as devotees of the Luminous Cross of Grace are called) who “got” the unusual blueprint from spiritual discernment also.

For mysterious reasons, many old pilgrims and people with heart condition were able to climb the steep stone staircase up to the eighth level chapel without collapsing or suffering from a heart attack. Others, both local and foreign visitors belonging to other faiths, have given testimonies of being healed or experienced paranormal phenomena while standing inside a small circle on the floor directly above the center of the honeycomb-shaped glass dome above. Their claims ranged from being covered by intense white light visible even on a bright sunny day, to feeling of levitation, to an unexplained sense of inner bliss they have never felt before. For some, they said they saw pure white, huge heavenly beings standing beside or hovering above them!

To reach the chapel, visitors will have to pass by sculpted, life-size fiberglass figures of the Stations of the Cross in every level of the tower, whose interiors are draped with wall-to-wall-to-ceiling colorful murals of the entire Catholic dogma—from the Old to the New Testament, including the never before depiction of the Second Coming of Christ, together with prominent historical figures like Abraham Lincoln, Jose P. Rizal, Mahatma Gandhi, and other who mattered in world history, and religious leaders like Buddha, the Prophet Mohammed, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI around the circular gallery at the ninth level ledge above the round chapel.

The unique feature of the lofty chapel is that its elevated altar, which is mounted in gold-colored, life-like metal stalks of wheat in three bunches, is reached by ascending through a winding, five small white, host-shaped steps to a big, earth-colored circular stage (where ecumenical rites by other faiths could be held), to another set of four small, white round steps up to the round altar, rising two meters above the sky-blue floor. To the right of the altar, on another round, elevated platform, is the gold-colored Ark of the Covenant, where the Blessed Sacrament is enshrined, with two bowed, kneeling wooden angels painted gold, mounted on top of the ark that face each other with their curled wingtips touching each other.

For the past three years, when the elevated sanctuary was still halfway in its construction, thousands of visitors, including curious non-Catholics like Protestants, Fundamentalist Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Iglesia ni Cristo, New Age believers, and the like, have experienced what they claim were unnatural occurrences inside the 37-meter high stone shrine, up to the present. A small group of Tibetan Buddhists, who visited the shrine sometime ago, claimed that it is “one of the sacred centers in the world.”

“The mound where the sanctuary was built stands on a portal where energy emanating from the bosom of Mother Earth resonates with spiritual energy coming from above,” claims Wilson Go, a 42-year-old expert on theosophy, a body of doctrine relating to deity, cosmos, and self to master nature and as a means of individual salvation, and a teacher of I AM (Integrated Ascended Master) class, which covers all religions and studies of spirituality, including the paranormal and extraterrestrial (ETs).

“To prove that the round, white meter-wide plate at the center of the chapel floor (inscribed with three circles intertwining each other to symbolize the Holy Trinity) is where the two powerful energies resonate, we put in the circle an angel crystal with a bulb inside that we brought,” says Wilson, whose 40 or so member-group meets regularly at the Kong Tiak Temple, an apartment on the third floor of a residential building along Masangkay in Sta. Cruz, Manila where they delve on a fusion of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism practices. “As soon as we laid it down at the power spot, the crystal ball flickered to life and then glowed despite not being plugged to any power source!”

This heavenly energy manifested itself earlier in the aftermath of super howler “Milenyo” in September 2006, when its widespread devastation practically plunged the entire island of Luzon into darkness. Late that night, people in Agdangan, who were still reeling from the desolation brought about by the typhoon, were astonished to see a strange glow of light at the still unfinished eighth-level chapel when there was a power blackout! The following day, another bizarre aerial display came into view to the shrine’s construction crew—hundreds of birds of prey flew in mass, circling above the sanctuary as if paying homage to a mysterious force below them, darkening the sky above. What was rare about that unprecedented avian group show was that eagles (or hawks, for that matter, that flew in circles that morning) are birds of prey and solo hunters, and therefore, fly singly unlike lesser birds.

However, the greatest miracle of all are not these supernatural events associated with the sanctuary, which is one of its kind in the world (based on a research done in the World Wide Web and voluminous religious books and journals dealing with religious shrines around the world) but, its power to make people change for the better, spiritually.

During the past four years since the onset of the sanctuary’s construction up to the present, a lot of people, both Catholics and non-Catholics alike, have claimed to have spiritual conversion without even being proselytized by Father Puti or by any “servant” of the Luminous Cross of Grace.

Epiphany, a sudden manifestation of God brought about instantly by an unexpected event, came like a thunderbolt (or bullets from a blazing gun) on a clear summer day to five persons of varying faiths and degrees of spirituality.

Juancho S. Parafina was an alcoholic and an inveterate gambler before he faced death up-close one balmy afternoon on April 18, 2005, when he was still a municipal councilor of Agdangan. Juancho used to sneer at Father Puti, the LCG’s spiritual director, and the “servants” behind the LCG Sanctuary project for its meager P180,000 seed money donated by ordinary people.

Although baptized a Catholic, Juancho didn’t hear mass on Sundays nor receive the sacraments in favor of almost daily hard drinking and heavy gambling in tupada (illegal cockfights) in the local cockpit. Three years ago, while drinking inside his favorite dingy KTV beerhouse in town with a nephew and three friends, two high-velocity, 5.56-mm bullets fired from a Colt M16 assault rifle discharged by a drunken soldier that got mad at them for no apparent reason, hit his stomach like catapulted stone bricks, shredding his guts into smithereens by the spiraling action of the metal slug, while another one punctured his chest, exiting in his right armpit. The strong impact of the bullets sent him spinning and stumbling face down on the grimy cement floor. Conscious despite his serious wounds, Juancho suddenly remember God and whispered a prayer under his labored breath for Him to spare his life while prostrate on a widening pool of his, and his companions’ blood.

With a meter of his ripped intestines removed during a delicate four-hour operation in a private hospital in the capital city of Lucena, Juancho was given only a 20 per cent chance to live by his doctors! On the second day at the ICU his heart monitor flat-lined (his heart stopped beating) momentarily.

“Instantly, I found myself back in Agdangan, 58 kilometers away, visiting my friends in a fleeting manner,” relates Juancho of his out-of-body experience. “Instead of pain, I felt ecstasy I can’t explain,” he continues. “Suddenly, I was back in my hospital bed at the ICU, where my wife Hati (short for Lualhati) was softly crying.”

Despite being a nominal Catholic, Juancho prayed hard to Saint Anne, the patroness of the roadside village of Malicboy in the town of Pagbilao just off the highway junction going to the Bondoc Peninsula, to save his life. He credits Saint Anne for giving them their beautiful daughter, Zyra Diwata, now seven years old.

Although Juancho and Hati have been married under the rites of Iglesia Sagrada ng Lahi, a homegrown Christian sect commonly known as Rizalista, of which Hati is a member, he decided to have a Catholic wedding and wrote Father Puti about his intention, with the full consent of his wife. Before the priest officiated the marriage vows, he gave Hati six of the seven sacraments, including baptism and confirmation, together with hearing the couple’s confession, as a requisite for a Catholic wedding.

“I had a spiritual conversion on my third day at the ICU,” claims Juancho, now the town’s vice mayor, who, together with Hati, now helps the LCG sanctuary raise money to defray its huge expenses though the Parish Council for Economic Affairs where they collect 25 centavos each from the townsfolk to supplement the funding for the LCG Sanctuary’s upkeep,” says a reformed Juancho during the Panorama interview a month ago held at the rectory’s social hall (bahay kubo). “I totally stopped gambling and drinking and we now devote our time in church activities.”

Racquel Naval’s spiritual changeover, on the other hand, came at the heel of the People Power Movement protest rallies in Quezon City in mid-2005. Despite being a mainstream Protestant, she worked as a volunteer media liaison for Fr. Robert “Running Priest” Reyes in his former parish in Quezon City. She met Father Puti and the LCG servants in one of their afternoon protest rallies at the People Power monument beside Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City three years ago where Father Puti officiated mass for the rallyists. She was attracted by the LCG’s unique Marian devotion, total submission to God’s will, and strict adherence to the Litany of Humility, an ancient prayer of monks in the 19th century wherein the believer shuns pride and being adulated in favor of leading a life steep in humility.

Despite not totally converting to Catholicism, fortyish Racquel, the amiable Caviteña, who succumbed to breast cancer early this year, was spiritually “more Catholic” than most Catholics during her almost three years of actively serving the Luminous Cross of Grace. Racquel died peacefully after receiving the Last Sacrament from Father Puti.

Agdangan teeners, Mary Grace Blando and her older cousin, Michelle, on the other hand, were Fundamentalist Christians who were active members of the Agdangan Bethel Temple. Being Evangelicals, otherwise known as Born-Again Christians, the duo believe that since the Bible teaches that salvation comes by faith and not the conversion experience (like in the Catholic faith), that makes a person born again.

“Despite being Born Again Christians, we were allowed by our pastor, who was a former Catholic, to hear mass with our Catholic friends and join their regular church activities,” says Mary Grace, who was baptized a Catholic as an infant before her parents separated and left her to the care of her Born-Again aunt. “During the first Thursday of last month, Father Puti brought us to the chapel at the eighth level of the LCG Sanctuary (www.luminouscrossofgrace.com) to explain all the dogmas of the Catholic faith depicted in murals and sculptures inside the gold-colored tower,” the petite teener continues. “While inside the sanctuary, we felt God’s embracing love that we have never experienced before and sensed inner joy we can’t explain.”

Within the Christian faith, spiritual transformation is intended to involve more than a simple change in the traditional practice of his faith. In fact, conversion in Greek is metanoia, which literally means “going the other way.” The convert, therefore, is expected to renounce sin and personally commit to a life of righteousness.

“What’s amazing about this phenomenon (of instant spiritual conversion) is that these people of various religious beliefs and persuasions who visited the sanctuary, openly claim that while inside, they felt the love of God for the first time in their life, and they suddenly realized that they really belong to the shrine,” explains the charismatic Father Puti, the unorthodox, leather sandal-wearing spiritual director of the LCG noted for his un-priestly garb of collarless white T-shirt and a pair of ruddy jeans while entertaining guests at the rectory. “This is manifested by feeling light in their heart and crying unabashedly for no apparent reason while feeling God’s love when they stare at the imposing mural of God the Father at the ground floor.

“At this point in time, when people are barraged by a lot of problems – the rift and division among them widening further, this is when you will see the importance of the LCG sanctuary in our life,” stresses Father Puti during his homily at the jam-packed, late morning mass celebrating the feast of God the Father last August 3 at the Agdangan shrine. “I believe that this sanctuary will become our identity as a Filipino nation that would act as a unifying symbol for people of different races and creeds—Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindu and people of other faiths—as exemplified by the many unsolicited tales of conversion related to this sanctuary.”