The New Zealand Marist priest has been in Perth previously, and there are numerous testimonies of healings. In one instance, Fr Rea prayed for a man who had a cancerous growth on the right side of his brain.An MRI confirmed the growth had disappeared.
Fr John also prayed for a young father of five who was about to have an operation to remove a tumour from his shoulder.
To the surgeon’s surprise, when he operated two days later, the cancer had disappeared. The patient has had no recurrence of the problem. A 21 year old woman had been a prostitute with an incurable STD. She came forward for prayer at one of Fr John’s healing services. Soon after, she went to her doctor who was amazed that there was no longer any trace of the disease.
The young woman underwent conversion of heart and with God’s help has turned her life around.
Since 1974, Fr John has been praying with people for healing and he has been covered by programs such as Sixty Minutes and
A Current Affair.
A particular healing brought Fr John’s healing ministry wide media exposure. It involved a 10 year old New Zealand ‘child prodigy’ violinist who had her left hand crushed in the door of a people-mover.
Her hand was so severely damaged that doctors told her she would never play the violin again.
Just two days after Fr John and a friend prayed with the girl, specialists told her they could find no damage to the hand and no scar tissue.
The hand had fully recovered and she could play again.
One television reporter put it to Fr John that sceptics would say that he is someone who has ‘just got lucky’ with healings from prayer. ‘When it happens so frequently, you can hardly call it luck,’ was his reply.
Fr John always emphasises that he is not the one responsible for the healings.
He says, ‘I just pray with people for healing – the rest is up to the Lord. It is He who gets the glory’. Fr John has no set formula for his prayers. ‘They are always short and simple and spontaneous.’
He says the one constant in cases where people had been healed was that someone must have faith whether it was the faith of the person being healed; the faith of a parent, loved one or friend, or the one praying for healing.
Fr John Rea says the Lord seems to use him mainly in physical healings, people come with all kinds of conditions.
“I have more prayers for fertility than anything else, probably because of the TV programme which featured the couple who were healed of infertility. Cancer is probably the next.”
Also the Lord has used me a lot with children who have learning difficulties”.