The doctor said the happy outcome was highly unusual. But Ferreira called it a “miracle” attributable to his personal link to Blessed Damien, Damien’s tree, and his daily treks from Queen’s Medical Center to pray in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace.
In gratitude, Ferreira gave his Kalaupapa cross reliquary to Molokai-born Sacred Hearts Father Lane Akiona, the pastor of Ferreira’s boyhood parish of St. Augustine in Waikiki, who had anointed Olivia and prayed over her when she first came to Oahu for treatment.
“This is yours,” he told Father Akiona. “You can do more with this that I can in Makawao.”
Meanwhile, Ferreira had received requests for pieces of the wood — which could be classified as secondary relics — to be used as aids in prayer for people who were sick.
Ferreira brought some pieces to the bedside of a critically ill friend at Maui Memorial Medical Center where friends and family were praying for healing. A large Hawaiian man from Molokai in the next bed over asked if they would pray over him too.
The next day, the Hawaiian’s scheduled leg amputation was canceled. He had taken an unexpected turn for the better.
And a couple weeks ago, Ferreira saw his formerly hospitalized friend healthy and in church, a place he hadn’t been in years.
The scenario seemed to repeat itself in the home of another Maui man suffering from inoperable cancer.
“We all got together and went over to his house,” Ferreira said. “He was very gray, and could barely walk.”
“We prayed the rosary, laid hands on him, and prayed for his immediate healing,” he said. As they watched, his color came back.
In the latest update, Ferreira said, “He’s feeding his horses and he’s looking very good.”
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They are continuing to pray for him.
When Bishop Larry Silva asked Ferreira if he would make the reliquary for the new traveling relic, Ferreira turned to his friend Allan Marciel who, he said, had the better workshop.
Ferreira designed the box and Marciel did most of the handiwork. Another friend cut the display glass.
The box now holds pieces of bone from a larger relic of St. Damien. (See accompanying story.)
Ferreira also used some of the wood to make a pectoral cross for Bishop Silva.
Ferreira has been running leftover wood through his band saw, creating thin flat pieces about an inch or two long that he places in individual plastic zip-lock bags and gives away as St. Damien relics. Some of the pieces are blackened, burned by the lighting strike that killed the tree.