ESCONDIDO -- Amber Dixon didn't know what to expect when she went to Church of the Resurrection in Escondido on Tuesday night. But she wouldn't turn down a miracle.

Dixon, 24, has been attending the church since she was a child, she said, and when she heard that a Catholic priest known for a faith-healing gift would be at her church, she had to go.

"I started using the walker in high school, and just got dependent on it," said Dixon, who has cerebral palsy.

Dixon was among a crowd of at least 2,000 who had come to the church to hear a Mass and witness a healing service by the Rev. Fernando Suarez.

Originally from the Philippines, Suarez has said he discovered he had a healing power at 16. He now is a priest with Companions of the Cross Community in Ottawa, Canada, and travels to 40 countries performing healing services such as the one in Escondido.

Some of the faithful were at the church early that morning for tickets to hear his 6 p.m. Mass. Dixon arrived around 4 p.m.

When her turned arrived, Suarez prayed and laid his hands on her -- the healing power comes from the Lord, not himself, he often says -- and Dixon cast her wheeled walker aside and took a few awkward but independent steps on her own.

"It felt absolutely amazing," she said moments later. "It's something I've been praying for six years."

Earlier, hundreds of people who could not fit in the 600-seat church to hear the Mass listened to Suarez on TV monitors outside, in side rooms and in the parish hall, where people who used wheelchairs would be the first to receive his healing prayers.

As people clutched their hands and listened to the somewhat muddy audio outside, Suarez said Jesus is very much alive, and said he has witnessed the blind see, the deaf hear, and the gravely ill become well through his power.

Shortly before 8 p.m., Suarez left the church and walked to the parish hall. Suarez appeared youthful and diminutive as he passed through a gantlet of faithful, and several people reached out to touch his garment as he passed.

"That was for my daughter," said Escondido resident Ann Sheehan, who touched Suarez. Her daughter, 23, is being treated for Crohn's disease in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

"It was like, whoa," Sheehan said about touching Suarez. "It was cool."

Inside the parish hall, Suarez worked rapidly. The Rev. Jeff Shannon, who travels with Suarez, had prompted the crowd that Suarez can individually pray over 1,500 people in an hour, and they would not have time to give the history of their illness.

"Just tell him what you want him to pray for," he advised them. He also said people could bring a photo and ask for a prayer for that person, too.

"I call it the two-for-one special," he said.

Shannon also advised people they may witness the faithful "resting in the spirit," or people falling over backward after Suarez prays over them. Several Resurrection congregants had volunteered to be "catchers," people who are ready to assist anyone resting in the spirit.

Lucy Bobavilla of Oceanside arrived in a wheelchair, which she has used since injuring her spinal cord in a car accident 12 years ago. With the help of Shannon and Suarez holding her arms on either side, she struggled to walk forward.

"This is the first time she's walked in 12 years!" Shannon told the crowd.

After "resting in the spirit" for a few minutes on the church floor, Bobavilla was back in the wheelchair relaxing. "I feel very good," she said. "I hope it's God's will that I can walk again. I felt like he can recuperate something."

Gregoria Rodriguez of Escondido arrived in a wheelchair, which she said she has used while recovering from surgery to remove melanoma from her leg in February. She said she felt good after Suarez's prayer.

"She felt better right away," said her husband, Ricardo. "She said she wanted to walk because she felt better."

Suarez also prayed for Andrea Hernandez, 16, a Resurrection congregant who uses a wheelchair because of a condition from a brain tumor and complications with her kidneys.

"It was anxiety, but the quick kind," she said about what it was like when Suarez prayed for her. "I felt inspired. I felt a little amazed, and more hopeful."

Contact staff writer Gary Warth at (760) 740-5410 or gwarth@nctimes.com.