Miracle of the Visible Host
Reprinted from GARABANDAL MAGAZINE July-September 1989
By Christopher Morris
Among
the many remarkable characteristics of the Garabandal apparitions was that
on numerous occasions, the seers, in ectasy, went through all the motions
of receiving Holy Communion. They said that St. Michael brought them Communion
and that he took the Hosts from tabernacles on earth. These Hosts, of course,
were always invisible to onlookers, however, in the early morning hours
of July 19, 1962, as visionary Conchita Gonzalez knelt in a village street
amidst a large crowd, apparently waiting to receive Communion, a shining
white Host was seen to suddenly appear on the girl's out-stretched tongue.
Conchita called this a "little miracle."
For quite some time, the four girls had continually asked the Blessed Virgin
and St. Michael to perform a miracle to convince those who still did not
believe in the visions. So on June 22, 1962, during an apparition, St.
Michael told Conchita that on a date designated by the Virgin, he would
give her Communion, only this time the Host would be visible on her tongue.
Conchita, who thought the Hosts could always be seen by onlookers, was
surprised when told that it wasn't so.
A few days later, Conchita learned through Our Lady
that the prodigy would occur on July 18 and that she was to reveal it 15
days in advance. When the time came, she began, with great assurance, to
write letters inviting people to come to Garabandal for the miracle, but
the pastor, Fr. Valentin, who doubted that the phenomenon would happen,
stopped her from writing any more letters. Nevertheless, the news had already
spread far and wide and people from different parts of Spain began making
preparations to be in Garabandal on July 18.
Conflicting Interests
From a strictly human standpoint, July eighteenth was not the best day
for the promised prodigy. But, as we've so often been reminded, God's ways
are not our ways. It was both a national holiday and the big day of the
year for the villagers of Garabandal when they celebrated the feast of
their patron, St. Sebastian. Relatives would be invited from other towns,
village women would spend as much as $70.00 for a dress, a fortune for
those poor mountaineers in those days, and special meat dishes would be
prepared, a rare luxury for the residents of Garabandal in 1962. The atmosphere
would be festive and there would be visitors from surrounding villages,
mostly young people who would be there, not to see a 13-year-old girl receive
Communion, even from an angel, but to have a good time.
July 18, 1962, saw two camps in Garabandal, those
who were there to see Conchita's ecstasy and those who had come to enjoy
the festivities. Conflict was almost inevitable.
The beginning of the day was certainly edifying enough.
Toward noon there was a solemn chanted Mass in the village church with
three priests officiating, and the church was filled to overflowing. There
were so many
 |
In 1963, 14-year-old Conchita Gonzalez. stood on the exact spot
where during the previous year she had received the visible Host from St.
Michael the Archangel. |
communicants that Hosts had to be broken into pieces to accommodate
everyone who wanted to receive. Among those receiving Communion was Conchita
Gonzalez, a fact that was to have a bearing on the upcoming prophesied
event since Church law at the time only permitted a person to receive Communion
once a day.
At the conclusion of Mass, the statue of St. Sebastian
was taken down from above the main altar and carried in procession through
the village to the accompaniment of alternating religious couplets and
the sound of drums and tambourines. In a clearing on the opposite side
of the village from the church, the procession ended and the young people
of Garabandal, dressed in traditional Cantabrian folk costumes, performed
the dance called "los picayos," a time-honored custom.
Once the dance was over and the statue of St. Sebastian
returned to the church, the formal celebration of the feast day was over.
Soon, a more secular spirit would pervade the air when the big dance began.
The Dance
The dance of July 18, 1962, in Garabandal.
As the day wore on, so did the dancing and the people who had come for
Conchita's ecstasy started to become uneasy. "What's happening with Conchita?"
they asked, but all was quiet at the Gonzalez residence. Many felt that
the dancing and merry-making were preventing the ecstasy from taking place.
Attempts to get the musicians to stop playing were unsuccessful.
The scene was one of contrasts made all the more
pronounced because the dance was taking place only a short distance from
Conchita's house and in full view. The close proximity of the two groups
seemed to symbolize the perpetual ongoing battle between the spiritual
and the worldly.
Day turned into night and the people were growing
increasingly restless. Inside Conchita's house, the mood among family relatives,
priests and friends, was no better. Finally one of Conchita's brothers
who was dozing by the kitchen hearth jumped up and said to her, "I can't
take this any longer; I'm going to bed. You've badly deceived all of us!"
After repeating himself one more time, he left to go upstairs. Conchita
called after him, "No, don't go. Wait a little longer." She had already
received at least one interior summons and knew that the time was drawing
near.
After midnight, the dancing finally stopped but by
then many people, convinced that the prodigy was not going to happen, had
left the village.
At 1:40 a.m., a goodly number of people still remained
and when Conchita came out of her house in ecstasy, it was as though an
electrical charge shot through the crowd. The mad scramble was on, with
people falling over one another to get as close to the visionary as possible.
This is what they had waited for and no one wanted to miss it.
With the crowd pressing around her, Conchita turned
a corner, went down a street and then into a back alley used as a dumping
ground for dirty water. It sounds a bit like Lourdes where Our Lady appeared
to Bernadette in the cave of Massabielle which was used as a garbage dump.
The late Benjamin Gomez. was right next to Conchita when the prodigy
happened.
| The late Benjamin Gomez was very close to Conchita
when she entered the lane and left us this account:
 I
saw her kneeling down, the arms at the sides of the body, then opening
the mouth and presenting a bare tongue. I was very surprised and I looked.
I saw very well, because as I said, I was so close, less than the width
of my hand from her face. I looked in her mouth very easily, taking my
time. I looked up—nothing; I looked down—nothing. At that moment, one of
my cousins who was behind me, touched me on the shoulder so I let him look.
I turned my head for one instant; what am I saying? for a second! When
I looked back the Host was on her tongue.
It was white, but a white out of this world. Sometimes
I search for a comparison, but I can find only one although very far from
reality. We would have said something like snow, a snowflake upon which
the sun's rays were striking. But in that case, the white hurts the eyes
whereas the Host did not strain one's eyesight. |
| Pepe Diez, the village mason, was another close-hand observer and perhaps
the best of all the witnesses to have given their testimonies:
At the moment Conchita fell to her knees, all the people present
tried to do the same, some on top of the others, some kneeling down on
the ground; others bowed very profoundly, and everyone was showing great
humility. In spite of the mob, everyone was trying to be considerate of
their neighbor which was not easy.
But I did not take my eyes off the girl. She started
to speak, to pray, and then she smiled and while smiling she opened her
mouth and put out her tongue very naturally. She extended her tongue, not
just a little bit, but quite a lot, and as I saw that tongue so perfectly
bare, I had a terrible feeling of disaster. In my naivete, I had thought
that at the precise moment Conchita put out her tongue we would see the
Host, or that the Host would appear instantaneously, or who knows what?
I was scarcely 18 inches away from her face and
the sight of her tongue, protruding and bare, gave me a terrible feeling
of failure, I, who was hoping for so much! Conchita kept her tongue out
like that for about a minute. And as I stood there, my eyes riveted on
that tongue so hopelessly bare, something incredible happened! Without
moving my eyes for a fraction of a second, suddenly a neat, precise and
well-formed Host appeared miraculously on Conchita's tongue. I can attest
to the fact that from the moment Conchita put out her tongue, she did not
make a single move, either with her mouth or with her tongue; not a single
muscle in her face moved.
The tongue was well out and bare and all of a
sudden the Host was there! I did not see how it came. It was instantaneous!
I can't even say it arrived in a split second. It was just—there! This
is what I call the most significant part of the miracle. |
Conchita's ecstasy did not end there. St. Michael
told her to hold out her tongue with the Host on it— from two to three
minutes according to most observers—until the Virgin came. When Conchita
retracted her tongue, she got up and marched off, following her vision
into the starry night.
Reflection
Looking back in retrospect 27 years, many thoughts come to mind about the
Miracle of the Host, but only one wants to be discussed here. When the
visionaries were asking the Virgin and St. Michael for a miracle so that
the people would believe in the apparitions, their concept of a miracle
was the same as ours would have been, some stellar phenomenon or the like
that would dazzle the senses. At one point, Jacinta was heard to ask the
vision, "Come, perform a miracle! Call all the people as you call us and
once they come, produce a great light!" But instead of those petitions
being acceded to, the "miracle" chosen by Heaven had to do with the
Eucharist. And this is the real significance of what happened in Garabandal
at 1:40 in the morning of July 19, 1962. The "little miracle," as Conchita
called it, was designed to direct our attention to the "great miracle"
that is performed on our altars at Mass every day when bread and wine are
changed into the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. That is
truly the miracle of miracles.
Reprinted from GARABANDAL MAGAZINE
July-September 1989
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