"Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed."

Original article by Geoffrey Groesbeck, April 2002
MA. U.S.A.

Who has not heard this famous reply of the risen Christ to the apostle Thomas? As the Gospel of St. John tells it, Thomas would not believe in the Lord's resurrection "Unless I see the mark of the nails in His hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into His side" (Jn 20:25b).

    It seems incredible that someone called by Jesus Himself, who accompanied the Lord during His public ministry and witnessed His many miracles, could doubt His resurrection, even after the remaining disciples announced it. Yet this is exactly what happened.

    Consider the Lord's response. Jesus did not accuse Thomas of disbelief; instead, He invited him to believe: "Do not be unbelieving, but believe" (Jn 20:27b). Nor did He belittle Thomas for his obstinacy; instead, He extended His loving offer to everyone who believes without seeing.

The Events of Garabandal

    Consider now the events of Garabandal. For the better part of two years (and intermittently thereafter), four young girls in this remote village experienced almost daily apparitions of the Virgin Mary. As one well-known author exclaimed, "For two years, the Virgin Mary lived in Garabandal." More than one thousand of these encounters have been recorded and attested to by the most reliable witnesses. The apparitions have been painstakingly documented, photographed, filmed, and subjected to unremitting scrutiny, both within and outside the Church. The body of tangible evidence - of which there is still more to be disclosed - is overwhelming. It is more extensive than that of any other Marian apparition in history.

    Yet this is precisely why and where many are led astray!

    Against the backdrop of verified phenomena of the most spectacular kind, it nonetheless is easy - so easy - to lose sight of the real point of Garabandal: its Message. It must come before the apparitions. Indeed, this is something the visionaries themselves repeatedly stressed.

    As humans, we are naturally drawn to the ineffable and inexplicable, but this very act should itself presage a desire to know the source and meaning of what is unknown, not to remain fixated upon its manifestation alone. As it applies to Garabandal, this can become a problem, with some peoples' interest waning upon realising Garabandal is about much more than apparitions, warnings, and miracles, and especially the speculation surrounding the dates of future events. What Garabandal is about is living a life committed to God, through good and bad times, with a focus on the events of the present.

    It is at this point - when the focus shifts from form to content, from apparition to message -- that our closest attention should be directed! This is where we are called to participate in living the Message of Garabandal, to put aside conjecture on what may (or may not) come to pass, and to direct our lives towards that which is pleasing to God here and now.

    The vast majority of us were not privy to the physical events of Garabandal, and yet we believe. We believe without seeing. If we believe, let us believe the Message behind the apparitions, and not just the apparitions themselves. And let us give the Message its rightful place above the apparitions!

    This is hard, no matter how solid our faith may be. We are, after all, only human. Each of us, deep down inside, wants to be thrilled by what Robert François calls "a theophany, a manifestation of God, a certain proof, before [we] believe in His existence."[François, Robert, O Children Listen To Me (trans. by author and Peter Maas). Lindenhurst, NY: Our Lady of Mount Carmel de Garabandal, Inc., 1998, p. 20]. As Fr. Garcia de Pesquera candidly notes, "At times we are more demanding than St. Thomas the Apostle himself, and we want to be continually touching the miraculous action of God in order to believe in it."[Garcia de Pesquera, Fr. Eusebio, She Went In Haste To The Mountain (trans. by Brian Miller). Lindenhurst, NY: Our Lady of Mount Carmel de Garabandal, Inc., 2000, p. 272.]

    True. But as Christians, and as believers in the Message of Garabandal, we are not "let off the hook". No one ever said our journey to Heaven would be without bumps or detours. To progress to the point where we are truly living the Message, we absolutely must move beyond our fascination with the apparitions themselves, our guessing at when or whether future events will occur, our tendency to look at the form rather than the content. Garabandal is a wonderful starting place for our faith, but it is just the beginning.

Disappointment and disbelief

    What happens to those who would continue to pin their hopes on the supernatural and not seek the message behind it? Think of the crowd's disappointment when the first message was read in the pouring rain on the evening of 18 October, 41 years ago. As Garcia de Pesquera tells it, "almost everyone was disillusioned…. the reaction of many of the people in Garabandal on that night was an angry disappointment"[Ibid., pp. 248-9]. Why? They, like the apostle Thomas, had seen and believed, but expected still more. They wanted more supernatural phenomena, not a message so simple and straightforward that it caught almost everyone off guard. Many hoped for a miracle, in spite of Mari Loli's repeated earlier warnings that such expectations were completely unfounded. [Ibid., p. 231].

    Consider the visionaries themselves, and the careful distinction they drew between the non-essential importance of an apparition and the essential importance of a message. Initially, as with everyone present, they too sought a miracle or some proof positive that they could understand in a human way.

Focus on living the Message

    In 1965, at only 16 years of age(!), Conchita wrote to a Jesuit priest, Fr. Alba, "But, if we heed the Message, believing in the apparitions is of no importance."[Laffineur-Noseda, Fr. Materne and le Pelletier, M.T., Star On The Mountain (trans. by Service De Traduction Champlain, ENR). Lindenhurst, NY: Our Lady Of Mount Carmel De Garabandal, Inc., 1992, p. 118]. Just as telling - and no doubt a source of embarrassment to those who follow Garabandal for lesser motives - is another comment, "To guess at dates regarding the [prophesied] Miracle shows a lack of faith in the Blessed Virgin."[Ibid., p. 143]. Indeed, the energies expended on this are so much better spent on living the Message!

    In the same letter, Conchita emphasised a point that bears similar reflexion: "The Blessed Virgin affirmed here what she did at Lourdes and Fátima and not a single new thing."[François, Robert, op. cit., p. 57]. The Message remains the same. We are asked only to believe - to focus on living the Message - not to seek more spiritual fireworks (as if these three well-documented apparitions were not enough already!) or try to predict the fulfillment of God's plan.

    Let us also recall Mari Loli's famous comment that "When in the presence of an angel and of a priest, I would greet the priest first and it is to the priest that I would bow first of all."[Laffineur-Noseda and le Pelletier, op. cit., p. 42].,Sightings of angels are rare. They can be seen only through an apparition. Priests are a bit easier to spot. Yet consider where the honour is given: to him who lives the Message, not he who bears it. Even more to the point, Mari Loli often has said "it is far better to go to Mass and receive Communion than to have an apparition."[Saraco, Maria C., "The Vigil". Pasadena, CA: St. Michael's Garabandal Center For Our Lady Of Carmel, Inc., Q1 1974].

    Perhaps the best summation of this attitude is given by the late Fr. Laffineur again, who noted that the visionaries remain resolute that "The most important [thing] of all is the Message. All the rest, even the events that can be said to be miraculous, take place for one reason only…to give credit to the Message and to urge people to carry it out."[Laffineur-Noseda and le Pelletier, op. cit., p. 22].

    The importance of this mandate cannot be overstated. The last thing any of us want to see come to fruition are the ominous words of Padre Pio, who, in a letter to the visionaries in 1962, perhaps all too presciently wrote, "They will believe when it is too late.'" [de Pesquera, op. cit., p. 313].

Printed by permission of the author Geoffrey Groesbeck, April 2002

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