1-2d) Everything Coming from God.

Of course the news came quickly to Fr. Valentin. And not only to Fr. Valentin. The chief of police, Juan A. Seco, wrote in his memoirs:

«On June 21st, I was informed that something miraculous had occurred in my district. On that day I had gone to consult with a doctor of the area in Puente Nansa. And Dr. Jose Luis Gullon, who was very amazed, mentioned to me what had just been told to him by two women who had come down from Garabandal, that an angel had appeared to four young girls from the village.

I think that at the time I forgot to ask the doctor for the prescription that I needed for my ear, because it struck me that I no longer needed it, since I was hearing perfectly what the women had informed him. I went directly to the headquarters of the Civil Guard and ordered Officer Jose Fernandez Codesido to go up to San Sebastian and carefully investigate everything that happened. On his return, the officer reported to me that he had been with each of the supposed visionaries individually; and that they coincided completely: that they happened to be playing marbles at the entrance to the calleja which is named Campuca Street and that suddenly . . .

After that day I felt satisfied, and ordered a pair of guards to remain permanently in Garabandal. The news spread throughout all the neighboring towns and every day people made the journey to Garabandal, which required increasing the size of the guard. Soon there came to be crowds of 500 to 3,000 persons a day.»

The good priest must have been so impressed by what was told him that he had already decided to go to Santander on June 22nd [Although 1 cannot give the exact date that Father Valentin went to Santander to inform his superior, I know that Ceferino Mazon, the father of Loli, went with him as a civil official of the village, accompanied by two other men of some importance in the area: the indiano Eustaquio Cuencia and the professor Manin. (The term indiano is generally given in Spain to emigrants who have returned from America after having made their fortune there.)

Father Valentin spoke alone behind closed doors with Bishop Doroteo Fernandez. After listening to him, the bishop said that for the moment, obviously, there was only one thing to do: Watch and wait.] to completely inform the Bishop. Someone made him hold off, observing correctly, Why don't you wait to see for yourself what's going on? Surely something will happen this evening, and then later you can give a better report about everything. Thanks to this intelligent observation, that Thursday, the day of the week dedicated to the Eucharist, which in 1961 had more daylight time than any other day in the year, was the first to have a priest in the calleja at Garabandal as a witness of the communication that God seemed to want established from on high with men.

At the usual time of the evening, at 8:30, Te lucis ante terminum, fervent prayer rose up from the community on the stony path to the pines, a path that was already radiating the miraculous. A calm fell on the surrounding plains, and spread through the ravines to the mountains above. The soft fragrance of summer, the scent of fields in bloom and new-cut hay pervaded the air. [Planting and harvesting hay is a principal occupation for the peasants in the mountains, who gain their living mainly from their cows. The countryside of the whole Santander region, not only the area near Garabandal, is almost a continual succession of fields of hay and woods of Eucalyptus. During those June days to which we are referring, the hay harvest was in full swing.]

Around the girls gathered an assembly of almost all the people in the village, presided over by its pastor. One by one the beads of the rosary were counted out with the thrill of expectation . . . And at last the ecstasy of the girls!

But not all resistance was vanquished. Among the onlookers was a certain Professor Manin. [This professor was in San Sebastian tutoring the son of an indiano of the village. His name was Manin or Manuco (a nickname of Manuel). He recently lived in Santander.] Surely out of a desire for more complete information, this man took the girls to a neighbor's house after the ecstasy to interrogate them tenaciously about what they had seen. Some of the people got the idea that he had prepared the girls for their visions in the Calleja; the Civil Guards were suspicious of him, and even considered throwing him in jail. [The police chief mentions in his memoirs:

«In the village there was a teacher or professor who had come to give lessons on the assigned courses to the son of the indiano Taquio. (Eustaquio Cuenca) And the teacher accompanied the girls during the apparitions to hear what they said, and to take notes. The people began to talk about whether he was hypnotizing them, and whether he was giving them pills or other things of that type. One day after the apparition, one of my sergeants informed me that the teacher had taken Conchita to the home of the indiano and that it was true what the people were saying ... I went immediately and actually found the teacher with the girl in a room. I asked him what this was about, and he answered that he was doing work for Father Valentin, gathering information that they could later present in a report to the bishop. »]

On that Thursday evening, Fr. Valentin was satisfied with being no more than a witness. But on the next day, June 23rd, he began to act as the person mainly responsible for what was happening.

At the same time of the evening there was an ecstasy in the Calleja again after the usual prayers. But the number of onlookers had increased markedly, since the news of what was occurring in San Sebastian had already traveled to the surrounding villages: Cossio, Puentenansa, Rozadio. [These are all small riverside towns on the banks of the Nansa River. Puentenansa is on the river below Cossio; Rozadio, on the river above. This latter town is the 'Robacio' of the book Penas Arriba', the childhood country of Neluco, the young and dedicated doctor of the novel.]

The ecstasy finished, the people showed their feelings by rushing to embrace the girls.

We went with the parish priest to the church sacristy where he questioned us, calling us in one by one, to see if we agreed.

The examination must have completely satisfied Father Valentin, since on coming out into the courtyard with the girls, he said to the people waiting there:

Up to now everything seems to be coming from God.

We can imagine the happiness of those good people. How could God have so distinguished Garabandal? What did He want from us? From now on people will look with envy on the village which up to now they had regarded with pity.

The first Saturday since the beginning of events had come, falling on the last Saturday of that memorable month of June. Would something special happen on that day of the week especially consecrated to the Virgin? Would only an angel come without speaking? Or would he bring something from her, who was so much invoked there with the petition of the Hail Mary and the salutations of the Litany of Loretto!

During the first hours of the afternoon, the road going up to Garabandal saw a continual passage of people who were coming to the village in search of — they themselves could not even say. It took more than curiosity to make them come up the road perspiring and exhausted. Many of them were peasants who had left their urgent work in the middle of the hay harvest. But that which was said to be taking place at Garabandal was more important than all those pressing occupations. Nothing like this had ever occurred around here before, and besides . . . why lose the chance?

When the girls, accompanied by the people, arrived at the usual place, they met many strangers who had come in advance to take a place and see us better.

There wasn't time to start the rosary. The Angel appeared immediately, and the four girls were enraptured away from everything around them. They were alone with the Angel in the splendor of something wonderful.

Then they noticed something new about him. He continued gazing on them with a smile: he was still silent. But below the Angel today was writing that had some unknown meaning. The first line started, HAY QUE . . . and the second held a series of capital letters, that the girls later learned were Roman numerals, designating a date. [An article in the French edition of Conchita's Diary relates:

In a letter written to Mr. William A. Nolan of Illinois (U.S.A.), Conchita describes this in the following words:

« The first times that we saw him, he didn't say anything to us, up until the first of July. Before the first of July, he carried some writing at his feet, but we didn't understand what it meant. The words that we understood were these:

On the first line: "There must..."

And on the last line: "XVIII-MCMLXI".

This is what we understood.»

This is an allusion, as will be brought forth later on, to the message of October 18th, 1961.]

When the apparition was over, the young men of the village took us away in a cart, so that the people would not crush us, and so they would not kiss us. They took us to the church, and Father Valentin, the parish priest, took us into the sacristy one by one so that we would tell him what had happened.

The pastor was anxious to assemble the greatest number of facts in order to bring an early and complete report to his Bishop. The apparition on that Saturday held particular interest because of the writing, which might be the key to the solution of the strange mystery of the calleja; but the girls were not in a position to satisfy the understandable curiosity of the priest. Absorbed in the contemplation of the Angel, who was above every wonder of this world, they had not understood the Roman numerals. And they had paid little attention to the strange writing which even the Angel himself had refused for the moment to explain. [In October of 1975, I questioned Jacinta:

—The inscription that the Angel carried at his feet on those days——was it difficult to read, or could you read it clearly?

—I hardly remember. What I do recall is that the row of capital letters — whose meaning we didn't understand — greatly attracted our attention. Later they told us that these were Roman Numerals.

—You didn't understand what the writing meant when you saw it. Did the Angel give you some explanation?

—No, it was the Virgin who explained it to us later.»]

Book 1 continues with: 1-2e) El Cuadro

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