1-4a) An Exciting Monday

Reprinted with kind permission from St. Joseph Publications

from the book She Went in Haste to the Mountain (Book 1)

NOTE: All excerpts from Conchita's Diary will be in extra-bold type

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And He Dwelt Among us

This important statement refers to the enactment of the greatest event in history: the Incarnation of the Word and Son of God. (John 1:14)

But we can use these words in a different analogy when describing lesser events that comprise the history of Garabandal.

It was as if the Virgin, with her new Visitation on that first Sunday of July, 1961, was to begin her mysterious dwelling among us. In the first Visitation of the Gospel, Mary stayed in Elizabeth's home about three months (Luke 1:56) to accompany and assist her.

Now for the same purpose of accompanying and assisting at Garabandal, she has remained with us more than three years. Our need is greater than was that of her cousin Elizabeth.

More than once I have been thrilled at Lourdes in hearing the French song that begins, Chez nous soyez Reine. (Be with us, our Queen.} At the time of departure during the large pilgrimages, this song is sung with devotion and feeling. The words implore the Virgin to be Queen Chez nous. The French expression is hard to translate and refers to what is properly one's own; what belongs to one's own house in a special way; to what is particularly one's own. Chez nous soyez Reine. Be Queen among us, with us. Queen in our lives and in our homes.

At Garabandal this hymn might be slightly changed. For at Garabandal she came as a Queen, but also as a Mother. It seems that Mary came here to manifest her maternity in all its beauty and graciousness.

The children understood this from the first meeting. Although ravished by the unparalleled beauty of the apparition and by a glory greater than that of any earthly Queen, they did not stay in a state of awe toward the Lady as well they might have called the Vision seen at the calleja, as formerly Bernadette had called her Vision at the grotto.[Bernadette Soubirous, the visionary from Lourdes, did not immediately recognize that the one who was appearing on the bank of the Gave River was the Most Holy Virgin; for weeks she only knew to speak of the lady, the lady of the grotto at Massabielle.]The children looked at the Vision more in the quality of a mother and immediately began to Confide in her and speak freely. Conchita has related some of this:

That day we talked much with the Virgin, and she with us.

We told her EVERYTHING.

And she laughed because we said so many things.

She was like a mother who for a long time had not seen the daughter who was telling her everything that had happened.

And much more in our case since we had never seen her. And she was our Mother from Heaven.

The first day was already marked with a pattern that would be seen from then on. The MOTHER came to listen with an interest and pleasure to all the words of her children, their little affairs, their child-like interests, their troubles. She came also to enter their lives as a MOTHER-CHILD, to place herself at the level of the children and even condescend to submit to their innocent requests. She gave them her crown of golden stars to touch and examine. She placed her Child in their arms. She received and returned kisses, and even went so far on one occasion as to play with the children.

Naturally she did not come just to hear or be heard. If she descended, it was done to raise us up. And all those things that seemed so trivial and disconcerting to the wise and prudent of this world (Matt. 11:25) were to become in her hands the elements of a divine pedagogy with which she would teach, prepare, and condition for the difficult works of God.

We can imagine that the four privileged girls slept blissfully on that Sunday night. The marvelous presence of the Mother of God had filled them with joy thru the music of her words and the radiance of her continence and smile.

Naturally on waking up that Monday morning, July 3rd, the thoughts of the four girls were drawn immediately to the Virgin, and so they returned in a hurry to the scene of their good fortune.

Monday, July 3rd, arrived, and we were very happy to have seen our Heavenly Mother.

In the morning, the first thing that we did on Monday, July 3rd, was to go to pray there at the cuadro, the four of us together.

Together and certainly alone. The villagers had a lot of things to do. They had to make journeys to the distant pastures. The girls themselves would have to do the same. However, since the happenings of the previous evening, they had to understand that prayer—conversation with heaven— should not be just one of the many things that take up the time of day. It should be the most important—that with which they should start the day— and it deserved their greatest attention.

Together and alone. Under the deep blue summer sky, surrounded by the silence and tranquillity of a nature pure and renovated from the previous evening. What a beautiful morning prayer! God's four little girls were there looking up to Him, with their sighs supplying words for many of God's creatures like the sun and vegetation that can not express themselves, as they prayed to the Spirit that breathes where He wills; and you hear His voice, but you know not where He comes nor where He goes. (John 3:9)

Together and alone. Offering up the new day to God in thanksgiving and petition, unusually joyful and unusually ardent, sensing themselves both sheltered and at the same time obligated by an immense display of Divine Love. From where had this mysterious whirlwind come to suddenly interrupt their way of life and draw them into something they could never have dreamed?

    After praying there in the cuadro, we went back to our homes to do what our parents ordered.
    And then we went to the school. At the class we met our schoolmistress Serafina Gomez.
    She began crying and kissed us saying, How lucky you are, etc ...

The good schoolmistress' feelings are readily explainable. How could she have even imagined that such things would happen to the children in her simple little school.

All were very impressed and happy. And they believed very much. And our family felt the same way.

As for Loli's family, her father Ceferino said, There's never been anything like this.

You are very right, my friend Ceferino. Things like these just starting to show themselves have been only rarely seen in the world, and perhaps it would be better to say that this type of thing has never been seen. Well could you praise God and try to cooperate with Him.

    It was the same also with her mother Julia.
    And Maria the mother of Jacinta, believed very much too, and her father Simon even more.
    If we performed some practical joke, Jacinta's father would say that the apostles had done the same.
    And he would begin to explain the things we did; to him it appeared that everything we did was good.

The good will of Simon and his noble sentiments for the things of God, (qualities found in genuinely good souls even with a lack of education) caused him to protect and excuse the girls from the opinions and comments which were soon to burst forth from the sceptics who never understand the working of the Divine Hand in lowly human affairs. Simon would have preferred then and there to see the girls immediately in a state of absolutely faultless angelic perfection so as to prove the authenticity of their visions.[There are apparitions and ecstasies which are a reward for virtue and at the same time a strong confirmation of it; and for this, they are only given in the highest realms of the spiritual life, to those we call saints.

But there are also apparitions and ecstasies that happen to those who, while receiving them, serve more as instruments than as recipients. God uses these persons to bring forth His extraordinary designs of mercy. And so He chooses not those who merit more, but those who are more useful for His plans. In such souls there can co-exist both the extraordinary favors of God and also many of their own imperfections. These imperfections will disappear if these souls try to correspond; not immediately and from the very first day, but as a fruit of persevering effort, since both in the natural life and in the spiritual life, progress is gradual. Without taking this into account, one will not be able easily to understand Garabandal.]

The parents of Mari Cruz, Escolastico and Pilar, did not appear to have the same level of enthusiasm ... As for the family of Conchita:

My mother really believed, without doubting anything.

How much we talked on that Sunday!

My brothers really believed insofar as they saw, and not only did they believe, but also it made them quite spiritual as it made many people.

Good sign! This affair was more than just something exciting, a remarkable change in the ordinary routine of country living. It was producing an impact on consciences and leading to a revision of ideas and conduct, awakening the need to become better.

And there were others who were not impressed.

In our daily life, we did what our parents told us to do.

It is striking with what frequency Conchita repeats in many passages of her diary the fact that they applied themselves above all to fulfill the obligations of obedience.

Surely the obedience mentioned by Conchita had its foundation in the solid upbringing received in families with Christian tradition; the contacts with the Angel and meetings with the Virgin could not but strengthen that way of acting. During those extraordinary sessions of instruction—the ecstasies —following teaching not invented by man, time would not be allotted for dissertation on a person's rights, on the requirements of one's own personality, on liberty. On the contrary, almost always would be taught the old doctrines of self-denial, taking up the cross each day, and of being submissive as the One who for love ended up, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. (Phil.2:9)

For this reason, it never occurred to the girls to oppose the recommendations of their elders in age, position, or authority by using the excuses used by many today to escape bothersome discipline such as, You don't understand us. You belong to another century. Those old-fashioned ideas are passé.

They obeyed and offered up the sacrifice, knowing that the way to God is by renunciation and sacrifice, that the chores and duties of each day are more important, though many times less satisfying, than anything else, even the moments of paradise in the calleja.

    In the afternoon when we left the school, (5:00 P.M.) as we had spent a very happy Sunday, July 2nd, and as we already had such a desire to see her again (The Virgin), we went there; (the calleja) and we began to say the rosary.
   We were alone.
    And when we had finished and hadn't seen her, we said nothing at the time.
    We weren't surprised, nor were we sad, as she could still come later.
    Then, since she hadn't come, we went to our homes and did what we were told to do at home.