1-3c) Mountains and Hills


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

Let us return to the narration from the diary:

That day we talked much with the Virgin,

And she talked with us. We told her everything,

Concerning what was comprised in this everything, Conchita wrote down especially this:

We told her that we walked to the pastures, that we were tanned, that we took the hay to the barns.

And she laughed.

We told her about so many things!

Since the first time I heard the story of Garabandal (unfortunately I was not there to see it personally) these words from Conchita have always sounded like music from a great pastoral symphony. They are like a brief strophe of pure air, of untainted fragrance, of childlike freshness on which were just beginning to fall the first traces of decay. With all the charm of a hillside breeze, those lines from the hand of the little narrator, chiseled with grace, truthful and sincere, reveal to us how hard each day was for the little children of the mountain village during the summer season.

It is a pleasure to walk through the hillside meadows when everything is in bloom; cut hay gathered and stacked under the sun has a fragrant scent. But to work hard, cutting and gathering it, carrying and putting it in a barn far away—the peasants do not call that a pleasure.

We should not be surprised then that the girls of Garabandal on that July 2nd, while seeing the heavenly Mother for the first time, would tell her all about the hard work of gathering hay. Didn't that stand out as the most detestable of all their daily chores? And the Mother was there to learn about it. No one could listen like her, for no one could love like her, for no one could be as interested as she in everything that concerned her children. Her laughter and smile full of tenderness and grace came as a breeze from paradise on those four creatures who so early had come to know the hard facts of life. When they had finished their childlike conversation, the Mother could speak with the words of Isaac of old, Behold the fragrance of my child is as the fragrance of a fruitful field, which the Lord has blessed. God give you the dew of heaven. (Gen, 27: 27-28)