1-7c) Our Lady's Voice

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

The following day, when coming down from the pastures, my mother and I met my Aunt Maximina González, who was very excited and told us,

We have additional details about this episode that Conchita mentions, and which she did not witness, since she had to go far away from the village to the pastures to gain with difficulty her daily bread. It should not be imagined that the life of the visionaries had been changed into a continual celebration of wonders, or that due to the ecstasies, that they had been dispensed from all work and trouble. It was rather the contrary, and after many sleepless nights in vigils that could exhaust the strongest, they had to begin the new day very early during that summertime and had to work like all the other village girls.

On that August day, Mary Loli and Jacinta had another apparition in the morning at the Pines, They were presenting medals and rosaries to kiss as usual, oscillating back and forth and falling. Then on their knees they were carrying on a dialogue; in it Jacinta was heard to say: Conchita has already come. They've cut her braids in Santander. She's very pretty and tanned from going to the beach.

When they came out of the ecstasy, they answered questions from the people around them. And one of the crowd, who had brought a tape recorder, [Police Chief Juan A. Seco also reported the episode with the tape recorder in his memoirs. And he said that it was Angel Domínguez Borreguero, director of the Psychiatric Hospital of Salamanca, who gave the microphone to the girls to record the Virgin's voice. Gerardo Plaza, a professor at the University of Salamanca accompanied him. Both were vacationing in Danes, Asturias.] let them hear some of the things recorded on the tape; among these were phrases that they themselves had spoken in ecstasy. The girls were amazed since they had never heard anything like this. The stranger explained how the recorder worked and made some demonstrations during which he handed them the microphone.

Soon the girls fell into ecstasy again. Mary Loli, whom the new ecstasy had surprised with the microphone in her hand, began to converse with the Virgin: A man has come with a thing that takes down everything — everything that is said. Why don't you say something so that everyone can hear you, so that the people will believe? Go ahead, say something. Yes, talk. Say something. Not for us; so that the people believe.

Eventually the ecstasy ended. What the girls had said to the apparition was played back on the tape recorder for them to hear. And at the moment when they stopped telling her to speak, an ineffable voice was heard — the witnesses classified it most sweet — that said:

Everyone was very excited. As Maximina said to Conchita, The people started to cry because they heard the voice of the Virgin. This was something exceptional.[I read the testimony of Gaudencio Cepeda Palacios from Torquemada (Palencia), Agustin Piney, from Santillana del Mar (Santander), Luis Toribio Millán, from Aguilar de Campoo (Palencia), and all agreed on the mysterious hearing of that unique voice, and that it was heard when the tape was finished, after a click signaled the end.]

The owner of the tape recorder started shouting, I will send this to the Pope. The people naturally wanted to hear the marvelous voice again. And they played the tape for a second time, but at the proper time they heard nothing.

They came down from the Pines somewhat bewildered, talking of what had happened. They replayed the tape in Mari Cruz' home.[Sánchez-Ventura is the one who mentions Mari Cruz' house. (Chapter 8, Page 112, Spanish version); but Father Ramón Andreu says in his report:

«They came down distraught to the house of Conchita, who had not taken part in the vision described, so that she could hear what her companions had said. When coming to the sentences mentioned, the voice was heard to say: No, I will not speak. Conchita smiled and said very happily that it was the Virgin who had spoken.»

The Father verified that the reference to this event was received from a witness there present, José Salceda from Aguilar de Campoo (Palencia), who was at the time chauffeur to the Fontaneda family.] And once again everybody could hear the mysterious voice. And again the girls said that the voice was the Virgin's.

She was not heard after that. But the witnesses of that unique experience have not forgotten. All kept in their heart what one of them expressed while coming down from Garabandal, I will go to the grave with the conviction of having heard the Virgin's voice.

This occurrence can not be taken lightly since there are twelve signed witnesses to it.[In his book, Sanchez-Ventura gives the name, age and address of seven of these.]

We would all be overjoyed to be able to hear the truly unique voice of Our Lady. But we must recognize that would be too much of a gift for our sinful ears which are ordinarily so open for voices and words opposed to those of the Virgin.

Now we should live with hope and a desire to give a spiritual resonance to the beautiful supplication that the liturgy teaches us to direct to the Virgin with words from the Canticle of Canticles.

The duration of August 14th was profuse with wonders. If the tape recording had occurred in the morning, in the evening occurred another series of remarkable phenomena beginning at 8 P.M., first at the Pines and later in the church. Again Loli and Jacinta were the participants. Conchita and her mother Aniceta, who had been working from early morning harvesting hay far from the village, returned straight home to rest a while and finish their housework. At a late hour Maximina went to see them. She related:

When she came, Anicela was saying to her daughter, You troublemaker! Don't you see that your apparitions aren't true? Why hasn't the Virgin called you today like the others?

The child answered very seriously, You want me to tell you all about the ecstasies of the other girls?

Yes! exclaimed Maximina, Tell us about them. Tell us about them since I've just come from seeing them.

Then Conchita explained in detail everything that had happened, with the stops that the visionaries had made, and the things that they had done. On hearing this, Maximina said, My hair is standing on end. Oh! This is fantastic! That's exactly how it happened!

«Then Aniceta said to me, But Conchita has been with me all this time shut up in the house. She turned to Conchita and asked her, How can this be?

—This is how. While I was in front of the living room, I felt the Virgin calling me by my name. And she told me everything that the others were doing and where they were walking.

And I know more, what the others don't yet know . . . what the Virgin told me. She told me that we would hear a voice, and then we were to go where it took us.[I admit that I can give no explanation for this enigmatic passage. Let us hope that some day it will be made clear to us, since the great mystery of Garabandal is still unsolved.
Note from 1976 — I was finally able to question Jacinta in her home about this puzzling episode . . . without obtaining much light. But something led me to think that the Virgin — with these words spoken to Conchita — might have been refering to the voice of a person who was then alive and was soon going to die: Fr. Luis Maria Andreu. We know that after his death the girls heard his voice in ecstasy without seeing him. (See the next chapter.) And that mysterious voice gave them much instruction and advice.]

— Oh heavens — exclaimed Aniceta — and if it takes you over a steep cliff?

— The Virgin would never do that. The Virgin would never take us to a bad place.

She also told me that the time would come when we ourselves would deny, for we would come to doubt everything.

And so during the evening of August 4th, 1961, when she had barely arrived back from her change of environment stay in Santander, Conchita would receive the first secret and confidential communication about something that no one could then have possibly imagined, and which afterward would fall down terribly like a weight of darkness on the mystery of Garabandal: the denial of its visionaries and the falling away of a great number of its followers.