1-9p) Why at Nighttime?

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

On July 29th, 1968, I arrived in the late afternoon at the waiting room of the convent of Poor Clares in Aguilar de Campoo. There, leaning against the grill, since he was a little hard of hearing and did not see very well, I found an old and venerable priest speaking with two monks on the other side of the grill. We exchanged greetings and this priest who liked to joke, for a reason I do not know, came out unexpectedly with a remark about the events of Garabandal. Yes, how are those strange affairs from Garabandal that always have to take place at night. As if the Virgin could not chose better hours to appear! Many things can take place in the darkness . . . At night all the cats are black.

The good priest, lacking adequate information, had simply echoed the many rumors and prejudices that were circulating from mouth to mouth. How many times, even in the early days, had been promulgated the suspicious question concerning Garabandal, Why at nighttime? The objectors believed to have found here a good basis for distrust and rejection.

It is easy to go from nighttime to accept as likely the existence of other extenuating ideas like rehearsal and deceit; if not on the part of the girls, then on the part of other persons or parties putting pressure on the girls with their parents easily disguised agreement. I myself have heard rather weird, if not ridiculous, remarks on this matter. The surprising thing is that even Bishop Puchol came to accept such suppositions — tremendous pressures — in a document more or less official. [«Nota» of March 17th, 1967 to the news media.]

As the question, Why at nighttime? repeatedly was brought up to the girls and those who were close to them, they consequently passed it on to the one they saw in their trances. And this happened specifically 10 days after the episode of the holy water on the 8th of September, a day which was distinguished at Garabandal since it had special Marian significance.

«With the idea of delving into the extraordinary happenings that were taking place there, one day I climbed the mountain leading up to Garabandal. Significantly it was the 8th of September, the feast of the Nativity of the Most Holy Virgin, and I admit taking advantage of the occasion.»

So Father Julio Porro Cardenoso, canon of Tarragona, describes his first visit to the celebrated village. [This distinguished priest soon became one of the most enthusiastic and competent promoters of the Garabandal cause.

He has published three books on the subject:

— God in the Shadows (A theological study on the events of Garabandal)

— The Great Prodigy of Garabandal

— Garabandal, Without Meaning? (Editorial Circulo, Paseo Fernando et Catolico, 39, 7. Zarogoza)

The notes that I am using here were taken from his first book, God in the Shadows.]

«We came to the place at a time when the visionaries were absent from it, since they had gone to a religious ceremony in a neighboring village that was celebrating the feastday of its patron saint. [Sometimes they celebrated the feast of the Virgin of the Sick at Puente Nansa; sometimes the feastday was celebrated at the sanctuary of Our Lady of Light on a high hill in the Peña Sagra Mountains. In the village there was great veneration for this sanctuary, a continuing tradition from time immemorial. The pilgrimage toward it was long and difficult, five hours of walking on fool on the steep slopes of the mountains.] About 5 o'clock in the afternoon the girls returned to their homes, still not having eaten. Meanwhile, my good friend Father Valentin, the pastor of the place, had informed me in detail of all the most spectacular things. The rumble of thunder broke the almost sepulchral silence that surrounded us while we were exchanging impressions and I was gathering the reports that had been put down in writing and accurately verified.»

Fr. Julio later took the occasion to examine each of the visionaries individually, asking them, «what I wanted to clarify the facts I had been told.» Then came the evening.

«The bells of the church brought us together for the rosary. Three of the girls were present there among the other children. (Jacinta was in bed with a sore throat.) I watched them and saw nothing extraordinary; they were similar to the other girls.

The rosary ended and the church was closed, as the bishop had ordered. At 10 o'clock at night the ecstasies began with Mari Loli in a trance.»

A series of observations then followed, certainly interesting, but which we already know, since they have been repeated many times. Two things in particular attracted Fr. Julio's attention:

(1) The strange movement of her clothes while the girl was falling to the ground.
(2) The girl's expressions and postures.

«Her clothes slid downwards in a movement that was not natural, as if an invisible hand were guarding the most complete modesty of the girl. All diabolical intervention has to be ruled out.»

«Loli fell slowly as though someone were lowering her to the ground; she was as if struck by a ray of light. I observed her closely; she had a truly angelical face; it didn't seem to be the same face.»

It was probably during this ecstasy [I have seen later from the notes of Fr. Valentin that these questions that passed from Conchita to Loli, who had gone into ecstasy in Conchita's home, were not asked on the night of September 8th, but on September 9th.] that the girl, on the request of the pastor who had spoken with Father Julio about the feasibility of proposing certain questions «that would be unusual and difficult to answer», asked the apparition among other things:

«What is it that the Virgin most urges the Spanish people for amending their lives?
Answer: That they confess and receive Communion.

What sacrifice does she principally request from Spain?
Answer. That it would aid the other nations to be good.

What is the sin of parents that offends her the most?
Answer: That they fight among themselves: their quarrels and arguments.»

Certainly it was at that time that «at the request of the parish priest», once more the pointed question was also asked: «Why do these things occur at nighttime?» [The question took place in an ecstasy on September 8th.]

The answer did not come in words . . . the Virgin's expression «filled with sadness.» And not only sadness: «The Virgin became serious», Loli said later.

It is easy to understand this response ... I ask myself: Could there be any other reaction from a mother toward children who show distrust, who come to her with an attitude of suspicion and doubt? And so enclosed in this silent response is a hurt reproach: For months I have come giving signs — the pure of heart understand — that it is I who am here among you, I who act, I who impart the intimate consolations of which many speak, I who give secret answers to many of your questions . . . And now you make this remark ? Do you not have sufficient reasons to recognize me, and see that, though you don't understand them, there certainly are reasons for what I do and the way I act.

Those who find a cause for suspicion and rejection in the nighttime idea, would not react better before the proofs of the daytime, of which there are a great number. Would their attitude have been any different if they had not found the stumbling stone of the nighttime? An episode from the gospels casts some light on this:

A person can always find reasons for not believing if there is something in believing that does not correspond to his desires. From his place in hell the rich man of the parable requested the patriarch Abraham for Lazarus to come back to life in order to warn his brothers.

The Virgin responded to this question with a sadness on her face, since at the base of it — on the part of some at least — there had to be a disposition neither honest nor sincere.

Only she knows all the reasons for the ecstasies occuring at night. However some explanations have occurred to us.

«Never» — we read in Fr. Ramon's report — «have the visions and phenomena of Garabandal encouraged a big crowd; rather they have strongly encouraged the opposite. In fact, the most interesting manifestations have taken place when the mass of spectators had left.»

Thus the fact that many of the phenomena occurred at night had a purpose of elimination. Since it was not pleasant to wait hour after hour to attain these things, after a disagreeable night, awake and almost sleepless, [In Garabandal one could not lodge in a rooming house, much less a hotel! Sometimes the village people offered or rented rooms to persons who merited special consideration; but ordinarily the people had to pass the time without sleep, or sleep as well as they could in their cars.] many abandoned the scene and left the village, especially those who had come as if on a tour to entertain themselves with a spectacle never seen . . . On the other hand, those who were seriously interested remained: persons who sincerely sought something and wanted to know what this was about. And so a gathering small in number, but continuingly renewed, could better observe and associate with the mystery that the girls experienced, a gathering that was physically much reduced in size.

The nighttime, the occasion so often propitious for sin, was marked in Garabandal with a sign of penance, prayer and expiation. Those who conscientiously united themselves with the heavenly walks of the visionaries, finished by experiencing the joy and the harshness of vigil hours that ordinarily left them physically exhausted and depleted. The testimonies that we can gather give an unending list of these things.[Fr. Julio Porro says of his first night in Garabandal:

«At 4 o'clock on the morning of September 9th, I left the village. A vigil like this wouldn't be worth the inconvenience, after traveling the very long trail to arrive at such an unknown mountain hideaway, if there hadn't been something very remarkable to be present at and witness.»]

The nights at Garabandal, whatever the perverse and malicious may think of them, were not nights of sin, but rather of expiation for sin and of prayer for sinners.[What we already know about the happenings during the nights at Garabandal is confirmed by what Fr. Julio says about the night of September 8th — 9th that he experienced. Following what he says about the Loli's trance, he relates:

«A series of ecstatic phenomena on the part of her and of Conchita followed ... in the houses, through the streets ... in the most diversified positions: standing, on their knees, completely prostrate facing the sky, seated with their arms in a cross and moving in this position through the streets, stuck in the mud and passing over the stones ... I saw them come down the stairs in Mari Loli's home while sitting, with their arms in a cross and their gaze fixed on the heavens, without lacking in modesty in spite of their difficult posture . , . They visited the sick, praying the rosary, and in that way entered into the house of Jacinta who was in her room with a throat infection.

It was exactly 2 o'clock in the morning; the Virgin told them to recite the rosary again . . . They said it perfectly.

Everything ended with the kissing of the Vision by the girls and of the girls by the Vision, and the Christian way of saying goodbye, Until tomorrow, if God wills. The girls finally embraced, and everyone started to retire. It was past 3 o'clock in the morning. We had been in a constant dance from about 10 o'clock. The visionaries were not tired; we were completely exhausted and drowsy.»

It seems to me that we have here a good example of what those nights were, the nights of Garabandal that some persons look upon as suspect.]

They were a practice of that which had been said by the angel to the shepherd children of Fatima:

You must pray much, speaking like this: "My God, I believe, I hope, I adore and I love . . . and I ask pardon for those that do not believe, do not hope, do not adore and do not love ..."

Because of this, those nights have left indelible impressions on many hearts. From the rugged and hard trail that led up to the village, to the difficult path up to the Pines, all was a symbol of the penitential and ascetic role that had to be followed by whoever wanted to enter in the march — frequently perturbing — of the phenomena.[Narrow is the gate and straight the way that leads to life, and few there are that find it. (Matt. 7: 14)]

Are the dark nights of Garabandal something new in the experience of Christians? Do we not well know that the nighttime hours appear in the History of Salvation as hours chosen for the admirable commercium between God and man? We can recall some well-known facts. It was at night that St. Joseph was made aware of Mary's great secret, on which our survival depended. In the middle of the night occurred the coming into the world of the Son of God and the Son of man; and the hours of the night were later those that He preferred to dedicate to prayer during His public life ... In the secret of the night the mystery of the Incarnation, the summit of all history, and especially the History of Salvation, was realized. The Mass of Sunday in the octave of the Nativity starts solemnly with the words of the Book of Wisdom:

And it is evident from the lives of the saints that their great communications with God took place with preference for the hours of the night ... as if He were pleased to deal with His best friends right during the hours in which others usually offend Him the most.

The hours of darkness should not be so readily connected with the action of the power of darkness. It appears unfounded and unreasonable to try to find in this nighttime a sign of evil proceeding from the affairs of Garabandai. Besides anyone seeking darkness as a cloak for his wickedness does not have to search for it here; there are plenty of shadows and nights everywhere to cover the shame of an unworthy life.

Let us correspond with the exhortation of the apostle and leave the work of darkless to put on the arms of light. (Romans 13; 12) However it is to be understood that this does not have any connection with the presence or absence of the sun on the horizon.