Theological Study in Action
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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CHAPTER 5:
THE EXTRAORDINARY HAPPENS EVERY DAY
Up to this point we have followed step by step, day
by day, the progression of this amazing story. From now on it will not
be possible to continue in this way since it is not possible to contain
in one book all the things known on the events of Garabandal. Besides neither
can the facts be related to the dates with precision, nor can the dates
be associated accurately with many of the facts. Conchita herself in her
diary relates the first sixteen days one after the other. Then, from the
4th of July, as we are going to see, she does not hold strictly to the
calendar and mixes many things in her narration, relating only what seemed
most important in her estimation or what stuck the most in her memory.[Sometime
after having written this chapter, there came into my hands some notes
from the many taken by the parish priest, Father Valentin, during the time
that we are recounting. His notes are brief and somewhat confusing. This
is not unexpected since he had many things to attend to each day and he
had to write down in a hurry what might be called the daily official
report.
From these notes,
I perceive that the Angel, who had visited the girls so often during the
last fortnight of June, did not return to the children for almost a week
(from Sunday the 2nd of July, the day of the first apparition of the Virgin,
until Saturday, July 8th). But on July 8th and the following day, he showed
himself more familiar than ever with them: «he kissed us on
the cheeks and on the forehead . , , and he kissed us as though we were
in a line.»
And so began a
new and astounding page in the heavenly communications.
During those days
(Tuesday, July 11th, in all probability) began something that for many
would be a cause of difficulty: the girls' Mystical Communions, as
they came to be called. I say that this probably began on July 11th, because
in the writings of Father Valentin is found this short reference: «They
said they had received Communion on the 11th, 12th and 13th.» This
is the first time that he speaks of this.
These Communions
always occurred at the time and place that the Angel advised on the previous
day. It is important to mark here the general observation made by Father
Valentin: «Whenever the girls said something in advance, it always
happened.»
Before beginning
these Communions, the Angel gave the usual catechism class ... in all probability
during the apparitions of July 8th, 9th, and 10th.
The first time
that the girls talked to Father Valentin about the Angel giving them Communion,
he questioned them, then later wrote down, «They said that the
Angel does the same as I do when I give Communion.»
These Communions
always, or almost always, had a prayer of thanksgiving recommended by the
Angel: Soul of Christ, sanctify me; Body of Christ, save me; Blood of
Christ . . . (Anima Christi of St. Ignatius)
The persons who
were present did not see either the Angel or the Sacred Host; but they
did see perfectly the gestures and movements that the girls made in receiving
Communion; and there are numerous photographic proofs of this in circulation.
This is significant:
It
is a proven fact that the Angel came to give Communion only when a priest
who could do so was not in the village. This is the style
of
Divine Providence: to come to our aid with extraordinary means (if God
so desires) only when it cannot be accomplished with ordinary means.
From Father Valentin's
notes it is seen that on all or almost all of the days during July, the
girls had an apparition either with the Virgin, or with the Angel, or with
the two at the same time. But it seems to me that to dwell longer on Father
Valentin's brief resumes would be both boring and tiring, since they contain
no more than external details, which are the least important, and besides
are mostly the same from day to day.]
Furthermore I do not believe
that it is necessary to minutely recount everything about Garabandal. What
I would like to do is to present a good in-depth picture of the thing as
a whole, in a way that will aid in evaluating all the signs of this extraordinary
work of God and the Virgin on our behalf.
Theological Study in Action
The month of July 1961 saw these
marvels become commonplace. Each day had its session:
More or less in the same manner,
More or less at the same time,
More or less in the same places.
The privileged children went
in and out of the ecstasies with an extreme naturalness, and spoke of the
marvels in the same way they spoke of other everyday occurences. The villagers
became accustomed to seeing these things without surprise, encountering
the intermingling of another world at the turn of each corner, down every
street. Only the daily newcomers — the pilgrims who came from areas increasingly
more distant — were astonished to behold with their own eyes and touch
with their own hands things completely extra-real, things they could never
have even dreamed.
All that came were influenced by
curiosity; but besides this easily understandable curiosity, there were
many different attitudes and motives for coming. Almost no one wanted to
remain simply an observer in the moving and beautiful spectacle. The observer
pondered over what was happening, trying to size it up to determine exactly
what was going on, if possible. First, observe; then try to understand
what it meant.
This happened especially with the
doctors and priests. The names of some of these will remain forever linked
to the history of Garabandal; some pro and some contra; some for what they
have done for the manifestation of Garabandal, and some for what they have
done for its condemnation.
Among those who contributed to
make Garabandal known by his observations and opinions, a priest by the
name of Ramon Maria Andreu Rodamilans merits special mention. He was not
one of the first to come; however he was the first to put in writing a
serious study of the things that were happening in the remote Montaña
village.
PHOTO: Fr. Ramón
Because
of this I consider it extremely useful to insert at this point in our history
what Father Ramón Andreu wrote down as the fruit of his experiences
in Garabandal during the summer of 1961.
His writing starts like this:
«With the special authorization
of His Excellency Bishop Doroteo Fernández, Apostolic Administrator
of the diocese of Santander, and with the blessing of my superiors, Right
Reverend Fathers Conrado Pérez Picón, vice provincial of
Western Castille and Cipriano Arana, rector of the professional school
of Christ the King at Valladolid,
I visited the location of
San Sebastian de Garabandal, near Cossio, of the district of Puente-Nansa,
in the province of Santander, because of events that were taking place
there concerning four young girls who were affirming that they were seeing
and hearing the Virgin. And I obtained the following information, which
I now place at the disposition of the ecclesiastical authorities, with
the aim of simplifying the work that will have to be done because of such
events.»
* * *
These notes were written by Father Ramon during September
and October of 1961, although his observations and experiences had already
begun in July. Because of this they hold great importance in the understanding
of what Garabandal was in that first summer, in those weeks of our story
when the extraordinary began to be for those people there no more than
an unusual normal.
Among the entries that this report contains on its
first page, 1 would like to point out the following, which I consider to
be important:
«A miracle can come as
a confirmation of a supernatural happening; but a miracle does not make
a happening supernatural, nor in any case does it confirm it. From this
the error and the mistake of those who examine Garabandal with the idea
of witnessing a miracle at all costs.»
* * *
With regard to the young girls,
he
says:
«The psychological age
of the so-called visionaries during the first month was equivalent
to eight or nine year old schoolgirls from the city. [Apart
from Father Ramón's personal experiences with the children's psychology,
there is an interesting statement in Father Valentin's notations, written
on July 17th:
«Conchita
said to the Virgin that she was going to sleep in her room, that she was
going to the barn . . . Conchita asked where was the father of the Child
(whom the Virgin held in her arms) ... We don't know the answer; but the
girl began to jump with joy . . . The girls said frequently: Don't go
away. A little while longer! Oh, don't go away! Do you want us to sing
or pray more? What do you want us to do so that you won't go away? And
at this time they began to pray a litany in jest saying, St. Conchita
. . . St. Loli... I could not describe the exceptional happiness of
the girls.»]
PHOTO: "Equivalent to eight or nine year
old schoolgirls"
Their conduct was good from the moment the occurrences
we are relating began, according to the judgment of the pastor, the schoolteacher,
and their own parents. Also they appeared normal before the visions started
and they continued to be normal when out of the visions.
Why young girls for such things?
The
Mystical Evolution by P. Arintero [The renouned Dominican
professor, Father Juan Gonzalez de Arintero, was born in a little mountain
city of Valdelugueros in León in 1860 and died in Salamanca in 1928.
Among his many achievements was the restoration of the study of mystical
theology in Spain.
His venerable remains
are kept in Cantalapiedra, Salamanca, in the chapel of a cloistered convent
of Poor Clares to whose foundation he contributed.] explains
this: "Because the very young, the feminine, the virgin souls hold a heart
more pure, or more generously do violence to the passions. Thus the Holy
Spirit can make His light shine in them. The words of the sixth Beatitude,
Blessed
are the pure of heart, for they shall see God, find fulfillment
in their life. Men and the highly gifted thus have no reason to reproach
women. It is not so much a privilege of little ones and women to see better
the supernatural things, as much as it is a punishment for men and the
learned in order to humiliate them. St. Theresa one day was requesting
from Our Lord that instead of heaping so many favors on her, He should
give them to the learned men, the priests, the religious, the theologians.
And He answered her: Those do not have the time or the desire to enter
into confidential relations with Me; and, since they always disdain Me,
I have to direct Myself to simple women, though I desire to discuss My
affairs with men."»
After this Father Andreu spoke
about the spectators:
«The visitor who comes
to Garabandal, seeing the young girls speaking to the Virgin, usually passes
through the following stages:
—When hearing about the matter
for the first time, the visitor would usually take it for a joke; and thus,
when deciding to go up to the village, it was as much for curiosity as
for what he had been told. [As Father Valentin
wrote for the 17th of July: «Eight priests, two doctors, and some
600 people from afar were present; but there have been days, on Sunday,
when there were about 3,000. Many came out of curiosity; after having seen
the girls, they changed; I have seen men cry.»]
—The visit to the village
ordinarily made a good impression because of its total simplicity and the
absolute lack of any preconditioning,
—The first thing that would
occur to someone during the phenomena was to think it was a comedy or an
attack of hysteria. Since he would not see a miracle, he would pass initially
to a feeling of disillusion. (An ecstasy is not a miracle.)
—Observing the actions of the
young girls usually made an impression when—overcoming the obstacles of
the large crowd—the visitor would come to see and hear close up in a more
thorough fashion.
—The majority of those who came
to Garabandal did not understand the events which were happening there;
but they came to have an intuition that something important was happening.
—Then follows a state of waiting
that seemed to lead them to continuing reflexion about their observations
in Garabandal.»
