Memoirs of a Spanish Country Pastor - 27

Reprinted from GARABANDAL MAGAZINE, April-June 1996

There is no doubt that the most important intervention of the angel was that of the "little miracle"("milagrucu")as Conchita calls it. The Archangel Saint Michael intervened again when this happened, and it is one of the proofs before the great Miracle, announced by Conchita, of the veracity of the Virgin's apparitions at Garabandal. [This affirmation I formulate as a private person without wanting to anticipate in any way the definitive judgment of Mother Church.]

PICTURE: Conchita in ecstasy receives invisible Communion from St. Michael the Archangel.

    We come back to Conchita's Diary: "Since we were insisting as much of the Blessed Virgin as of the angel to perform a miracle, on June 22, as I was receiving Holy Communion from the hands of the angel, he told me: 'I will perform a miracle. It will not be I who will do it, but God, through my mediation and yours.'

    "Then I asked him, 'What will it consist of?' And he answered, 'When I give you Holy Communion, the sacred Host will be visible on your tongue.' I reflected for a moment and asked him, 'What! When we receive Communion, the sacred Host is not visible on our tongues?' He told me that nobody sees the sacred Host, but on the day of the miracle it would be visible. To this, I answered him, 'The miracle will be small!' He smiled at these words and left."

    Later on Conchita talked about the vision of the angel and the conversation she had with him after the Communion on June 29, 1962, during which she asked him when the visible Communion would take place. The angel answered that the Virgin would tell her.

    That same day the Virgin came in the evening, smiling as She always did. Conchita told Her, "The angel Saint Michael told me that God Our Lord will perform a miracle through his mediation and mine. Since She did not say anything, I asked Her,'When will the miracle take place?'

    'Friday you will hear a voice that will tell you.'

    "Friday arrived and, as the Blessed Virgin has foretold, I heard a voice when I was at the Pines, and this voice told me, 'On the 18th of July the miracle will take place, or the "small miracle" as you call it.'

    "I took advantage of a day when the angel brought me Communion, to ask him, 'When will I be able to announce that a miracle will occur, and what it will be?'

    'Fifteen days in advance,' he answered.

    "When July 18 arrived, many people came to the village. Everyone wanted to see the miracle. That day was the feast of the village (San Sebastian de Garabandal). Next to my home a dance was going on. Some people, however, were trying to stop the dance, saying in effect, that if the people continued dancing, the miracle would not take place. It was then that one of them who wanted to stop the dance, Ignacio Rubio, asked me if I wanted it stopped. I told him, 'With or without the dancing, the miracle will take place.'

    "Then there was no more discussion on the subject of the dance. Nightfall came; the people were worried because it was late. But as the angel and the Virgin had told me that the miracle would occur, I myself had no doubts; the angel and the Virgin had never told me that a thing would happen without its happening. By ten o'clock that night, I had already had a 'call' and at midnight, had another one. The angel appeared to me at two o'clock in the morning in a bedroom of my home.

    "My mother Aniceta was there, my brother Aniceto, my Uncle Eliseo, my cousin Lucia and a lady from Aguilar, Mrs. Maria Carmen Fontaneda.

    [Ed. Note: After first appearing to Conchita in her bedroom. Saint Michael then led her out of the house into an adjacent street where the miracle actually occurred. As was customary for the girls when they were in ecstasy, Conchita was not aware of having moved from one place to another. See more stories of "Visible Host" through SEARCH on main page]

    "The angel stayed with me for a moment and repeated what he had told me the preceding days, 'Recite the Confiteor and think about Who you are going to receive.' I did, and he gave me Communion. Afterwards he asked me to recite Soul of Christ, to make my thanksgiving and to keep my mouth open with my tongue extended, on which the sacred Host would rest until he left and the Virgin came. I did what he told me to do. The Virgin came and told me, 'Not everybody believes yet.' She then asked me to recite the rosary which I did.

    "This miracle was performed by God Our Lord through the mediation of Saint Michael. The people who saw the whole miracle, and those who just saw the Host on my tongue, believed very strongly at that moment; those who didn't see it believed also, having heard the words of those who saw it. But as the days passed the people began to doubt because some said that it was I who had put the Host on my tongue, and for a long time people were talking about it."

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