Fr. Ramon Andreu's Notes: Part One, Post 19

Fourth Manifestation

At a distance that the girls said, they called the guards who were containing the multitude first, and then everyone, in a massive form, went up the hillside. They made a circle with the girls in the middle, and with the priests next to them. Then they led the Rosary.

Jacinta and Loli led the Rosary. Their manner of doing it was so simple, as they would do it in school, with defects and mistakes. There was a moment in which Jacinta yawned and Loli was praying alone. They made mistakes several times. They moved and looked at the ground, then at their hands, then at other places, but they were always kneeling, and they didn’t give the sensation that they were leaning on anyone, in spite of the large crowd that was around them and answered them. The attitudes of the surrounding people varied. Some were sitting on the ground, others were on their knees, and others were standing.

They began the third mystery normally as they had the others. On a Hail Mary, I believe on the fifth, suddenly, when they arrived at the words: “The Lord is with you,” the following happened: the girls pronounced “the Lord is with” normally, but before saying the syllable “you,” the two girls fell into the same state as before as though someone had called them. They directed their glances toward the same point, in front of them, and a little elevated. A swift rumor circulated among the people. The priests went near the girls. This is the beginning of the fourth revelation which lasted near an hour and during which we were able to take notes for most of the time, which corresponded to what the girls said, asked, or responded. The part that corresponds to what the person with them said is missing.

I reproduce this vision according to Fr. Luís’s notes, which he himself combined with those belonging to Fr. Cipriano Abad and Andrés Pardo. To these, I added the ones that I took. Generally, each one dealt with a special part or something that one of the girls said. The literal parts are in quotes. I added some clarifications so that it would make better sense since I was present for this trance and I kept my notes about it:

“After the vision at 8:18pm the people went up and began to pray the Rosary, led by the girls. The girls were kneeling in front of the Pines and the people of the village were around them in a circle several meters away. The priests were near the girls.

“In the fifth Hail Mary of the third mystery and after pronouncing the second syllable of the words “with you” and without finishing saying this, they had the vision. I couldn’t hear what the said. Here, there is something I could transcribe. We can’t match each sentence with the girl who said it.

“Why did you come?”

Note: The sentence was pronounced with happiness from seeing once again and with surprise for this unexpected vision. The Virgin had told them, it seems, that she was not going to come again that day. But now, upon coming, she told them that it was a double motive: so that they would believe, and to award the obedience of the people for not going up to the Pines when the second and third manifestations took place. From there the sentence that the girls said right away was: “If the people had come, you wouldn’t have come?”

“Why do they believe?” (They offered something. They gave a kiss).

“Oh, You’re so beautiful!” (They didn’t blink).

Note: The difference between the first two visions of this afternoon of July 29th were: now the Virgin brought the Child, as she had done in the previous vision. The gesture of “offering something,” probably refers to extending the arms to receive the Child or to touch the person they kissed. It’s difficult to know exactly what the gestures mean, because we only see what they do and say without knowing what they see. Therefore, we don’t understand how their gestures correspond to what the girls do.

“Oh, how beautiful! Take him!” (They smile, give kisses, and then smile again).

“You are very good.”

“Tomorrow we will come having fasted, without eating anything, nothing.”

“If the people had come, would you have come?”

“Do you know who came? It was—from the village.”

“Will you kiss the scapular?”

Note: Frequently, the Vision brings a scapular that she hangs from her arm, on the wrist, near the hand. Before this, we asked the children what the scapular was like and what it was there.

“Can I kiss it?” (She shows the scapular, and they are quiet).

Note: This scapular is one that, with medals and rosaries, the people gave to the girls so that the Virgin will kiss them. When they see it, there is a gesture indicating the scapular belonged to a determined person that the girl carried, and so they ask her to kiss it.

“Today some Carmelite priests came. The others were priests.”

Note: Some Carmelite priests were there this afternoon who were unknown to me, but I spoke with them for awhile and they were very interested in the phenomena that have taken place here and that the girls say that they see Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. The allusion to the other priests refers to Fr. Cipriano Abad, Fr. Rufino, the pastor from San Salvador del Valle (Vizcaya), and to my brother Fr. Luís María, and to me.

“I thought one of them was Mr. Severino, but it was a priest.” (They laugh).

Note: This day was the first time that I went up, and the first time the girls saw me. When they saw me with black sunglasses, they thought that I was Mr. Severino and they were a little frightened, but Fr. Valentín calmed them.

“I remember the Dominican.”

Note: This refers to a Dominican priest that had been there days before. He seemed like a drawing in his habit, and from what I could observe later, he had spoken with the girls and left an agreeable impression. It wasn’t Fr. Royo Marín O.P., who went up for the first time on August 8th.

“Who is like God, no one is like God. We sing badly. We sing to you.” (They blessed themselves, and made the sign of the cross, imitating the Virgin).

Note: It was frequent—at least—on these days at the end of July and the beginning of August, the girls sang a song to St. Michael. The way that they made the sign of the cross is always correct and when they did something incorrectly, the same Vision corrected them and indicated how to do it correctly.

“We’ll explain the dress again. It’s white with flowers.”

“How beautiful!” (They smiled).

Note: The girls said that they always see the Virgin and the Archangel from the front, except in cases when they turn to show their clothes. They leave isn’t by walking: “It’s as though they dissolve.”

“Give me your crown! How big!” (They give kisses, laughs of happiness).

Note: The crown, which is a diadem, maintains its exact size, it’s the same when it’s in the girls’ hands as when it’s in the Virgin’s hands. When they put it on their heads, various spectators have observed that it’s bigger on the youngest girl than it is on the head of the oldest girl.

“Are you seeing Conchita?—Oh, good!” (It’s 8:52pm).

“I went through them, I fell.”

“How do you put it on later.”

“She has a seat that she puts like this.”

(They make a gesture of putting their hands on the arms of the chair).

Note: This entire passage is the result of difficult understanding. The most probable is that is corresponds with the notes I took, and those that refer to the Bishop. “I have them like this.” Commentary from the Bishop. Conchita sees, we don’t know whom. A chair with arms. The Bishop will say: “Go, go, go—what—what does the Bishop say now? He says that Santander is returning—what fell? Well, what does the Bishop say?” In any event, it isn’t clear what Conchita was referring to, what is in Santander, what is there to see. To whom? To the Bishop, to some priest, or a doctor? Who is it that fell?

I remember the chair with arms that refers to the Bishop. This is how we understand it then. Fr. Valentín said that they said that the Bishop had a chair with arms and that he said: “Go, go, go.”

“Don’t go.”

Note: This expression repeats intermittently. Sometimes they say: “Don’t go” and other times they say: “Don’t go, ma’am.” They say it as a supplication that manifests their desire to prolong the presence of the Vision.

“Today the people obeyed.”

Note: This alludes to standing on the hillside without going to the Pines until she told them that they could come up to pray the Rosary.

“Do you know that she told me one?”

“A guard said that no one could speak or anything. They promised—cure her!”

“—very small. Very serious. Cure her!” (They smiled).

“Well like this.”

“Don’t go, ok?”

“Wait a little.”

“Like this.” (She made a gesture).

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes.”

“You are very tall!”

“Don’t go.” (She made a gesture to say goodbye).

“Don’t go.”

“You ordered us to say goodbye and that you wouldn’t go.”

“Don’t go.”

“You have to give me a kiss and I have to hold the Child and kiss his face.” (One of them takes the Child and then she passes him to the other).

(One says this to the other). “Don’t let him fall, catch him by his feet!”

Note : We saw this scene of passing the Child clearly and in detail in the way their hands changed in order to rectify the defective manner of taking the Child that one of the girls had.

“Give me a kiss.”

“Give me a kiss.” (They took the Child. One girl gives it to another and that one gives it to the Virgin. The first takes him from the Virgin again. They take him several times).

“Who is like God, nobody is like God.”

“I’m going to kiss St. Michael.” (They smile, murmuring words).

“Why do you do it like that?” (She makes a gesture as though she’s keeping time to music).

Note: This gesture of keeping time to music corresponds to singing “Who is like God.”

“Don’t go, give me a kiss.” (She received two and gave two).

“Why are you going?”

Note: I have the scene that followed drawn in my notes and my memory for the reader to see. This was the first day that I went up to San Sebastián de Garabandal. A thought process developed within me that was still first in the hypothesis that I formulated. In those moments, I thought that it could well be a case of suggestion or hypnosis and I looked around me to see if someone could have caused the girls’ actions. It called my attention that the girls were within the same scene and that they sang and blessed themselves at the same time. It seems, in some moments, that they have one soul. Their reactions were identical. According to this interior formulation through my thoughts, one of the girls, María Dolores, returned while Jacinta continued in the same position, still in ecstasy. When María Dolores returned, she turned her head toward me a little and I asked her if she was in the normal state.

“You don’t see the Virgin?” And she responded to me: “No, sir.”

“Why?” Her response was this: “She left.”

I said to her: “Look at Jacinta.” Loli looked at Jacinta, who was still in ecstasy, and smiled a little when she saw the gestures the other girl was making. It was the first time—or maybe one of the first times—that I saw one of the girls in ecstasy while another was in the normal state. After a few seconds of contemplating Jacinta I asked Loli: “What did the Virgin tell you?”

When she was going to respond, she went into ecstasy once again with a light snap of her head upward, characteristic of that world. Then this dialogue took place:

J—“Oh, Loli has come already. Where have you been, Loli? Why did you go?”

L—(To the Vision). “Why did you leave?”

The two: “Then, because of this?”

L—“Then it’s so he’ll believe.”

The sentence “so he’ll believe” I believe refers to me, since it corresponds perfectly to the discourse of my thoughts and breaks the unanimity of the way the girls act. I also observed when one of the girls was having a vision, she’d stop seeing the other girls. They are two different camps. One is expectant. Once a seer isn’t having a vision, she forms part of the expectant camp, in which she refers to seeing. The other camp is that of the ecstasy, in which they stay isolated from the impressions of outside and what they refer to as pain and seeing. An intermediate zone exists. I observed this weeks later. They expose it in their place. Here I have to add that although the girls don’t feel pain from the hits or tests that the people perform on them while in ecstasy, they can feel it, as we observed in this same vision, if the pain is produced before: a hit that takes place within the camp or theme of the ecstasy.

“Can I give you a stone to kiss? There isn’t one?” (She draws near a very large one. She smiles).

“How big. If Sari were here…”

“If you hear us, then we go.”

Note: In the first week it frequently happened that they gave small stones to be kissed, about the size of a large caramel in various shapes to the Virgin and then gave them to people as remembrances. When they were kissed, they almost always said who they were for. This large stone was a big as a medium sized bar of soap. All of the time they looked upward and handled the stones, as though feeling for them.

“Sari, Sari, we don’t see you. Or they’re deaf and we don’t hear you.” (They look for stones, find them, and offer them).

“I can’t find more.” (She offers two leaves from a Pine tree).

“Where is a stone that we found here?”

“If it’s on the ground the wind…”

“I should put it over a stone.”

“Look, what is this? I found it, I found it.” (They put it over their heads. They touched it. They said: “Mari Carmen and Sari”). (They call: “Sari, Sari—don’t bring me stones”). (They come and say: “Here”). They don’t hear.

“Mari Carmen and Sari don’t answer us.” (They touch stones, looking at the Vision).

Note: Mari Carmen and Sari, the six year old child witnesses, responded to the calls of the two seers, but they didn’t hear their responses).

“That one, for Fr. Valentín, is very good, very good.”

“Look, I carried all of them!” (They found them and offered them).

“We’re going to see if we divide them (they hit). Don’t divide them.” (In all of this action they don’t stop looking at the Vision)—(One is hit on the finger. Jacinta notes the pain).

Note: In reality Jacinta said a sentence to Loli, something like this: “Oh, you’ve hit me on the finger, you’ve hurt me!” Jacinta spoke this sentence, or one similar to it when she felt the little hit that Loli gave because she wanted to divide the stones. In this same ecstasy and one near it, this expression of pain was heard again when one of the girls was hit on the toe by a rather large stone because one of the expectant girls wanted to come near and threw it off without much caution. This hit was greater than the one Loli gave Jacinta on the finger, but there was no reaction. Jacinta stayed silent and continued with the rhythm of her conversation with the Vision.

“We can’t divide it. I’m going to throw it on the ground if you divide it.”

“Oh, mother, almost an hour.”

“You’ve been here almost an hour.”

“I want you to kiss the Rosary again.”

“And the scapular. Why haven’t you kissed me.”

“And why do you shake your head?”

“This morning you jumped from branch to branch. But we have to say so they don’t cut it.”

Note: According to what we were informed about this jump from branch to branch, it refers to the branches of this same pine. The reiteration of wanting to kiss the Rosary and the scapular again, seems to mean, as has been observed other times, that they didn’t want her to go. They try to prolong her presence with these ingenious methods. One of the girls said to the other once: “Tell her a joke, you know, so she won’t go.”

“Cure someone so the people will see.”

Note: The interest that we see on all of the days in the girls asking for healings or miracles is the result of two main causes. One is the order transmitted by Fr. Valentín and in general by the priests, of asking for a clear sign to help the judgment about the purpose of the visions. Another reason seems to be the interest in letting someone or his parents suffer patiently to change the manner in which the petition is made.

“Will you give me a little?” (They take something and give kisses. One of them is immobile, ecstatic. They take the Child).

“How beautiful! How small!” (They give a lot of kisses).

“Do you want me to pass him again?”

“Let’s see, come, St. Michael. Kiss me.” (They kiss).

“I hadn’t taken him before. Furthermore, it’s ok to give him to me. She’s already coming.”

“Give me the crown.” (She takes it).

“Saint Michael the Archangel,

Great warrior,

Who in a fiery battle

Conquered Lucifer.

Who is like God?

No one is like God!”

(They made the sign of the cross rhythmically and in a loud voice).

“Corpus Christi (don) nostrum. Amen.”

“You put it like this with two hands.” (Gesture of a priest in the Altar at Mass and also the gesture of the priest when giving Communion).

Note: In these sentences there is a clear allusion to the reception of communion. What is not as clear is whether the sentence said before come “without eating anything, nothing,” is an allusion to the Communion that they would receive from the Angel on the following day. Before this, the Archangel had given it on the days that Fr. Valentín didn’t say mass in San Sebastián de Garabandal.

“Don’t go.”

“The Rosary, should we pray it here or in the Church? It’s late? It’s six—it’s nine?”

Note: The time was approximately nine when the girls said this just before the Vision ended. Once, back in the vision, they said: “Oh, she left.” The return to normality lasted a fraction of a second.

This is how everything regarding the girls of Garabandal and their visions ended on July 29, 1961. We spoke with the pastor, with various people from the town, and with the girls. Amid thoughts and comments, we descended the six or seven kilometers while driving down to Cossío.