Fr. Ramon Andreu's Notes: Part One, Post 15

Diario 4

4th Diary

July 29, 1961

Summary:

Ascent to the mountain. First manifestation. The witnesses.

Second manifestation. Third manifestation.

Fourth manifestation: according to Fr. Luís María Andreu, S.J.’s text. The same thing worked with Fr. Cipriano Abad’s notes and those of Fr. Andrés Pardo; they added clarifying notes.

Ascent to the Mountain

This day, July 29th, is the first day that I was in San Sebastián de Garabandal. Two days before I had received very vague news about what was happening there. When they invited me to go up, I responded that I didn’t have time to lose. Then the invitations were reiterated as was the pastor’s desire to find someone to tolerate the varied impressions that the phenomena were deriving, so I decided to accept. We went up in a group of four priests who were: Fr. Rufino, the pastor of San Sebastián del Valle (Vizcaya), Fr. Cipriano Abad, priests in Venezuela, my brother Fr. Luís, and I. Fr. Andrés Pardo came with us (he was a seminarian then) and some members of the Fontaneda family from Aguilar de Campoo.

During the somewhat laborious ascension we mixed points of humor, alluding to the apparitions. We finally arrived at the same place in San Sebastián de Garabandal. During the ascent, upon seeing our humor, an old man who was going down said: “Go up, go up, you will see how they already go down.” He seemed emotional.

After situating ourselves and waiting a little while at the edge, around 7:30 we felt a movement; there were around 500 people there who carried the news that two of the girls, Jacinta and Loli, had left the balcony where they had been playing quickly. We went up past the stones in the road where we waited, and after a few seconds our fellow priest, Fr. Rufino arrived, as did others. We asked him: “What has happened?” The answer was: “I was talking with a boy in the group and with two Carmelites and three countrymen about the events of the day. While we spoke, we watched Jacinta and Loli, who were playing with rosaries that we had entrusted to them for the Virgin to kiss. Suddenly, we observed that the girls disappeared from the balcony.” Some women corroborated what Fr. Rufino told us and added: “It had been the first call. There are two or three before the revelation.”

Among the people who went up, there was a member of the Civil Guard who brought a young girl with Down’s Syndrome. Another young person also carried a child whose legs were paralyzed and deposited him in the hoop. The paralyzed boy’s mother said that one of the girls had told them to go up. When the mother asked to where the girl responded: “We don’t know where we will go.”