Fr. Ramon Andreu's Notes: Part Three, Post 53

Fr. Valentin and Conchita

Another note

Upon arriving in Cossío on the afternoon of the 12^th, Fr. Valentín came to receive us. We asked him to take us up to San Sebastián on the following day because we wanted to hear Mass and receive Communion there. He rejected this idea because he didn’t want to be in Cossío at all the following day, indubitably because it was the day that Mari Loli had indicated that she would see the Virgin. He made all manner of excuses and finally told me that it wasn’t a good day and that we could make a Spiritual Communion. Suddenly, at the end of the conversation and without any of us insisting again, he said when he was leaving: “Tomorrow I will go up to San Sebastián de Garabandal to say Mass so you can receive Communion.” The change was extraordinary, and it truly impressed us.

On the 13th he said Mass at 10, and he gave us Communion. When we left the Church he said goodbye to us very quickly, saying that he had only come up for this purpose and then he returned to Cossío.

At two in the afternoon, after Mari Loli’s ecstasy, she came to see us in the tavern, where Emilio, Alfonso, and I had entered to shave. She said to me: “I think it is wonderful how you are going to know this girl and about the medal that the Pope kissed. (Afterward we will refer to this detail). He told me that you have not seen anything and that you went to Cossío and he told you everything.

After Mass on the 13th, which as usual, was at eleven in the morning, we went to Mari Loli’s house, entered into the kitchen and we met Mari Loli’s parents and brothers and sisters. It was my wife and I, Pili and Alfonso, who had come from Madrid, Eustaquio’s daughter from Garabandal who had recently come from Mexico, and a seminarian from Bilbao that I had met previously in the Church while hearing Mass. I don’t remember anyone else, and I don’t think anyone else was there.

Mari Loli seemed nervous, but when Rosario, my wife, questioned her about whether she’d had a call, she said no. The night before, when we’d arrived at the village, my wife and I had given her a handful of 30 medals, 4 crucifixes, attached with tape, and then another handful of 33 crucifixes also attached with tape, various rosaries and a little box containing some medals from Colonel Prieto. Pili and Alfonso gave a handful of medals and rosaries, also attached with tape and I gave a Carthusian rosary with a medal from my mother’s first Communion next to the Cross. It had a double layer of marble or bone on one side that represented the face of Jesus Christ and then there was a skull on the other side. This little head was attached to the rosary with tape and it belonged to a Sister of Charity for her whole life. She had been a good friend of mine and she’d died after fifty years as a nun. Eustaquio’s daughter had brought a wedding ring and a medal.