She Went in Haste to the Mountain (Page 14)

Loli

Yes, what the girls say is very possible, although not so easy to believe. Why would an angel come to Garabandal? And did he really come? That was the most important: to establish the truth of the matter. It would be just as foolish to believe everything right away as to close one's mind in an obstinate It cannot be. Father Valentín had to know the first lines of the last book of scripture: The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to make known to His servants the things which must shortly come to pass: and signified, sending his angel to His servant John. (Apocalypse 1: 1) He must have read too that passage from the book of Exodus: (23: 20-21) Behold I will send my angel who shall go before you, and keep you in your journey, and bring you into the place that I have prepared. Take notice of him and hear his voice.
The girls were talking about remarkable things; however Father Valentín knew them well, and it did not enter his mind that they invented this. Before anything else, he had to find out what had happened. Conchita promised that she would try to get the answer to his two questions. Then he directed his footsteps to Loli's home.(6)

Loli responded the same as the rest of us.
And so he was more and more impressed because the four of us agreed in everything.(7)
Finally he said: Good, we are going to wait two or three days to see what he will tell you and whether you are going to continue to see this figure that you call an Angel . . . Then I will go to the Bishop.(8)
The girls ate, probably in a hurry as is the custom in the village, and with no more ceremony than to say grace. Then they went back to school which re-opened at 3 o'clock. Toward 5:00 the classes finished and the girls were free to play or do their housework.

I went to the house of the woman from whom we buy milk, and she said to me, Is it true that you saw an Angel? Or is this a thing that the people are saying?

6. This was a typical ancient village house, looking out over a little square. Later the Mazón family moved into the house next door which also faced the little square; here their small business was continued.

7. Through a careful interrogation, conducted separately on each girl, it would have been impossible to find such agreement if all this had been only a game, and even less would there have been agreement if these things had been staged or fabricated by the girls. Furthermore, Father Valentín knew them well, and was aware of their sincerity and great reverence for everything religious.

8. At this time, Bishop Doroteo Fernández, the former auxiliary bishop under the recently deceased Bishop José Eguino y Trecu, was the head of the diocese of Santander. Bishop Doroteo had been born in León and was a professor at the major seminary there where he was named the Apostolic Administrator for the Santander Diocese. Certainly neither his assignment nor his arrival in the Capital of Santander could be called warm among influential ecclesiastics. In spite of the fact that he had the rank of a bishop, he was placed somewhat out of the way, with his actions limited to being rector of the seminary of Corbán, not far from Santander. Here after a few years the situation was in turmoil; these were the first advance signs of what later would become the general open confusion in the Church.