She Went in Haste to the Mountain (Page 33)

CHAPTER FOUR

AND HE DWELT AMONG US

This important statement refers to the enactment of the greatest event in history: the Incarnation of the Word and Son of God. (John 1:14)

But we can use these words in a different analogy when describing lesser events that comprise the history of Garabandal.

It was as if the Virgin, with her new Visitation on that first Sunday of July, 1961, was to begin her mysterious dwelling among us. In the first Visitation of the Gospel, Mary stayed in Elizabeth’s home about three months (Luke 1:56) to accompany and assist her.
Now for the same purpose of accompanying and assisting at Garabandal, she has remained with us more than three years. Our need is greater than was that of her cousin Elizabeth.

* * *

More than once I have been thrilled at Lourdes in hearing the French song that begins, Chez nous soyez Reine. (Be with us, our Queen.) At the time of departure during the large pilgrimages, this song is sung with devotion and feeling. The words implore the Virgin to be Queen Chez nous. The French expression is hard to translate and refers to what is properly one’s own; what belongs to one’s own house. Chez nous soyez Reine. Be Queen among us, with us. Queen in our lives and
in our homes.
At Garabandal this hymn might be slightly changed. For at Garabandal she came as a Queen, but also as a Mother. It seems that Mary came here to manifest her maternity in all its beauty and graciousness.
The children understood this from the first meeting. Although ravished by the unparalleled beauty of the apparition and by a glory greater than that of any earthly Queen, they did not stay in a state of awe toward the Lady as well they might have called the Vision seen at the calleja, as formerly Bernadette had called her Vision at the grotto.(1) The children looked at the Vision more in the quality of a mother and immediately began to confide in her and speak freely. Conchita has related some of this:

That day we talked much with the Virgin, and she with us.
We told her EVERYTHING.
And she laughed because we said so many things.
She was like a mother who for a long time had not seen the daughter who was telling her everything that had happened.
And much more in our case since we had never seen her.And she was our Mother from Heaven.
The first day was already marked with a pattern that would be seen from then on. The MOTHER came to listen with an interest and pleasure to all the words of her children, their little affairs, their child-like interests, their troubles. She came also to enter their lives as a MOTHER-CHILD, to place herself at the level of the children and even condescend to submit to their innocent requests. She gave them her crown of golden stars to touch and examine. She placed her Child in their arms. She received and returned kisses, and even went so far on one occasion as to play with the children.
Naturally she did not come just to hear or be heard. If she descended, it was done to raise us up. And all those things that seemed so trivial and disconcerting to the wise and prudent of this world (Matt. 11:25) were to become in her hands the elements of a divine pedagogy with which she would teach, prepare, and condition for the difficult works of God.

Oh Lord how admirable is Your name in the whole earth!
For Your Magnificence is elevated above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of infants and of nursing babies
You have perfected praise,
because of Your enemies,
That You may destroy the enemy. (Psalm 8)

But let us not get ahead of the story.

English: Art of Lourdes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

1. Bernadette Soubirous, the visionary from Lourdes, did not immediately recognize that the one who was appearing on the bank of the Gave River was the Most Holy Virgin; for weeks she only knew to speak of the lady, the lady of the grotto at Massabielle.