Fr. Ramon Andreu's Notes: Part Two, Post 1

5th Diary

July 30, and 31, 1961

Summary:

To ask for a test to prove what the girls see or feel. “You come where no one laughs at us.” They marched in ecstasy on their knees. Loli’s father and the pastor were very nervous. The Virgin told them when it was time for the “Gloria.” July 31st: The girls answered about the identity of the Vision, and her voice, etc. They said something about the secret. They stayed where the vision happened when they were in ecstasy and when they left the ecstasy. They gave many titles for the vision. There was a vision in the afternoon. Mari Cruz was certain. The Calls coincided. At 8:55pm the vision began, and they offered it objects and they cried. They recognized a rosary that had already been kissed. “Mercy, mercy.” The crown. The child. It was 9:27pm. The two girls left the vision and Loli followed. It was 9:50pm. Jacinta entered into ecstasy, but Mari Cruz did not. Loli was still, then she cried absentmindedly. Jacinta was worried about Loli. They prayed the rosary in the Church.

July 30, 1961

I ascended for the second time on July 31st, the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, in the company of members of the Fontaneda family and Fr. Andrés Pardo, who was a seminarian at that time. My brother Fr. Luís and I signed at Mari Cruz’s house and we tried to understand what had happened the day before, on July 30th. What I wrote down in my notebook says:

“On the 30th they revealed it in the Church and also in the grandmother’s house.” I find more detail in Fr. Luís’ second notebook. There is a reference made to Loli’s mother: “At 9:30, upon leaving Mass, near the street, next to the school, they revealed it. They had received communion. When they don’t receive communion, St. Michael comes to give it to them. Mari Cruz stopped during the revelation.”

“They asked for a test: ‘Make it rain, make it snow.’ The seer says: ‘It has already rained enough.’ Upon waking they say that they have to go to the Church to pray the Rosary.”

Note: In asking for a test or a sign, things like that it would rain, or that it would become night, it is a reference to the state that the girls are in, where it isn’t night, it doesn’t rain, and it doesn’t get cold. As a result, sometimes we hear them ask as a sign: “Make it like night all of a sudden,” and they say this in the middle of the night. It is light where the girls are.

“Fr. Valentín asked for an explanation and they said that the Virgin and St. Michael were there. Then at five, in her mother’s house she said: “How do you come here without anyone seeing you?” “They come from so far away.”

Note: This “is her mother’s house” refers to Loli’s grandmother, who is the mother of the one who is telling this, that is, Loli’s mother. This whole passage from the 30th^h is below the epigraph, “Loli’s mother says.”

The sentence “how do you come here where nobody sees” corresponds with the general idea that it is better if they see in ecstasy because they believe better there. At the same time, it is supposed that they are victims of a phenomenon that they cannot control. There have been completely private ecstasies. They are surprised by them: Mari Cruz was alone, behind a wardrobe in her house when she went into ecstasy. For her to be surprised like this was a true coincidence. She was standing, and she believed that the ecstasies had taken place on other occasions when no one had witnessed them. At any rate, the girls are extremely reserved in talking about the number of times the ecstasies have happened as well as the topics of conversation during the visions.

“Oh, oh! You’re leaving,” she says, walking back on her knees from the balcony.

Note: I heard the people in the village talk about the 31st. They said that the girls went walking on their knees for a few meters from the bedroom where the Virgin appeared to near the railing of the balcony. The girls felt that the Virgin was drawing them away a little bit. It seems that this was the first time in which the people observed that the girls moved from one place to another while still in ecstasy.

“After this revelation they prayed a Station on the balcony, while still seeing the Virgin.”

Note: The praying of the Station to Jesús in the Sacrament was very frequent from the beginning. There was an agreement about this practice of praying to the Most Holy, which was one of the signs given on October 18^th in the girls’ message: “Visit the Most Holy often.”

“Upon finishing they said that they were going to pray a Rosary in the Church. It was full of people. There were doctors there who took their pulses. Loli’s father was angry, and wanted them to leave her alone.”

Note: It is understandable that the parents of the girls would feel nervous, and the pastor as well. The visions had been going on for almost a month and a half. Up to this moment, no one had spoken with clarity about these occurrences. Spontaneous doctors and others who passed for doctors though they weren’t, came near the girls and pinched and squeezed them, etc. At the end, it was evident that the girls were anesthetized to a degree because of the reactions of their reflexes that we observed. All of these tests, done without control by anonymous people, who disappeared without us knowing anything about them, annoyed the parents of the girls and made them nervous. Also, the journalists had already begun to give reports in various newspapers. They changed the news and distorted some ideas about the religiousness of the father of one of the girls.

“Then the girls went to the Church where they prayed the rosary without counting on their fingers. They didn’t make any mistakes. At night she told me: ‘The Virgin told us when to pray the ‘gloria’ and Jacinta prayed with the Virgin.’”

Note: All that the people have been able to obtain regarding the manner in which the girls pray the rosary with the Virgin is this: Sometimes the Virgin is with one of the girls, and sometimes they pray alone. The Virgin explains the fact that she prays the Hail Mary by telling the girls that she is teaching them how to pray. She told them when it was time for the ‘gloria’ and so they didn’t make any mistakes even though they didn’t count. They did not count the prayers when they prayed in ecstasy. We observed them many times. The observation in Fr. Luís’ 2nd notebook, together with the reference from July 30th, is valid for the 31st; she will see then and also on August 1st.

I took note of the summary of the 30th from a conversation I had on the 31st with Fr. Valentín. What we had said before this proceeds from the conversation we’d had with Loli’s parents. The summary of this conversation with Fr. Valentín is this:

“They were in ecstasy talking next to the school. The three girls were there, Mari Cruz had returned earlier. They asked for a miracle. Mari Cruz, who was in the normal state, laughed when she saw the other girls in ecstasy. The girls who were in ecstasy said: “Why did Mari Cruz leave?” Later, they prayed the rosary in the normal state. Mari Cruz had an ecstasy before this. The priest asked them for an explanation, and they all gave the same response.

That same day, in one of their grandmother’s house they said: “Why have you come here? Oh! How far you’re going,” and the girls left, moving until they reached the balcony.

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.

Fr. Ramon Andreu's Notes: Part One, Post 18

Third Manifestation

While we were speaking with the girls they fell into a trance. It is very brief. We were next to them and we heard what they said very clearly. It’s the part of the dialogue that corresponds to the girls. I took the account that was made from the combination of his notes, and those from Fr. Cipriano Abad and Andrés Pardo. Fr. Luís made them four or five days before his death.

“Upon finishing these questions they had another Vision while the priests were near them.

Dialogue:

“Now bring the Child.” (They laugh, kiss, and offer smiles).

“The Child is very beautiful! Look at the Child’s crown.”

“Take it, don’t take me!—Why don’t you stretch a little more?”

“You return with the Child. You say that you won’t come again. Where do you have him? Is he sleeping?”

“How beautiful!”

“How old is he? Why don’t you say?”

“One?”

“You don’t want to tell us how old he is?”

“We can’t say how old he is?”

“He’s so small!”

(They had serious attitudes, and moved their lips).

“Can they go up?”

“We heard little Sari and the others.”

N.B.—There are no more facts from this Vision. We spoke with the girls and they told us the following: “The Virgin is happy because the people have obeyed (they didn’t ascend to the top). She has told us to pray the Rosary. She said if they want they can come to pray here. She said that they will see her until the morning.

The people ascended and prayed the Rosary, which the girls led.

Fr. Ramon Andreu's Notes: Part One, Post 17

Second Manifestation

It came suddenly. The girls stayed on their knees in front of the Pines. Next to the Pines, with their backs to the scene, on opposite sides, were the child “witnesses.” Jacinta and Loli were on their knees in front of them and facing the Pines.

In the distance we heard something the girls said, but we didn’t understand anything. One of their mothers said: “They’re crying.” We also heard the kisses that they gave in the air, as though they were kissing something.

After a few minutes, about four, the pastor called to Mari Carmen, a child witness. She came slowly and when she arrived we asked her: “What are they saying?” She answered indifferently: “That she shouldn’t tell them bad things.” Sometimes she spoke of these bad things or sad things, probably the announcement of the punishment for sins, which was in the message of October 18, 1961. It made them cry.

Jacinta and María Dolores were on their knees with their heads slightly lifted, looking at the same place. It’s as though they had their glance stuck to something. One of them inclined forward a little bit, but not much. They looked for stones, acted as though they were going to rub them on the grass, as though they were cleaning them a little bit. They offered them. One of them, Loli, seemed as though she was going to fall backwards. When Loli oscillated, the other girl threw her arm to her shoulder, but not always. All of this happened without them moving their glances or their faces. They never looked at one another.

One of the girls made a gesture of putting on a crown. She passed it to the other girl and that one put it on. Loli gave a slap, extending to fall backwards, and Jacinta grasped her. They looked for stones, feeling for them. The two girls offered them to the Vision. All of this happened without them removing their glances from what they were seeing in front of them.

They lifted their hands as though they were offering something. One of them crossed her arms. They lifted their arms as though they were taking something. We heard some kisses. They stretched out their arms, smiled, heard something and cried.

After 11 minutes they returned to the normal state. We ran to them and we observed that one of the girls still had tears on her face. We asked: “Why are you crying?” But they didn’t say why.

Upon asking who they had seen, they said: “Our Lady of Mt. Carmel,” and they also explained to us, saying: “We had the Virgin’s crown.”

Among the notes that I took on this same day, I have this observation: “When they’re not in the trance they’re absolutely normal girls. Their family members are nervous, not knowing what to do. The only ones who are calm are the girls.”

The summary that appears in Fr. Luís’s notes, combined with those belonging to Fr. Cipriano Abad and Andrés Pardo is this:

“I approached the children, running. I saw that Loli was crying. I asked her why she was crying. She didn’t respond to me. I asked her again: “Who have you seen?”—“We saw Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. We had the Virgin’s crown.” I asked her to ask the Virgin for a sign, for them to ask her. They didn’t respond.”

Fr. Ramon Andreu's Notes: Part One, Post 16

First Manifestation

This atmosphere of expectation lasted several long minutes until, suddenly, the commotion of the public that inundated the narrow streets of the village indicated that the girls were moving toward the fence or hoop that was in the road. The gesture of so many arms moving in the air indicated for us the direction of the place where the girls had begun the trance.

We ran through the road, jumping over the stones, and when we arrived there was a great group encircling the girls.

With difficulty, the priests attained an open road until they arrived next to Jacinta and Loli, who were the two that were thrust into the stony ground.

The aspect of the girls was the following: the head slightly raised. The eyes open. The glance of both fixed in front of them. Their faces were natural. The hands varied in attitude according to the different movements they made. The lips moved, pronouncing words. In front of one of the girls was a man with a knife, a doctor by profession, and it seemed that when he took the girls’ pulses he said this word: “Normal.”

A priest who was unknown to me took notes while kneeling next to the girls. During a few minutes he tried to understand what the girls said, but the noise that the people produced while pushing in a violent manner impeded hearing what the girls were saying in a low voice.

The noise made the falling of some stones that formed a little wall louder, where the public was trying to ascend.

The brigadeer of the Civil Guard and a number of other Civil Guards tried to impose silence. In the middle of the confusion Lolita’s father, always nervous, indicated that they shouldn’t go so near the girls and suddenly, exasperated, with a great voice he said: “Be quiet, please, but what is this?” “It cannot be like this, we don’t know what this is, or where we are.”

The reaction was that the silence was extended, even though it was still incomplete. In the middle of all of this tumult, the girls were completely away from it and they acted normally like a person talking alone with another person.

The sentences that those of us who were closer could match were small words and made almost no sense since we didn’t hear everything. It was more or less the following: “I already know—yes—no—I remember about the doctor. He wore a brown habit like the other day—no—yes—why? Yes—I don’t know anything—let’s go—yes—why are you smiling? Don’t go—huh? You haven’t been here any—yes—I didn’t know—you tell us so we know and so we don’t forget—I don’t know—what a shame! We do it worse—don’t go—wait a little.”

These sentences are incomplete because we can’t understand the majority of the things they said. Accompanied by the sentences, there were gestures: among the others they offered to kiss the rosaries that they had been given.

Suddenly, they returned to the normal state without a transition and getting up tranquilly, the two girls said at the same time that the Virgin had told them to go to the Pines. They said their parents, the priests, the religious, and the guards could go as well. They said that they could be in the Pines but far away. Everyone else had to be far away, very far away.

The movement to the Pines took place, during which the normality and tranquility of the girls was absolutely synchronized with their security in indicating the site where they should put the public, as well as the guards, priests, religious, and their parents.

When María Dolores was done going up the hillside where the Pines are, she returned and signalled with an arm gesture toward a trail on the hillside. She said: “Put them here.” The guards contained the multitude in a way that obeyed orders without exceptions.

Upon arriving at the Pines, the girls explained more clearly what they were going to do, and responded to our questions. We should put ourselves in the (?). In reality we were 20 or 30 meters away from the girls. The children had told the girls that we could see, but not hear. The same girls, Jacinta and Loli, looked absolutely natural and simple. There was no one there who formed a group of people that attended. Those who could witness the revelation were the parents of the girls, the priests, the guards, and the religious.

The Witnesses

Jacinta and Loli said in the moment that they returned to the normal state that they should be situated next to two girls, Mari Carmen and Sari. These two girls appeared to be 6 years old. The people of the village and the pastor said that they were “witnesses.” This wasn’t the first time that this happened. The “witnesses” were playing with Jacinta and Loli while they waited for the manifestation. The game was to run a little in an infantile manner, as if they were watching to see if one of the people who were not supposed to do so would come near. In reality the impression was that they had taken a pledge to complete an order that they had received. They controlled everything with their looks, collected small stones and put them on the ground next to the place where they should be displayed.

The seers demanded the presence of the child witnesses several times in the first weeks. It was always María del Carmen and Sari, two 6 year olds. On one occasion they wanted to switch these girls for older ones, 12 year olds, and the Vision said no, that she had said the younger ones should come.

We asked the “witnesses” what the “seers” had said and they repeated some words that they had heard, but they couldn’t understand the complete meaning of the conversation. This corresponded to the days on which the Virgin manifested the secret to the girls.

The interpretation is that it seems that Fr. Valentín could have some remote control over what happened in the trance, but without knowing what the girls were talking about. He knew that the conversation was about good things, but secret things. It seems that this corresponded to days and occasions on which the Vision was manifested to the girls in an oral manner as well appearing visually. The girls should make the message public on October 18, 1961.

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.”