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The apparitions of

GARABANDAL

BY
F. SANCHEZ-VENTURA Y PASCUAL

Chapter Nine

THE MESSAGE

Page 124

used to give them unconsecrated hosts to teach them how to receive Holy Communion devoutly. One day, he told them to fast the following day, and to bring a little girl up to the pines with them. When they arrived at the pines, the Angel appeared to them "with a cup that looked like gold." He indicated that they should prepare to receive Holy Communion, and that the Hosts were consecrated. He made them say the "I confess . . ." and afterwards they made their thanksgiving and said the "Soul of Christ, sanctify me" in Spanish. Conchita ends her description saying: "And then we told people about it, and some of them made fun of us. And when he gave us Holy Communion, he stayed a long time."

   Further on, Conchita's diary reads as follows: "Since we insisted so much with the Blessed Virgin and the Angel that they should work a miracle, on June 22nd, when I was about to receive Holy Communion, he said to me: "I am going to work a miracle; not me, God; but through my intercession and yours." And I asked him: "And what's it going to be?" And he said: "When I give you the Sacred Host, people will see It on your tongue." I reflected a bit. Then I said to him: "But, when you give me Holy Communion, the Host can be seen on my tongue anyway!" And he told me this was not so, that the people round about could not see It. But, the day he performed the miracle. It would, be seen. And I said to him: "But, that is only a little miracle." And he laughed . . . And that day, after telling me this, he went away."

   Next day, she again received Communion from the hands of the Angel, and asked him when the miracle would take place. The Angel replied that the Blessed Virgin would tell her the date. When she asked the Virgin the same question, Conchita recounts in her diary that Our Lady revealed that the following Friday she would hear a voice, and the voice would tell her the date.

   Her diary goes on: "Friday came, and as the Virgin had told me, while I was in the pines I noticed a voice telling me that July 18th was the day when the miracle would be performed. The voice I heard said to me: 'the little miracle, as you call it'."

   In obedience to the instructions she had been given, from July 3rd onwards, Conchita commenced to announce the prodigy of the visible Communion with the same calm and self-assurance that she now shows in foretelling the great miracle which is to come "so everyone will believe."

   She wrote the Bishop a letter which was delivered to him personally by Don Placido Ruiloba Arias of Santander, who has seen a great many of the wonders at Garabandal and has shown the utmost prudence and insight in the close check he has kept on the events we are relating.

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