We had no idea what was to come. It started with a casual browse of the U Tube channel, where we happened to notice something about a place in the Cantabrian Mts. of northern Spain called Garabandal. I had briefly heard of it before, where 4 female children in this tiny village of shepherds supposedly had visions of the Virgin from 1961 to 1965. For reasons unknown to me, I had dismissed it a while ago because the name carried the slight odor of fraud. Just for kicks, though, we decided to click on the video and were surprised by the facts. Indeed there had been fraud on the part of the spokes-girl of the 4, Conchita, but it was understandable in context. The visions and spiritual ecstasies filmed and documented were absolutely genuine, however, and – shockingly to me – the messages were almost exactly what the 6 visionary children in Medjugorje would recount nearly 20 years later in the early 1980’s. We were both intrigued.
Shortly after, our church held the annual retreat where I have become the default guitar player. During certain periods we have an “intermission” with others running the retreat, and it was there where one of them mentioned how she would like to return to Medjugorje. I replied, “I would too, but I would like that trip to include a visit to Garabandal.” A day later, my wife and I got an email from a pilgrimage organizer stating that she had put together a trip to both Garabandal and Medjugorje. A day after that, she said that we would have to act fast, as there were only three positions left. As anyone of faith knows, we took this to be a sign (yes, it is how we think) and ‘signed’ up, money and time be – er – darned. A few weeks later, we were on our way.
There is too much to tell in one or even three essays about those two weeks, but I can summarize the primary interest of most of us there: that, according to the visionaries of both places, a big-time change is supposed to occur within the lifetimes of at least one of them from each place. This change will include a time of saving grace in which we will all see ourselves as God sees us (in Garabandal, they called this an “illumination of conscience”), followed by a punishment of sorts if a great number of us choose to ignore the warning. Conchita from Garabandal is currently 75. The time just might be close.
Most of us know that something strange is afoot in our world today and that we are heading for very different times. These will, unfortunately, not include flying cars, but they will involve AI and the possibility of a world-wide security state. These different times might be very bad indeed. For us pilgrims, we look to the shocking refutation of traditional morals – as in childhood gender transitioning and gay pride months and drag queen dancers in the libraries and open-ended abortions, etc. – and we believe that something on the order of Sodom and Gonorrhea will soon play out; that is, that because of increasing moral evil, some sort of purification must take place. Afterwards, we believe that we can then look forward to a “permanent sign from God” that the visionaries from both places predicted. What that sign will be only the visionaries know, but it supposedly will be indestructible and unquestionably the direct work of the Holy. It will harken a new and better era.
With that much information back- loaded, I now will bring us forward to Medjugorje, to which we flew after a week in Garabandal. In all three of my visits there, we have stayed at the hotel – a supremely modest hotel – of one of the 6 visionaries, Mirjana. There, she helps serve food and interacts with everyone as freely as any other person. At present, she is experiencing severe back pain, and so often has a tired look on her face, but still she is the model of pleasantness and even joy. For most pilgrimage groups, she holds a Q&A on certain mornings, something that she has done so often that her interpreter tells us now that there is no question that she has not heard. For our Q&A, that did not bother me. If she had already heard the two questions that I had ready for her this time, all the better – she would be prepared with a suitable answer.
The first of the two had been mentioned earlier to me by another person in the group who, for some reason, refused or forgot to ask it of her when the time came. Even though a little voice told me to forget about it, I had to ask it myself, and did. The reception was chilly.
“The visionaries of Garabandal said that they would have a permanent sign from God after an illumination of conscience. Will it be the same as the one we are supposed to get here?”
Her answer, with a stern face: “Yes, we are supposed to get a permanent sign from God here.” Period. It was only later that I learned that she NEVER answers questions about other vision sites.
The next question I asked had arisen from earlier that morning. I had gotten up before everyone else and had gone downstairs to the entrance and anteroom. Alone, I looked around and found a Bible in English on a small table. On a whim, I did as Evangelicals often do: flipped the Bible open to a place chosen by chance, which I presumed to be the domain of our Lord. There, I came upon the story of Ahab and Jezebel and their fight with the anointed prophet, Elijah. This had been a time in the history of Israel when the leadership had fallen into idolatry. As usual in these times in the Old Testament, a prophet (Elijah) was sent to warn the leadership that a continuation of such would end the protection of the Lord and bring horrible consequences.
So, taking that as my cue, I brought up the belief that I think we all had, framed now in the context of Jezebel and Elijah: that an enlightenment that served as a warning would come to us from God, which would be followed by a horrible punishment if we did not heed the warning. As I had embedded this question in the Bible, I felt that she could not refuse to answer. As it turned out, she did and she didn’t.
With a deep breath that was almost a sigh, she said (I paraphrase) into her microphone: “I cannot think in terms of punishment with the visits from Our Lady, but only love. She comes with such overwhelming love and tenderness for us, for each and every one of us, as the perfect mother for us all. She only wants us to know this so that we will act from this deep and perfect love. She knows that it is the lack of love in this world that causes the bad, and she wants us to embrace this love and do only the good. With this we will create the world that we are intended to have. So think only of this, not of punishment. Think only of this and you will know the beauty of God and live in the love that He has for all of us.”
She said several other things of the same nature, and then with a sad but caring look finished with something like, “That it what I have known from Our Lady. It is the most important thing that we can know.”
While her answer does seem evasive – a possible punishment had been foretold by her, after all – it really does get to the heart of the matter. In this context, the story of Elijah and Jezebel may be seen as it truly is - an inspired parable. From it we learn that when a society forsakes the moral basis from which it once prospered, it becomes weak. When a nation becomes weak, it becomes prey for a greater power, and eventually loses the greatness it once had, or even its existence. There does not have to be direct divine intervention for this to happen. Rather, this sequence is as natural for human societies as it is for sheep that become prey by straying from the fold.
And so what held us together as pilgrims – the sense that a great change is coming due to our society’s rejection of traditional values – had been proven to us in the best possible way. For we were told that neither God nor Mary wish us any ill will, nor are they the sources of any future misery. Rather, we are, or could be. The Warning – an illumination of conscience that shows our true moral state – would be a love offering from God. Because we also have the gift of free will, the rest would be and is up to us. Either we turn to embrace the divinely given immortal truths or we face the negative consequences. While miracles are welcome, and indeed seem necessary right now, we should already know what to do without the need for a jolt from the supernatural. Humankind has long been shown the results of societal actions through the writings of Moses, the teachings of Jesus, and the oft-told story of Rome’s decline and fall. If we only realize that we are simply – no more and no less - a part of history, we will understand that safety lies behind the shield of our immutable and inspired values. As long as we remain there, we will not be in need of the phenomena of visions. Rather, such happy events would appear to us only out of a loving desire to chat.
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