Shock Warning

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

They were passing by the church, as they did every day after school, four of them, four schoolgirls, two named Mari, after the Virgin, and Jacinta, and Conchita. Just like the girls back in the early sixties, same first names and all, the ones who had seen the vision, and heard the warning about the Great Chastisement that was sure to come if her words were not heeded.

Like schoolgirls everywhere, they babbled and giggled as they passed the parish church. The time was long past that they thought maybe they just might catch a glimpse of what those girls had seen so long ago: a vision of radiant loveliness, her face creased with sorrow, her message stern: Repent.

It had been easier to believe when they were children. It was easy to repent of sins you had not yet committed, not even in your heart, and yet almost impossible to imagine what those sins could really be. They were things only whispered about, to be savored and to be feared.

The first message had been delivered on October 18, 1961: We must make sacrifices, perform much penance, and visit the Blessed Sacrament frequently. But first, we must lead good lives. If we do not, a chastisement will befall us. The cup is already filling up and if we do not change, a very great chastisement will come upon us.

Chastisement was a word they all understood. Franco’s Spain died long before they were born, but its memory lingered on, especially here in northern Spain, not far from Santander. Chastisement meant punishment and pain. Especially in light of the second message, the one Conchita alone received:

Previously, the Cup was filling; now it is brimming over. Many priests are following the road to perdition, and with them they are taking many more souls…. We should turn the wrath of God away from us by our own efforts. If you ask His forgiveness with a sincere heart, He will pardon you… You are now being given the last warnings…. Reflect on the Passion of Jesus.

They could all recite the words by heart, for they had been hearing them all their lives. Tourists came and went through the small village and occasionally a man from the Vatican, which was still investigating the apparition, trying to decide whether it was real or fake. Of the hundreds and thousands of Marian apparitions around the world, fewer than a dozen were officially recognized by the Catholic Church.

So there was no reason to suspect that this glorious October day would be any different from all the others — or that it would be the same as that day back in 1961.

It was early morning, and at first they thought it was the glistening of the sun, past its summer prime. Later, in talking to the villagers and to the newspeople who showed up at their doorsteps, they described it as a blinding flash of light that caught them all in the eyes, as if someone were shining a very powerful searchlight directly at them. And yet, it was focused on each them, individually.

It took a few moments for them to begin to be able to see clearly once more as their retinas began to synthesize the light and the image.

She was framed against what appeared to be a celestial doorway, but on later reflection they realized it was the portals of the simple parish church that served the spiritual needs of the three hundred souls living near the Bay of Biscay. She wore a crown and a cloak. They could see her clearly, silhouetted against an impossible backdrop of the clear blue sky and the shining sun.

But all these details came later. Because, for many weeks, after the apparition, they could not really remember what the Lady had looked like, or how she was dressed, or whether she was holding anything in her arms. They could only remember that her lips were moving but that, strain as they might, they could not hear what she was saying.

But they could see her clearly enough, and that was all that young Jacinta needed. For Jacinta was deaf and she had learned to read lips — not only in Spanish but in Basque and border French — from the time she was young. St. Bernadette, who had seen her own famous vision not terribly far from here, in Lourdes, had heard the Lady speak in Pyrenean patois: “Que soy era immaculada concepciou.” And so had Jacinta — not heard, but seen.

And this was the proof, the evidence, that what they had seen was not an illusion, not a fake like so many of the so-called apparitions. This was real, in the way that Guadalupe had been real, and Lourdes had been real, and Fatima had been real. The Virgin had not spoken to them in Castilian Spanish, but in their Cantabrian dialect. Halfway between the Basque country and the French Pyrenees. This was the reason that at first hundreds, then thousands, and then tens of thousands of pilgrims had flocked to Garabandal back in the day. This was the reason they were now on the news.

Because they knew the secret. They knew the Word. And what a sacred word it was. It was the word the Lady had been saying for a hundred years — an eternity to them, but the blink of an eye to the Lady, who was still mourning the death of her Son and yet celebrating His coming apotheosis. There could be no final triumph without trouble, no everlasting transfiguration without confrontation. The final battle between good and evil must be enjoined, and Jacinta knew that it was her sacred and spiritual duty to make that happen as fast as possible.

Therefore, no matter how rigorous the questioning from the priests — some of them Spanish, some of them French, some of them black Africans and races she had never even imagined before, not here in her little village of Garabandal — she had stuck to her story, their story. Jacinta had emerged as their leader, and the leader she would stay. Even if she was only twelve years old.

For the Lady had spoken but a single word, but that one word was chilling in its simplicity, and its warning:

“Repent!”