<http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_0bZ1KPLegkk/SPVb5LJLwSI/AAAAAAAAIu4/7Ht9my4...>Dr.
Puncernau with Mari Cruz and Loli at the Pines

On the day she left, I had the opportunity of taking her photograph with
Mari Loli, and I sent it to her so that she could forever remember, in
her distant
native land, the unforgettable moments of her visit to Garabandal.(15)

As previously with Conchita's rosary, this one also ended in the courtyard
of the church with the singing of a Salve Regina.

My curiosity led me to ask why the girls in ecstasy came so often to the
church, knowing that for them, in those circumstances, it was always closed.
The answer had been given sometime before, through the voice of the girls
themselves:

The reason is that the Virgin likes to go near to where Jesus is.»

__________

In days like these, the presence of priests and religious could not be
missing. With regard to their presence, Luis Navas says in his report:

«I was greatly pleased to see the deference that the girls held toward
priests; it was worthy of St. Teresa of Jesus. There were four priests there
in the village on that Saturday, June 30th; and the Virgin had to be happy
since, according to the
girls: The Virgin likes priests and people without faith to come.(16)

During Loli's vision in her home, a Passionist Father and a Carmelite Father
stayed respectfully on their knees. The girl gently lifted both of them up,
making them stand on their feet. On the following day the Passionist
Father told
me, I weight 78 kilos and on top of that, I used force to make myself stay
down; nevertheless, the girl raised me to my feet with the greatest of ease.
(17) The Carmelite Father edified me with his humility and silence. He had come
that very afternoon from Burgos and he spent almost his entire stay with the
people, distributing and investing scapulars. I felt nostalgic, recalling
the month of May in my student years at the Instituto de Burgos.»

__________

On Sunday, July 1st, much the same history took place as on the two previous
days. Luis Navas tells of it:

«On this day, we had a longer wait. The first apparition, which was
Conchita's, began at ten at night. The people had left her home, thinking
that nothing would happen. I had the good fortune of going out at the time
to seek a paralytic girl, whom I had advised to remain at Conchita's house
until the people came to pick
her up. There I met Doctor Puncernau from Barcelona. (18) Conchita fell
violently on her knees and began the vision. She offered the crucifix to us
to kiss; when the doctor's turn came, the girl did something different: with
a single movement of her extended arms, she gave it to him three times to
kiss.

Before the vision began, I had complained to Conchita that she had never
offered me the crucifix. Because of this, I felt a considerable consolation
on seeing how she presented it to me, since I well knew that the girls don't
act by their own volition in giving the crucifix to kiss or in holding up
holy cards and rosaries toward the Vision; they do it according to the
directions of the Virgin. This helped me to understand something I had read
about Padre Pio, Many times God makes me forget certain people for whom I
had intended expressly to pray, and He presents others to me for whose
salvation I should intercede.

The doctor had handed Conchita a letter in order that she might ask the
Virgin for the cure of a patient. On the following day, I saw the girl write
the answer she had received; later she gave it to the doctor with the
request not to open the
letter until he was in the presence of the sick person, who was dying of an
incurable illness according to what I heard.»

__________

From what Luis Navas described of the second apparition which concerned
Loli, this is what seems to have the greatest interest:

«The time for giving the crucifix to kiss was thrilling. Kissing it
themselves first, as was their custom; then, giving it first to the Virgin
and then to the person . . . When it came to the time for eight persons who
had come that day from Cádiz, I was really edified by the reverence and faith
with which they kissed the crucifix.

Loli's ecstasy had lasted an hour and twenty minutes. Eighty minutes that
seemed to me to be ten! Something very strong must have held my attention to
lose the notion of time like this.

After a clear, moonlit night, I awoke to a magnificent dawn. It was the day
of departure. I made up my mind once again to keep the resolution made on
the previous trip: to recite daily the holy family rosary, remembering in
difficult times and lukewarmness the words transmitted from the Virgin by
the visionaries: Hail Marys are the flowers that please her the most.

With a farewell to the Passionist priest and a great desire to return again,
we ended our stay at San Sebastián de Garabandal on Monday, July 2, 1962.»

15. Dr. Puncernau, the neuro-psychiatrist from Barcelona, described his
experiences in this case in the pamphlet, Psychological Phenomena of
Garabandal, but he puts Conchita in the place of Loli:

«In Ceferino's tavern there was a young woman from Uruguay who worked in the
Follies Bergère of Paris. We soon started up a conversation. She told me
that she not only didn't believe in these supposed apparitions, but she
didn't believe in anything about religion. She had come to Garabandal simply
out of curiosity. After a while I suggested going outside to see what was
happening with the visionaries.

We saw them at a distance (being hidden ourselves in the shadows of the
house) as they headed toward the little village church, praying the rosary.
From our hidden observation point we saw what was happening.

Soon we saw Conchita, in a trance, detach herself from the procession and
make her way -—walking normally, but with an unusual swiftness — toward us,
who were all staying hidden in the shadows, leaning against the wall of the
house.

She was carrying a little crucifix in her hand.

I thought, She has found out that I am a doctor, and now is coming to make
something of it. But how could she have seen me?

But no, she headed toward my companion and put the crucifix very forcefully
on her lips so that she kissed it once, twice, and a third time.

The Virgin Mary was for the dancers of the Follies Bergère too.

Afterwards Conchita, still in the trance, joined the other girls and
continued praying the rosary.

My companion, the ballerina, was weeping unstoppably, with deep heartfelt
sobs, so inconsolable that I thought she was having an attack. I accompanied
her to the wooden benches propped against the outside wall of Ceferino's
tavern.

The crowd gathered around. I tried to calm her down.

She was finally able to tell that she had thought in her mind, "If it is
true that the Virgin is appearing, then let one of the girls come to give me
a sign."

— Hardly had I thought this when Conchita came running toward me to give me
the crucifix to kiss. I didn't want to kiss it, and I held her hand back.
But with exceptional strength she forced the crucifix against my lips, and I
had no other choice but to kiss it once, twice, and a third time — I, the
unbeliever, the atheist, who believed in nothing. This shook me intensely.

We met days later on the train back to Bilbao. And I know, since we wrote
each other several times, that she left the Follies Bergère and went back to
her family in Uruguay.»

16. As in so many other points, Garabandal was coming in advance to warn
about the other imminent crisis of doctrine concerning the priesthood. The
furious desacralization, that soon would show itself in the clergy, could
not at that time be foreseen.

17. Maximina writes about this in her letters to the Pifarré family; but she
says Conchita was the one in ecstasy, similar to the misnaming of the
visionary in the case of the woman from Uruguay.

18. This doctor, an eminent neuro-psychiatrist, who practiced and taught in
the capital of Cataluña, tenaciously studied the affairs of Garabandal and
came to the conclusion, repeatedly expressed by him, that «from the medical
and scientific point of view, I have found no satisfactory
physiological orpsychological explanation for these events which have
producedsuch extraordinary phenomena.»