Dear Friends,

Among Marian apparitions, Garabandal is distinguished by the ardor of the embrace of the Mother of God. It was customary for Our Lady of Mount Carmel to kiss the four young girls and to be kissed in return.

Our Lady reverently venerated the sacramental objects offered to her by the visionaries on behalf of others; rosaries, holy medals, missals, and wedding rings. The girls in ecstasy had the uncanny ability to return the appropriate object directly to the owner not knowing beforehand who had presented which object. The final apparition on November 13, 1965 was expressly to kiss the accumulated articles to which Our Lady attached a solemn promise – for those who use these objects with faith, Jesus will perform prodigies.

It is important to recall at the time of the Spanish Civil War, the Asturias, the region in which Garabandal is located, was a stronghold for the advance of Communism in Spain. The faithful of this region and the other adjacent northern areas were forbidden by law to own rosaries, medals and other symbols of Christianity. These objects, which had been passed down through the centuries in devout families, were hidden in those troubled times. Bearers who displayed religious items in public were ridiculed and assaulted or harassed by the authorities.

For the apparitions, small tables were set out to accommodate these objects. A makeup compact was once laid down on one of the tables. This provoked an outcry against what seemed like a frivolous act, yet the small gold case remained in place. During the next visitation, Our Lady sited the compact and rejoiced, “This belongs to my Son.” Later it was revealed that the vessel had secretly conveyed consecrated hosts to those in hiding during the Civil War.

The apparition of August 6, 1962 is by contrast the only known occurrence of the Archangel Saint Michael embracing a physical object.

And so on this day, fifty years ago, in San Sebastian de Garabandal, three Hospitaller Brothers of Saint John of God climbed the ox cart path that connected the remote mountain village to the outside world, arriving unnoticed in the sweltering midday heat. They did not know it, but they had come to receive a mysterious honor from the Prince of the Holy Angels.

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A sketch of the Saint

Born in Portugal in 1495, Joao Cidade Duarte abandoned his family as a small boy. He never returned. He tramped across Europe in violence and plunder as a thieving quartermaster in the imperial infantry. His service concluded, he returned to Iberia a forty year old prodigal with much to atone for.

On the feast of Saint Sebastian, John went to hear a sermon by Saint John of Avila. He was so devastated with loathing for his sins that he turned on himself in fury and for a time sought a life of humiliation for Christ. He was cast into an asylum and cruelly beaten for days. It was John of Avila who came to absolve and release the man who would become John of God.

Raised to holiness, John’s heart turned with compassion to his fellow incarcerates in the asylum. With a soldier’s knowledge of organization and field medicine, he began to shepherd the homeless, the abandoned, and the afflicted of Granada sheltering them and treating their wounds.

He supported orphans, students, harlots, and the unemployed with his own labor, encumbering himself with their pecuniary debts, often suffering accusations and slandered by those he tried to help.

After thirteen years in this way, he died a heroic and saintly death contracting pneumonia while attempting to rescue a drowning companion. He was found in death, kneeling before the crucifix, his face pressed to the wounded feet of Christ.

Saint John of God left the world a small band of valiant hearts. The legends of the Order relate that often on the brink of collapse John of God was revived by the angels. Saint Raphael accompanied him on his rounds, healing and imparting the peace of God to the chaos. To this day the image of the Angelic Physician clothed in the habit of San Juan de Dios can be found in these hospitals.

Murillo, on his canvas in the Prado, depicts Saint John of God as frail, struggling under the weight of the invalid he is carrying, menaced by the encircling dark. The saint is accompanied by a powerful archangel who strengthens him, illuminating his face and his path.

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Passing before the humble stone church of San Sebastian, the three religious came upon the young visionaries who told them, without affectation, of the wonders that were happening in the village and of the importance of the October 18 Message. The brothers rested under the nine pines of the apparition eating lunch and enjoying the discussion. Conchita accompanied them but she did not eat. She told them Mass had not been offered in the village that day and the Angel would bring her Holy Communion. Until he arrived she would remain fasting.

The afternoon passed swiftly. At a natural pause in the conversation, Conchita moved discretely away from the group and fell to her knees, head tilted back in ecstasy. As Brother Juan Bosco recorded in his notes,

“Still kneeling and in the same posture, the girl made the Sign of the Cross very slowly and devoutly. She said words in a low voice and gently struck her chest three times. She was praying in ecstasy. As the prayer ended, she opened her mouth, put out her tongue as in receiving Communion, withdrew her tongue and closed her mouth slowly. Two of us heard the slight noise of her swallowing something. She held this position and we heard her low voice, audible, but we could not hear it to sufficiently understand the words.”

Then the ecstasy took a decidedly different turn.

“Then the girl took his (Brother Luis) Scapular in her hands. She stood up, raised the Scapular in a very solemn way as though presenting it to someone. She lowered the Scapular and again dropped abruptly to her knees.”

Returning the Scapular to Brother Luis, Conchita repeated this gesture for the Scapulars of Brother Juan and Brother Miguel offering each one up reverently. With a concluding Sign of the Cross, the ecstasy ended and Conchita returned to normal with a shy smile.

“Have you had Communion?”

“Yes”

“Why did you take our Scapulars and raise them up?”

“The Angel asked me to do it, to kiss them.”

“Have you spoken to the Angel?”

“Yes”

“What did he say to you?”

“The Angel knew you. He told me that Our Lord and the Blessed Virgin are happy with you.”

To this exterior sign was added an interior grace for Brother Juan.

“The impression was very great. Particularly, I was stunned and with much interior sentiment of having sinned so many times, and because of this I implored mercy. I have never felt in my life such as strong feeling of the supernatural. Afterwards, as the years passed…this experience has always been present in me. I have great confidence in the love of the Virgin and an accentuated fervor for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. I believe the essence of the grace given to us is our own perseverance in the Order.”

Brother Juan returned again in 1966 after the apparitions had ended. He was curious to find out if anything similar had happened. Conchita confirmed “the only thing the Angel had kissed had been our Scapulars.”

This leads one to wonder about the significance of this profound display of angelic predilection and solidarity. Conchita is quite clear in stating that the brothers themselves were pleasing to God. Considering over one thousand priests and religious attended the apparitions and there exists no other record of acknowledgment by Saint Michael, the singularity of the event appears to lend special importance.

Brother Juan Bosco, in his notes, believed this reciprocated the high esteem given to Saint Raphael in their community. More generally, the gesture conveyed a salute for the work of the Brothers who in their ministry of attendance and healing and their love for the poorest, the most neglected and infirm reflect the virtues of the angels.

Could there be some further explanation?

On July 19, 1936, by decree of the radically secularist government, the Brothers Hospitallers of Saint John of God were declared enemies of the people of Spain. Ninety eight brothers were murdered in the Red Terror. The Soviet backed persecution of the Roman Catholic Church executed six thousand eight hundred thirty two religious, killed tens of thousands of lay faithful in odium fidei, and desecrated and destroyed over twenty thousand holy places.

The sons of San Juan de Dios remained with their patients, faithful to the fourth vow of the Order never to abandon the sick except in death. They made no attempt to flee the coming violence.

Seventy one brothers martyred between July 24 and December 14, 1936 were beatified by Blessed John Paul II including more than forty in Madrid and Barcelona who refused to leave the hospitals and were shot on site. Some were exultant at their execution, commending each other to imminent paradise. Their last words were of forgiveness, pardoning their murderers. All were steadfast.

Could the martyrdom which preceded the apparitions by a quarter century have had an influence on the occurrence of August 6, 1962? It is a wonderful idea to contemplate. At this time, there exists no evidence directly linking the two. Perhaps in the days to come or with the definitive resolution of the Aviso and Great Miracle this extraordinary event may be more completely illuminated.

As we share recollections of the events of fifty years ago we should honor this day, worthy of remembrance for the devotees of Our Lady of Mount Carmel de Garabandal. This day, the Angelic Patron of the Church of Jesus Christ venerated the Scapular of Saint John of God three separate times.

In Union of Prayer,

The Workers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel de Garabandal
Lindenhurst, NY USA

Dear Friends,

Today we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the proclamation of the First Message of Our Lady of Mount Carmel de Garabandal.

News of the apparitions, which had begun on June 18, 1961 with the appearance of Saint Michael the Archangel, had spread sufficiently to draw a great crowd which gathered for the announcement. Anticipation ran high despite the heavy rain which fell throughout the day.

That evening, before the nine pine trees overlooking the village, the visionaries read the Message entrusted to them by the Holy Virgin on July 4:

We must make many 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.

Like the echo of Fatima, this Message calls to every heart for conversion. Sacrifices and penances performed in a true spirit of contrition, increased devotion to the Eucharist and renewed efforts to sanctify our lives are required to avert a coming chastisement.

The heavenly counsel of Massabeille, “Penance, Penance, Penance” reaffirmed in the Cova de Ira in 1917 as the remedy for the spreading contagion of Communism and the unnecessary tragedy of the Second World War is brought forward to the seventh decade of the twentieth century to a world in crisis.

At Garabandal, on that tempestuous night, many went away dissatisfied. The intensity and frequency of the ecstasies had lead them to believe they were about to receive a major new revelation. The First Message was too simple, too childlike. It did not contain the vivid illustration of the future sought out by the merely curious.

The reading of the First Message marks the culmination of the first cycle of apparitions and the events of 1961, but this would not be the last word from Our Lady of Mount Carmel de Garabandal.

How can we best comply with Our Lady’s requests of the First Message?

We must begin with the Church’s traditional three part teaching on penance: prayer (especially the daily recitation of the rosary), fasting, and almsgiving. Once we have fully mastered these practices, welcoming them within the limits of our state in life, we will be very close to leading the good lives required by the First Message.

Second, as taught by Sister Lucia of Fatima, we must train ourselves in distress and adversity to unite with Christ in prayer, offering our discomfort as a sacrifice in reparation for our sins and the sins of others. We encourage you to adopt the Morning Offering of Reparation, by which we offer the prayers, works, joys and suffering of each day for the sins of the world.

In Union of Prayer,

The Workers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel de Garabandal
Lindenhurst, NY USA

As the four young seers of Garabandal went into ecstasy on this date in 1961, something wonderful happened that had never occurred before. A young man was present with them, clearly visible in the presence of the Blessed Virgin. As he came to kneel down beside them they heard him say” Miracle, Miracle!”

Our Lady seemed to address him directly, “You will soon be with me” and confided to the girls that this man, Father Luis Maria Andreu Rodamilans S.J. was also in ecstasy and had been granted a vision of the Great Miracle that would occur in their village sometime in the future.

Father Andreu was the son of a very pious Bilbao family. Three of his brothers became Jesuit missionaries. Luis also discerned the call to become a missionary priest and joined the Jesuits with plans of preaching the gospel in China.

A Doctor of Theology, he spoke seven languages fluently and became the resident Professor of Theology at the Jesuit College at Ona, Spain. He remained behind in part to care for his aging mother who had generously given all her children to serve the mission fields of the Roman Catholic Church. After his death his mother would join the Visitation Convent in San Sebastian.

Suffering interiorly for much of the past year, Father Luis made the drive up from Burgos with friends. This was his second and final trip to the village where he had been deeply moved by the apparitions of July 29. He had decided to return one more time before departing on a trip to Germany. Moving with the crowd following behind the ecstatic march, he found himself unexpectedly swept up in the vision and witness to the future Miracle. Many in the crowd heard him cry out in joy and astonishment.

On the trip home, Father Luis confided to his friends, “I am so happy. What a favor the Blessed Virgin has bestowed on me. How fortunate we are to have a mother like her in heaven! There is no reason to fear the supernatural life. The girls have given us an example of how we must act with the Blessed Virgin. There is no doubt in my mind the things involving the girls are true. Why should the Blessed Virgin have chosen us? This is the happiest day of my life.” Shortly after making this statement, Father Luis Andreu died in the peace of holy joy before the car reached its destination.

One cannot review the events at Garabandal without acquiring a great impression of the love Our Blessed Mother has for her priest sons. This love was fully absorbed by the visionaries who emerged from the apparitions with a profound desire to pray and offer sacrifices for priests and to foster this practice amongst the laity. They have continued in this devotion all their lives organizing holy hours of prayer for priests in the places where they live.

This call for prayer for priests must be counted among the most important priorities of the Garabandal apparitions. Emphasized repeatedly in the discourses of Our Blessed Mother to the children is the necessity of sacrifices and prayer on the part of faithful Catholics for their priest, whose true vocation is self-sacrifice imitating that of Jesus Christ. The failure of a vocation concedes a lack of devotion on behalf of the laity spiritually obliged to uphold these men in their labors.

As Conchita expressed in a 1971 message, “Let us pray a lot for priests. We ourselves are to blame for many priests who are on the road to perdition, because we do not pray enough for them, because we do not sacrifice ourselves, and also because we should be giving an example to those priests who are consecrated to the Blessed Virgin…We have to help those priests…that they may rise and pursue their course.”

Many authors on Garabandal believe that the events pertaining to Father Luis Andreu S.J. are meant to honor him as a worthy priest and place high his example of devout ministry for others to follow. When asked in 1966 what the Blessed Virgin desired of priests Conchita replied;

“What the Blessed Virgin wants from the priest first of all is his own sanctification.

-He should fulfill his vows through love of God, and lead many souls to Him through example and prayer, for in our time it is difficult otherwise.

-May the priest be sacrificed through love of souls in Christ!

-May he retire from time to time in silence to listen to God who speaks to him continually.

-May they think a lot about the Passion of Jesus so that their lives are more united to Christ the Priest and thus invite souls to penance and sacrifice, and also make more tolerable to them the cross that Christ sends to us all.

-To speak of Mary who is the surest one to lead us to Christ and also speak about and cause people to believe that there is a heaven, so too there is a hell.”

Here in the United States, we have yet to see our first native born priest canonized by the Universal Church. As Americans, we are blessed to have many outstanding priest patrons on the path to sainthood: Archbishop Fulton Sheen, Father Solanus Casey OFM Cap, Father Emil Kapaun, Father Walter Ciszek SJ, Father Patrick Peyton CSC, and Father John Hardon SJ are foremost among many worthy American priests.

We encourage you to offer your needful petitions to any one of these intercessors. Please add your prayers and support to their respective causes that our nation may have the greater grace of their heavenly assistance and our clergy and laity their true and saintly examples of priestly life.

On August 16th, 1961, only a few days after his death, Father Luis Andreu was again present in the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin to the four seers of Garabandal; this time as her heavenly guest. He left this consolation with the girls for his grieving family, “Be happy and content, for I am in Heaven and see you every day.”

In a private locution to Conchita in 1964 it was revealed that the body of this son of Saint Ignatius would be found incorrupt on the day following the Great Miracle.

In Union of Prayer,

The Workers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel de Garabandal
Lindenhurst, NY USA

Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

July 2, 1961 – July 2, 2011

Dear Friends,

Perhaps only a few know the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, July 16, 1858, was the date of the last apparition at Lourdes. Saint Bernadette Soubirous said, “All I saw was Our Lady…She was more beautiful than ever…I have never seen her so beautiful before.” Better known is that as the sun danced at Fatima on October 13, 1917 the three young shepherds saw Our Lady of Mount Carmel give the final blessing to the crowd. And on this day in 1961, fifty years ago, the Most Immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Queen of Heaven appeared again under this very same title in the remote mountain village of Garabandal.

Lourdes, Fatima and Garabandal are one; a trilogy drawn in an arc across Portugal, Spain and France and united by a shared and increasingly amplified theme. The advocates of Garabandal contend that the Spanish apparitions are the key to understanding this great Marian Age of the Church. Garabandal is the bridge linking what has come already and what has still yet to occur.

At each of the three the Message is repeated with growing urgency; the mounting offenses of sinful men and women warrant supernatural punishment upon the whole earth. Those who love God, especially within the Roman Catholic Church, must undertake sacrifice and penance in reparation for these wicked acts but first they must strive to be truly virtuous, drawing nearer to Christ in the Blessed Sacrament and by fervent prayer.

This is the First Message of Garabandal. Given to the four seers on July 4, it was publically proclaimed on October 18, 1961 one year to the week before the Second Vatican Council convened. This timing is noteworthy and may have been to remind the Council Fathers to focus upon the importance of Fatima, which was bearing tremendous fruit in the Church but whose requests had not yet been fulfilled.

In the intervening years, Our Lady of Mount Carmel returned to Garabandal over two thousand times. The period of the apparitions was filled with a host of astonishing prodigies which have been recorded on film and have been made available to the public for over four decades. All of the ecstasies contained acts of Christian devotion which included the sign of the cross, genuflection, the public recitation of prayers, and the reverencing of crucifixes or other sacramentals by the seers which were subsequently offered to bystanders to kiss. These acts provide a strong and enduring argument for the supernatural origin of the phenomena.

Our Lady, with maternal affection, personally instructed the young seers teaching them the devotions so dear to Heaven: Eucharistic adoration and frequent communion, the rosary and scapular, devotion to Saint Michael, sacrifices and penances consistent with one’s state in life, prayers for the dead, for sinners, for priests and for the Holy Father, Acts of Love, to willingly obey the requests of their parents, to remain obedient to their pastor and local bishop.

Over the course of years, a schedule of unprecedented supernatural events was forecast to the visionaries to be made known to the public.

In order of occurrence, they are the Aviso, or Warning, which will be felt by everyone on the planet, an inward purification that will correct the conscience and reveal to each person the state of their soul before God.

Within twelve months following the Warning, a Great Miracle located in the village of Garabandal which will cure the sick and convert sinners, verifying the Message, and attested by a visible sign left over the site of the apparitions until the end of time.

A further period of time will then be granted by God for amendment. At the end of this period, if no correction in the state of the world is evident, a global chastisement, supernatural in origin and of unprecedented severity, will ensue.

As the apparitions drew to a close in 1965, a Second Message was given through Saint Michael on June 18 disclosing that the cup was now “flowing over” that “many cardinals, many bishops and many priests are on the road to perdition and taking many souls with them” and specifically that “less and less importance is being given to the Eucharist.”

The Second Message continued; the faithful who distinguished themselves apart from those going astray would receive pardon from God and grace for amendment through the intercession of Saint Michael the Archangel. Our Lady then assures us of her great love and continued assistance in the face of these “last warnings” and closes with another call for sacrifices and devotion to the Passion of Jesus. The apparitions ended on November 13, 1965, a few weeks before the close of the Council. No further messages have been addressed to the faithful since that time.

Our Lady requested her Message be made known and the formal promotion of Garabandal began soon after the apparitions ceased. The New York Center in Lindenhurst was incorporated in 1968 and the work begun by many hands in the United States and Europe. The Second Message was extremely controversial for the time and the early promoters met with much resistance which the seers themselves had prophesied.

Meanwhile great changes were coursing through the Church, not all welcome. Odious impieties were introduced in places, born of a spirit of disobedience, irreverence and discontinuity which attempted to hijack the good work of the Council. The instances of sacrilege, apostasy, iconoclasm and the suppression of authentic religious charism similar to other such periods in Church history came again.

His Holiness, Paul VI remarked that “the smoke of Satan had entered the Church.” Much was lost and many sorrows born in those decades of turmoil and confusion whose iniquities still reach us. Much of the disorder and division that afflicted the Church began to be reflected in civil society. A leading Fatima author and early Garabandalist, Father Joseph Pelletier A.A. wrote about the deteriorating situation calling it “a world in crisis”.

At the time of the apparitions, Our Lady had confided to Conchita “three more popes” then the mysterious el fin de los tiempos which would not be the end of the world, the papacy or the Church but would mark off a certain era seen clearly in retrospect. The third of these popes was Blessed John Paul II whose heroic reign was remarkable for its longevity and profound spiritual victories. His pontificate did much to curb the excessive outrages and initiate the true renewal promised by the Second Vatican Council. John Paul II was renowned for his total devotion to Our Blessed Mother. Following the failed assassination attempt on his life, this courageous Holy Father turned his consideration to Fatima and the resolute fulfillment of the requests made there.

Significant for Garabandal in these years; the raising of prohibitions on the administration of sacraments in the village – a first favorable sign, the canonization of twentieth century seers like Saint Faustina Kowalska who prophesied coming events similar in description to those announced at Garabandal, the official recognition of the apparitions at Akita, Japan which foretold the coming of a global chastisement, and the canonization of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina who had corresponded with the seers and was openly favorable to the apparitions.

Throughout this period the promotion of the Message was carried on by a small community of lay promoters who gave talks and held conferences. At the very heart of the movement was a cadre of learned priests, most of whom were witnesses of the apparitions. By the turn of the millennium, forty years from the apparitions, these good men had passed to their eternal reward. The time had come for a new dispensation which presented itself in the form of the internet. Via this new form of communication the Message of Garabandal would eventually reach millions of people in the first decade of the new millennium, greatly revitalizing a movement whose first generation had suffered attrition and loss from the passage of time.

As his pontificate drew to a close John Paul II focused his remaining strength intently on the importance of the Eucharist. He declared 2004-2005 the Year of the Eucharist again acclaiming the Blessed Sacrament “the source and summit” of Christian life. By this act he reaffirmed the centrality of the Eucharist and advanced the project of restoring true reverence in accord with the implied request of the Second Message. With this grace the era of the three popes came to an end on April 2, 2005 as the great Holy Father passed into eternal life.

Like all occasus saeculi, the transition through which we are presently passing is marked by tremendous upheaval in the natural world and the affairs of men. Natural catastrophes of incredible magnitude occur more frequently. The social, economic and political systems become fragile as the common morality which bonds us together dissolves. The Church is again persecuted by Communism in Asia and Islamism in many lands. In the West, the Church suffers derision and intimidation from a materialist and agnostic secularism which has gained the commanding heights. All this heralds the coming of a new order.

While the Church concludes the long purification of the scandal, our Holy Father Benedict XVI declared 2009-2010 the Year for Priests and closed a year of prayer for priests with the consecration of all clergy to the Immaculate Heart at Fatima on May 13, 2010. This most significant act magnifies Our Lady’s request at Garabandal for prayer for priests to uphold the apostolic tradition of the sacred priesthood of Jesus Christ which continues to reconcile the world to God through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

This is the chronicle of the first fifty years of Garabandal. The Message has passed the test of time. No longer controversial, it is becoming a source of hope to many searching for a second chance for the world.

Next, we anticipate the Warning which, despite the necessary pain of the revelation of our own sinfulness, we need urgently. Garabandal Visionary Jacinta Moynihan said memorably in a 1977 interview, “The Warning will occur when the situation is at its worst.” And so we who are devoted to Our Lady of Mount Carmel de Garabandal continue our prayerful vigil in great expectation.

In Union of Prayer,

The Workers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
Lindenhurst, NY USA

Dear Friends,

Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the commencement of the apparitions at Garabandal by the appearance of the Archangel Saint Michael to the four seers on this date in 1961. Saint Michael came to announce the appearance of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary which was to follow on July 2.

We would like to honor this day by spreading devotion to Saint Michael as Our Lady recommended throughout the course of the apparitions. Our treatment of the devotion which we sent via email on September 29 of last year is entitled The Angel of Garabandal and is located on the Joey’s Message page of www.garabandal.us.

The response to the article drew over one thousand requests for Saint Michael Chaplets from around the world. We have but a few cord chaplets left but would like to offer them at this time gratis to email subscribers who wish to increase their devotion to Saint Michael. Please send an email with CHAPLET in the subject line to joey@garabandalny.org with your complete mailing address. This offer remains open as long as our supply lasts.

These are times of crisis and with so much violence and catastrophe around us we do well to heed Our Lady’s request to increase our devotion to the Prince of the Holy Angels and secure for ourselves and our families the assistance and protection of all the angels that we may be delivered from the evil of this age.

With her permission, we reprint a brief note from Conchita to the present pastor of the village of Garabandal, Padre Rolando, to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary.

AVE MARIA

May 17, 2011

Dear Father Rolando,

I join with you in the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the events of Garabandal. It is for me fifty years of contemplating the most beautiful thing in the world. I give thanks to God for having been a part of those experiences, impossible to describe adequately, but which have pressed upon my soul the secure assurance of faith and hope.

I thank you, Father Rolando, for granting me the opportunity to recite the Message of Our Mother in the village once more.

[October 18, 1961-We must make many 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.]

The Angel said:

As my message of October 18 has not been complied with and has not been made known to the world, I am advising you that this is the last one. Before, the cup was filling up. Now it is flowing over. Many cardinals, many bishops and many priests are on the road to perdition and are taking many souls with them. Less and less importance is being given to the Eucharist. You should turn the wrath of God away from yourselves by your efforts. If you ask His forgiveness with sincere hearts, He will pardon you. I, your mother, through the intercession of Saint Michael the Archangel, ask you to amend your lives. You are now receiving the last warnings. I love you very much and do not want your condemnation. Pray to us with sincerity and we will grant your requests. You should make more sacrifices. Think about the passion of Jesus.

Father Rolando, there is nothing of greater importance that I can speak about than this Message of Our Mother.

In Union of Prayer,
Conchita

In the days to come, we want to share with you our reflections on the meaning of this anniversary via email and on www.garabandal.us. We are pleased to report, fifty years after the events began, that the promotion of the Message continues to advance in 165 countries at a steady pace. We thank all those who take Our Lady’s Message forward into new places and we remain united in prayer with all those who undertake the promotion.

To commemorate these days in grand style we would like to make available gratis to our email subscribers and their families our final reserve of medals containing a piece of missal kissed by Our Lady at Garabandal. Please send an email with MEDAL in the subject line to joey@garabandalny.org with your complete mailing address. The offer remains open until June 18, 2012 or until our reserve is exhausted.

We will be back with you again in a few days.

The Workers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel de Garabandal
Lindenhurst, NY USA

This Message was sent by email on February 17, 2010 . If you are registered to receive Joey’s Message by email and have not, Please re-enter your email address. Thank you.

Dear Friends,

As we begin the season of Lent, let us remember the words of the first message of Our Lady of Mount Carmel given at Garabandal on October 18th, 1961.

We must make many 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.

The message is a continuation of the call for sacrifice and penance given at Fatima in 1918. The Garabandal apparitions echo and update many of the themes first announced at Fatima.

This first message was almost immediately dismissed because of its simplicity. We can see now in the light of history, that this call for sacrifice and penance was directly opposed to a growing theological movement of the time which called for abandonment of the Church’s traditional penitential practices and even the idea of divine chastisements as inconsistent with the spirit of the age and the loving nature of God.

After the Council, this new theology would take hold in many Catholic Churches throughout the world, weakening the devotion and discipline of the clergy and the laity.

At Garabandal, the Blessed Virgin reiterates the importance of penance as a participation in the Eucharistic and sacrificial love of Jesus Christ for his Church.

The sacrifices proposed at Garabandal and practiced by the four seers were marked by a spirit of holy simplicity and spiritual humility. They included the frequent renunciation of small creature comforts, willing submission to the will of God made manifest through the course of daily life, and acts of charity and love for neighbor which were difficult or distasteful.

These stories were recorded in many of the original books written on Garabandal and are featured on our website – www.garabandal.us – in various places. Fr. Pelletier’s treatment entitled, “But above all we must lead good lives” is located at the top of the Best of Garabandal page.

The admonitions to sacrifice and penance were made again in the second message with our Lady’s counsel, “You should make more sacrifices.”

Please continue to spread the Message of Garabandal as Our Lady requested.

• For our English and Spanish speaking subscribers who are members of a family or religious prayer group or lay association and would like to distribute DVDs of the Message of Garabandal among the group, send an email with DVD PACK in the subject line to joey@garabandalny.org and we will send you a package of 10 DVDs to distribute. Please include the name of the organization, your name, address, country and zip code. Remember to seek the approval of the appropriate authority, if necessary, before distributing these DVDs.
• Para nuestros suscriptores ingleses y de habla hispana que sean miembros de una familia o de un grupo religioso del rezo o pongan la asociación y la quisieran distribuir DVDs del mensaje de Garabandal entre el grupo, envíe un email conDVD PACK en la línea sujeta a joey@garabandalny.org y le enviaremos un paquete de 10 DVDs para distribuir. Incluya por favor el nombre de la organización, su nombre, la dirección, el país y el código postal. Recuerde buscar la aprobación de la autoridad apropiada en caso de necesidad, antes de distribuir esta DVDs.
• We have a limited number of the 1981 BBC interview with Conchita, Garabandal: After the Visions available on DVD. We do not plan to do another run of this DVD at this time. If you are a recent subscriber to our email list and would like to receive a complimentary copy, send an email with your mailing address to joey@garabandalny.org with ATV in the subject line and we will send you one gratis. This offer is good for as long as supplies last.
• We are looking for Garabandal promoters who speak the following languages:

Brazilian   Vietnamese   Korean   Japanese   Taglog   Bemba   Swahili

If you are located in an area where these languages are predominantly spoken and are interested in distributing the Message of Garabandal DVD gratis or if you can have the documentary shown locally to audiences, please send us an email to joey@garabandalny.org with the word MESSAGE in the subject line. Please include the language you are requesting, some words about yourself or your organization, your mailing address, and how you are able to distribute or promote the documentary. We can provide a limited number of promoters with a master copy of the DVD in these languages. No businesses please, only promoters for gratis distribution.

Please remember during the Lenten season the final words of the Message, “Think of the Passion of Jesus.” May God grant you a holy and prayerful Lent.

Workers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
Lindenhurst, NY USA

Dear Friends,

As Christmas 2009 draws near and we end another year promoting the Message of Garabandal, we wanted to thank you, our friends and benefactors, for your continued prayerful support of work of the New York Garabandal Center. We have good news to share with you.

This year we have seen a spectacular increase in all activity concerning Garabandal. Our website – www.garabandal.us – set a record for visitors, recording the greatest number of viewers since its launch in 2002. Our email contact list continues to rapidly expand, embracing a global internet community. While 2009 set the record for email campaigns sent out. We mailed several thousand Garabandal DVDs in the first quarter of the year to promoters at all points on the map. The response to our summertime campaign for relic medals and rosaries has nearly exhausted our supply.

Garabandal is in the air and the Message is spreading. Daily we hear from promoters, clergy and laity, around the world who speak with great enthusiasm about the tremendous gains they are seeing. We can see their effect in the constant stream of requests for information and materials from those only now learning of the apparitions.

In a new iniative, we have partnered with promoters in foreign countries supplying them with foreign language master copies of the Message of Garabandal DVD for local promotion. As a result of these efforts we have seen a surge of interest from new places, most prominently from China. EWTN Europe began broadcasting this year and we have provided our contacts there with master copies in all the languages of Europe.

This is the Year for Priests. Prayers for priests continue to be our top priority. We support our Holy Father and the bishops in union with him as they courageously confront a growing secular world. We pledge our prayers in this regard throughout 2010.

We ask you to join us, every day, reciting the Morning Offering, attending daily Mass and Communion, saying the Rosary and wearing Scapular and increasing devotion to St. Michael. Promote Our Lady’s Message everywhere and because you love Jesus and Mary, peace can come into the world.

With gratitude for forty five years of promoting the Message, Joey Lomangino and all the Workers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel at the New York Center extend to you and yours sincere wishes for a Happy and Holy Christmas.

Dear Friends,

Pope Benedict XVI declared the Year for Priests to begin on June 19th, 2009 the day after the 44th Anniversary of the Second Message of Garabandal. He began the conclusion of his letter, “To the Most Holy Virgin I entrust this Year for Priests.”

Our Holy Father exhorts the entire Church in this year to pray for the sanctification and renewal of the clergy and for the greater communion of priests with their bishop.

In over two thousand recorded apparitions between 1961 and 1965, Our Lady taught the young visionaries of Garabandal to pray and offer sacrifices for priests and to obey lawful church authority. Through her personal instruction, Our Blessed Mother instilled in these children a sincere appreciation for the indelible nature and dignity of the priesthood drawn from the holy sacrifice of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.

Very often through her related conversations, Our Lady revealed a preeminent love and concern for priests which was reflected in the conduct of the visionaries. In a 1990 interview, Conchita, the main visionary recounted, “Priests were the beloved children of the Virgin. In every apparition we noticed the Virgin would speak with special, very dear love about priests and I guess this was contagious; since the priests were the main objects of the Virgin’s love, they were also our most beloved persons.”

Many authors on Garabandal believe that the events pertaining to Father Luis Andreu S.J. -his vision of the Miracle and related death- are meant to honor him as a worthy priest and single out his example of devout ministry for imitation by others.

Father Joseph Pelletier A.A. believed the heavenly motivation for the apparitions was to address a profound calamity in the Church, the cause of which was a crisis in the priesthood. The Second Message of June 18th, 1965 contains the great warning of the “road to perdition” being tread by many priests. We have seen the fulfillment of this sad prediction in our time. We believe, with Fr. Pelletier, that the remedy for these errors is to be found in the Message of Garabandal.

Today is the feast of Saint John Mary Vianney, universal patron of priests. In union with the Holy Father’s request, we encourage our readers to pray with renewed fervor for priests.

Saint John Mary Vianney-pray for us and for priests! Our Lady of Mount Carmel-pray for us!

The Workers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel