Garabandal Objections

The latter point about the girls holding the crown is again a unique aspect of Garabandal which isn't particularly reassuring to me. At Knock, She was both crowned and veiled according to all depictions of Her, including that shown on the gable end of the church. The fact that the veil may not have been mentioned by some of the Knock witnesses is not surprising, I suppose, as the veil would have been accepted as typical. They would, I believe, have mentioned her being bare headed, even if crowned if that is what they had seen. Another difference is that She WORE the crown upon Her head (as in some other apparitions) rather than have a 'crown' in the form of a halo as at Garabandal.

 

Back to business.

Number 3.

All the visionaries of Garabandal, have at different times, denied the apparitions. Three withdrew their denials but one did not. This is another negatively unique aspect. I am not aware of another series of apparitions where a visionary has maintained a position of denial for several decades. This is in contrast to e.g. Medjugorje where, in the face of credible threats from a Communist government to treat the visionaries as mentally ill, they maintained their positions. At Fatima the visionaries accepted that they would be painfully executed but maintained their claims. The Garabandal visionaries were not at any risk of being hospitalised or executed and yet all denied the apparitions.

 

Which visionary was it that denied it for several decades Steve? I had heard about this. I wasn't aware that they had all denied it bar one at some stage.

 

One of the reasons Mary Cruz was the first to lose the visions was because her mother wouldn't let her go out at night ,and she didn't go to afternoon mass,like the other three.The constant challenge of the authenticity of the apparitions caused shame to the parents, thus pressuring her to recant her story. But all of this was a, (predicted by Mary ) occurrence. An 11 year old mountain girl doesn't fear the "government", or "communism " or being jailed, I bet she feared her parents more than anything. Regardless of her testimony, we still have 3 confirmed visions,and the guarentee of Padre Pio.

 

That is very sad Glen. Mary Cruz was obedient to her parents and she missed out. Was she not permitted to go to daily Mass by her parents?

 

Yes, this obedience turned out to be very costly. Not everyone handles pressure the same. Unfortunetly for Mari, her parents thought differently than others. They were under the impression that by seperating her from the others, they would not cause themselves to lose their faith, IF the apparitions were not true.

 

At Medjugorje on June 24'th, 1981, Marija the visionary was not present and did not see the Virgin Mary, but her sister was and saw the Virgin Mary the first day. On the second day Marija's sister was told she had work to do and I believe kept home by her parents. At any rate she didn't go and never saw the Virgin again.

Sorry, I digress.

 

You

You are right Hope I heard about that. I still feel sorry for both of them though. Though they would be well rewarded for their obedience to their parents. It just goes to show that God and Our Blessed Mother expect all to be obedient to their parents and they do not stand in the way of that.

 

Always too when there is an apparition etc the person is told to tell a priest. To place themselves under a priest. Just goes to show God and Our Blessed Mother place a lot of weight under the authority of a priest, something that we would do well to remember when we criticize our priests.

 

Steve, it is interesting that this thing never bothered you until you read someone else's objection.
Of course if you look for objections you will find them EVERYWHERE . But that may have nothing to do with the Garabandal phenomenon at all.

In any case, there is a huge Catholic tradition of Mary unveiled, particularly in Spain (we can't forget that Our Blessed Mother takes on the traces of the culture where she appears. For instance, Our Lady of Guadalupe, of Mexico(my avatar), is a "mestiza" (mixed race European and Indian), dressed on Aztec symbols, that has nothing to do with a jewish woman. Mary appears to communicate with the people and culture she appears to, not to follow the Jewish Law.

I'm sure that you are familiar with one of the most popular Spanish depictions of Mary: The Immaculate Conception of Murillo. She is unveiled, and many, many depictions of Mary Immaculate represent her unveiled. The colors of her dress being white tunic and blue mantel of sorts, the same as in Garabandal. This would be an easily recognizable outfit for the girls in Garabandal to know that she was the Blessed Mother, Mary.

 

Other popular depictions of Mary without a veil:

 

And more

 

(SEE HIGHLIGHTED AREA )- Yes WCWTS, its getting to the point of finding anything ,no matter how miniscule,to object to,(which has nothing to do with the message she gave ) but to object to Mary's appearance ? She came also with a scapular on her arm, nobody mentioned that. (not to mention she has appeared as Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in Lourdes & Fatima too ) As you said, Mary has taken on many appearances for the sake of fitting in with the culture, simple. This objection sounds more like desperation.

 

Hi Steve, just discovered this new Forum. You'll hear no complaints from me about anything you want to raise.

What I would like to understand from you is why you didn't accept attempted answers given when you raised this question on the GNews thread a few weeks ago?

For example:
"Steve this one I think is in the "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" camp. I know many people say these unusual and even impossible bodily positions and backwards marches ("contortions" is not really a fair description as it smuggles in a judgement that is far from objective) must be of the devil.

Yet I have only heard that of persons who saw the video or the photos, never from anyone who was actually an eye-witness.

In fact the opposite seems to be true. Many were overcome by the "chaotic" beauty of some of the group 'entanglements" when they fell apparantly fell at "random" in ecstacy. Many saw a supernatural sculptor's hand at work behind these things.

Just because it hasn't happened before at other legitimate (i.e. allowed to believe) apparitions doesn't make it diabolic either. There surely has to be a first time for things both good and bad and neutral..."

 

Steve keep in mind that lots of the "official" material re Church sanctioned apparitions has become sanitised over time. Lots of weird and seemingly contradictory stuff has gone on at all of them - but over time the hard to explain material gets "lost" in the deluge of copy cat official, pro versions.

I did research this sort of thing a while back re Fatima and others.
For example, there were allegedly some initial bizarre reports from Fatima that Our Lady was reported at an early apparition to apparantly have worn a short dress that exposed her knees. I (and most of us here) do not have the resources to find the original source for this and check it for further veracity.

Some less bizarre (but still weird) things have not been completey sanitised and can still be found in the oldest, less common, "raw" versions of Fatima events which cannot be denied.
For example, when Our Lady talked to the Seers, to start off with at least, those closest to the Holme Oak distinctly heard a high pitched buzzing noise that sounded like a swarm of flies! We have all heard the expression "Lord of the Flies" so this is not the most helpful of phenomenon to aid Our Lady's cause!
Others, in a recent book based on source material they were allowed to access from restricted Vatican archives, take a new age angle and suggested the heavenly visitor hadn't quite tuned in her hi-tech apparatus yet! They also interpretted strange phenomena reported by witnesses as akin to hi-frequency electrical phenomena/sparking.

Now I am not trying to be cynical, I am simply pointing out that even the fair-dinkum apparitions have seemingly contrary phenomena associated with them so lets not overdo the comparisions between apparitions as if there is a set formula.

In fact, each one has many unique aspects, some so bizarre as to have been air-brushed out of popular memory (whether consciously or unconsciously is not the point). Bizarre, is not by that alone, diabolical or evil.

 

That is a little unfair. Steve is really trying to seek out truth here. He shouldn't be knocked for this at all. He is discerning it all. God knows his heart.

 

And what of Our Lady of Good Help who wore no veil?

 

For me is even more amazing what Conchita in the 1973 interview said: that she was waiting for the miracle to KNOW if the Virgin appeared to her. Apparently, according to Glenn, years later, she is sure about this fact. Why?

 

One of the witnesses described the sound he heard when Our Lady spoke at Fatima as being 'like a bee in a bottle' (this was an uncle I believe of Jacinta and Francisco). I believe that I heard the same thing when on Krizevac one Good Friday during an apparition. It didn't sound like flies but an indistinct and varying 'zzzzzzzzzzzzzz' sound, much as you might hear when someone is talking behind a wall that is poorly soundproofed - I have never heard any reference to this phenomena sounding like flies but will take your word for it.
When it comes to Fatima, we are fortunate to have Lucia's writings which are very clear, detailed and credible. I know from experience that witnesses don't all give the same account of the same event, we wouldn't be human if we did. I also accept that some inexplicable things that tend to reduce the credibility of some approved apparitions have occurred but, to be honest, I don't see the same quality or quantity of such things occurring at approved apparitions as I do with Garabandal.

 

I am raising them all on one thread, whether covered elsewhere or not. Although possible explanations have been provided in some cases and these may satisfy those providing them (and others reading them) they haven't satisfied me, if they do I will say so, if they don't I will try not to get into protracted and pointless argument.
I have been accused of raising 'desperate' objections. Desperate I am not, I would like to believe that Garabandal is true, I just see too many problems to do so at the moment, the desperation appears to me to be demonstrated by those who will not acknowledge that there exist some valid barriers to credibility.