Father Peletier's meditations on Garabandal 

Over several years, from 1972 to 1981, Father Joseph Peletier made valuable written contributions to Garabandal's magazine "Needles", in a total of 58 articles.

In these articles Father Joe explored the various aspects of Garabandal's messages, relating them to the doctrine of the Church. The following excerpts summarize some of his reflections on the events in Garabandal "... the message of Garabandal is very significant. It appears as a preventive antidote that was prepared by the love of our God, with a view to a spiritual storm that was about to break in the Church. Although in preparation for some years before the opening of the Second Vatican Council, in the autumn of 1962, the storm only manifested itself, during the Council itself in a very serious and serious way, God anticipated all this and gave the remedy to his Church through the apparitions of Garabandal. received through these apparitions gave us answers to the problems that were beginning to opportunize the Church. Mary and the rosary, the Eucharist and the priesthood, were the main targets of the attacks. thoughts and ideas. All points of Catholic doctrine were spoken in one way or another in Garabandal. Looking at Garabandal's message, from another point of view, we can say r that she speaks of two situations: the purpose of the coming of Our Lady, which was the renewal of the Church, and the call to change her life, to her conversion, which she expressed in a very positive way: First, we must have good lives, then the meaning of everything that would be necessary for its realization. The remaining details of the message refer directly to repentance, the Eucharist and sacrifice.

Prayers: 

Our Lady appealed to Garabandal for prayer, in fact it was the main part of Garabandal's message. Praying is undoubtedly the most vitalizing way for our spiritual life. If it (prayer) is poor and inadequate, everything else will be affected: the sacraments, penance, the Eucharist, would simply not produce the fruit of Jesus Christ in us. We all managed through Mary to strengthen our weakness through prayer, when through Her we asked her to present our petitions to Her Divine son and intercedes for us ..... He gave Mary to us as our Mother, to be His intercessor. 

Our vocal prayers should normally involve thoughts. Thoughts can be about God, Jesus, Mary, about the mysteries of the rosary if we are reciting a prayer. Thus, while we pray, we must work our mind in this direction, in order to avoid that the words spoken are not just simple movements of our lips. A considerable degree of slowness is necessary when words are foreshadowed at the time of prayer.

We must all have complete confidence when we pray for and through Mary. This is what we do when we say the Rosary. Say the rosary, that's what Our Lady said. Pray well. Pray slowly and think about what you are praying for. We are body and soul, not just soul. So we have to worry about the places we choose for prayer, calm environments, so that it is a relaxed moment of our day ..... None of these things should be overlooked, but they are just not enough. They represent only the preliminary steps that take us to the threshold of prayer. It is only the Holy Spirit that takes us beyond the threshold of prayer, to the presence of God and that helps us to establish effective contact with Him. It is only in a repeated way to His call, through the prayer that Our Lady taught us in Garabandal, that we will be able to attain the fruits of Salvation. 

The Eucharist 

One of the strongest signs of the authenticity of the messages of the apparitions of Our Lady in Garabandal, was due to the fact that the messages are centered on Christ. Christ-centeredness comes mainly from the Eucharistic truth: communion (taught by the form of mystical communion given by the Angel), visiting the Blessed Sacrament, praying for Priests, and thinking about the passion of Christ. Mary's mission was and will always be to orient ourselves to Jesus so that we can recognize His true presence. It seems to us that it is only now that we are truly aware of the understanding and importance of the Eucharistic message of Garabandal. This message was primarily a reminder and defense of the traditional Catholic viewpoint on the Eucharist, and in particular of the Divine presence. This understanding of the Garabandal Eucharistic message is clearly correct and was very accurate for the days of confusion that followed the Second Vatican Council ..... The Holy Spirit reminds us of something that we have in practice forgotten, the sacraments and in particular the Eucharist and penance which have great healing powers ....

When Conchita was asked "... Did Our Lady speak often about the Eucharist? She said:" Yes, but not strictly about the Eucharist. She gave us many examples. For example, She told us about the value of a Priest. Our Lady compared him to an Angel and She said if she saw an Angel and a Priest, that we greet the Priest first or else we should kneel before the Priest rather than the Angel. Our Lady explained this to us, the Priest consecrates and holds Jesus with his hands and the Angel does not. She told us that it was a greater grace to receive Jesus (Holy Communion) than to see her.

The priesthood

We can say that one of the main reasons why Our Lady appeared in Garabandal to four girls between 1961 and 1965, was due to the crisis in the Church, that is, the crisis in the Priesthood that represents the heart of the Church's crisis. It is quite evident that the urgent question for which Our Lady spoke to the four visionary girls was due to the crisis of the priesthood and the need to act in the face of such a problem. She (Our Lady) spoke more about the Priests, about their problems and their needs, than any other subject, except perhaps the Rosary. Other things he talked about most often were praying and sacrificing, relating them to the Priests. Our Lady was always asking the girls to offer their sacrifices for the Priests. Praying for priests was part of the lives of the girls in Garabandal. Conchita said "We must pray for the Priests, .... we pray for the Priests, ... how we should all pray for the Priests! .... 

Penance and sacrifice 

In Garabandal, there was abundant evidence to show that the solution that Our Lady proposed to alleviate the crisis of the Priesthood was through prayer and sacrifice. Our Lady explained that sacrifice was linked to our daily duties, because of suffering, because of the pain of our day-to-day things. When the girls asked Our Lady how they could make sacrifices, She said that they could make them through obedience and patience. Every day, God's providence, gives us unpleasant things that can cause us suffering in varying degrees. He asks us to accept all these sufferings, for the sins of the world and especially for the sanctification of priests, and to use the rosary and other prayers to offer these same intentions. Our Lady does not ask us for anything extraordinary, long hours of prayer and fasting. When Loli asked for a cross, so that she could suffer for the priests, Our Lady said: "bear everything with patience, pray the rosary every day, pray for the Priests ..." Our Lady asks us to practice the simple virtues of humility, obedience, modesty and patience. She asks us to intercede for Her for the Priests through prayer and sacrifice. She knows that our daily tasks and obligations give us the opportunity to offer sacrifices with love to God. If we did it this way, how quickly the Priesthood, the Church would be renewed!

Thinking about Jesus' passion 

A word is needed to relate Christ's penance and sacrifice and passion. This thought about the need to think about the passion of Christ, closes one of the messages given by Our Lady in Garabandal. There is a close link between both, sin and sacrifice. Nothing, absolutely nothing, has the power to motivate us more to detest sin than to think of the passion of Christ. It is on the basis of reflecting on His suffering, on our sins that cost Him throughout His Passion and death, that the Holy Spirit enlightens us about the evil of sin and inspires us to detest and leave sinful ways. It is also through reflecting on the suffering of Christ, that He touches our hearts, so as to atone for our sins through sacrifice and penance. Our saints, our role models, have always had an enormous capacity to reflect on the passion of Christ and this was the way to be able to overcome sin and thus reach eternity