The kisses of Our Lady

One of the main characteristics of these apparitions was the Motherly presence of Our Lady for all her children. One of the clearest demonstrations that showed this maternal love was through the kisses that Our Lady distributed to the various religious objects that were presented to her.

During the apparitions of Garabandal, Our Lady transmitted her love to her children from the land, through the familiar gesture of the kiss.

When we try to justify our disappointment and complexity of our lives it is common to find ourselves saying, "God's ways are not our ways," or we are always complaining using the expression, "This is not heaven, However, we see through the events of Garabandal, that sometimes God, His angels, and His saints use our ways. Sometimes there is a touch of Heaven on earth .. In Garabandal, Our Lady always had elevated She chose to make a bridge between the physical world and the spiritual world by making small gestures of tenderness that we could understand, and the most significant gestures of this tenderness were kisses, Our Lady strove to kiss the in the book of the priest Pelletier "Our Lady comes to Garabandal", we learn a lot about the kisses. already in July of 1961, Conchita already spoke about the voluntary and pleasing kisses that Our Lady applied on the objects, for questions of faith. But how did this practice begin? Pelletier, explains that the girls began by grabbing on stones to give to the Child Jesus, who appeared many times along with Our Lady.

Although the girls tried to entertain the Baby Jesus with the pebbles, He did not accept them. In response, Our Lady received the stones, kissed them, and gave instructions to distribute the stones to the people around. Conchita, emphasized that it was not Our Lady who began by performing this practice, but that they instinctively remembered to pick up stones to give to the Baby Jesus. From those moments the kisses in Garabandal began to be part of daily life . The people, after that, began to give religious objects, such as medals, rosaries, alliances, etc., to be kissed. So what became a simple coincidence turned out to be something wonderful.

Many times, Our Lady gave precise instructions on what objects she should kiss. In one apparition, Our Lady instructed one of the visionaries to give her a box of rice powder that was mixed with the other objects to kiss. Many of the people present at that time frowned when they saw the gesture of the seer collecting that box to be kissed by Our Lady. However, Our Lady asked for this object and said, "This belongs to My Son." Later on people came to know through the owner of the box, that box had served to bring the communion (consecrated Host), to the prisoners of the civil war of Spain.

In the final apparition, on November 13, 1965, Our Lady said that Jesus would perform miracles and prodigies through the objects that were kissed. Conchita said that all those who kissed these objects in faith would pass purgatory here on earth. What is more captivating, was the familiar love in the kisses given by Our Lady to the own seers. In fact, the visionaries came to have a kind of direct contact with Our Lady during several apparitions. The seers describe the experience of kissing the same way when they took the Baby Jesus in their arms. The girls felt physical resistance against their lips, even without feeling the presence of the skin.

The first kisses that took place between the seers and Our Lady was at the beginning of August 1961. After a brief appearance, the girls heard a strange voice, for small moments, moments that were accompanied by feelings of fear and darkness. The voice stopped and Our Lady was again seen by the girls, enveloped in light. He told the girls not to be afraid and for the first time, Our Lady kissed them one by one before leaving. The kisses became acts of comfort and consolation, peace and familiarity. After promulgating this gesture, they repeated themselves several times until the end of the apparitions of Garabandal. The girls were also getting up to each other to get to Our Lady for the usual farewell kisses. According to a book by Father Laffineur, the girls surprisingly never complained about physical contact with Our Lady. They asked Conchita if she felt the freshness of Our Lady. In response, Conchita lifted a lady's hand by her side and placed it in front of her mouth and eyes, but without really touching her mouth and eyes. She likened this closeness to what happened to the kisses between them and Our Lady. That's why she said, no, she did not feel the face. As Conchita said, "If we tried to lay our hands on Our Lady, we could not go any further, because she was there, but we felt nothing, even though she was right in front of us.

However, we understand that the girls made direct contact, but we can not explain it all in the form of sensitivity and earthly contacts. Regardless, the girls were always comforted, they were life-changing for all the people who received the kissed objects, and an inspiration for all of us who read about all this now. So, although the kiss was an earthy gesture, he played an important part in the spirit of Garabandal. The all-encompassing feeling behind kisses, is the amazing and wonderful way that Heaven has established to contact all of us with compassion and affection. What became an act of betrayal by the kiss of Judas in the New Testament, these gestures of the kisses in Garabandal, turned into signs of love and expression of affection.