DAVID CUEVAS C.
CRISTIAN PUIG
Updated Sunday, 27June2021-16: 02
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Plaza de España, in the heart of Avilés (Asturias).
Mari Cruz González
fulfills her daily routine of walking through the old town after dinner.
Most of the Avilians who come across her every day are unaware that 60 years ago this little 72-year-old woman revolutionized Spain and continues to do so in the United States with what she said, in the company of three other girls: they
had seen the Virgin herself María after going into a trance,
in a pine forest 154 kilometers from where she lives today.
He has
not made a statement to a journalist for 37 years
.
And she refuses to be photographed.
"I prefer to go unnoticed," he tells us.
Mari Cruz maintains her slim physique, sharp face, deep gaze, and large eyes. Although she is no longer that girl of the apparent miracle. Days before seeing the Virgin, on June 18, 1961, together with Conchita González, Mari Loli Mazón and Jacinta González, he
witnessed the appearance of an angel in San Sebastián de Garabandal
(Cantabria). In full ecstasy over the Marian apparitions, the Cantabrian girls walked backwards along steep roads or prayed the rosary in unison. That lasted until 1965.
Even today the pilgrimages to the place continue.
It happened 63 years after the apparitions of Lourdes and 44 of those of Fatima.
The Garabandal Center also survives from all that.
It moved millions
.
Created by the blind Joey Lomangino, it is an association that in the 70s had around
400 delegations in the US alone
, as well as offices in Europe, India, China, Japan, Malaysia, Russia, Australia or South Africa.
Mari Loli passed away in Massachusetts, Conchita resides in New York and Jacinta in California.
The three
emigrated to the country where they had the most media coverage they
had their visions.
Mari Cruz was the only one who stayed in Spain, where she married Ignacio Caballero in 1970. In her adoption Avilés, and in front of our recorder, Mari Cruz begins to remember ...
-I was 11 and they
were
12.
We were stealing apples
.
We were afraid of being caught and punished, because at that time everything was sin.
Especially if we were girls, because the boys did whatever they wanted.
We saw an angel with a kind of cape and a robe, he had long hair.
It was Saint Michael the Archangel.
He had a very pretty face.
He said nothing.
This is how I imagine it.
-What do you mean by imagining it?
Didn't you really see it?
-It is that in the end
you do not know if you are imagining it
or it really happened like that.
Maybe we have psyched it up.
-And how was the encounter with the Virgin three days later?
You went into a trance ...
-I imagine the Virgin in a white dress and a blue cloak.
Teenager, or a little older.
They said it was the Virgen del Carmen, but it was not.
He spoke little.
He had a calm voice.
-And he sent them a message on October 18, 1961 saying: «... We have to be very good.
If we don't, a punishment will come to us.
The cup is already being filled, and if we do not change,
a very great punishment will come to us
».
Which has not happened until now ...
-What do you mean?
To Covid?
-I think so.
Worse than what's happening ... I can't imagine it.
It came suddenly and everything stopped
.
It's a disaster.
There is no greater punishment than the fact of not being able to see your children, your grandchildren ...
-And you, some years later, left town ...
-I got married when I was 19 years old and I came to Avilés.
And there everything went wrong for me.
I had a terrible time because I didn't have anyone here, nor did anyone know me.
It was a very abrupt change.
That time, that of the apparitions, was the happiest of my life.
My happiest years, I spent there.
What I remember most is how much people loved us.
-Did you see the Virgin on more occasions during those four years?
- We
contacted her several times
.
There were more appearances.
-There are those who say that you were pressured by ecclesiastical entities after living your meetings ...
-It is not true.
They did not manipulate, on the contrary.
They were very cautious.
They interviewed us to find out what we had seen, but nothing more
.
The priest at that time was from the town, he read the sermon previously approved by the bishop.
He wasn't stupid, but he didn't have the intelligence to try to manipulate our testimony either.
And in the bishopric they did not pressure us at all.
They interviewed us, nothing more.
They sent a commission with a psychiatrist, the bishop's secretary, and a doctor.
They showed us
some drawings to find out what we were interpreting
.
And then we went to speak with Bishop Odriozola.
-Speaking of science people, some came to prick them during those ecstasies and they did not react ...
-That's true, yes.
When I was not in a trance and they were, I remember how they prodded them.
-There are iconic images in which you are seen, apparently in ecstasy, walking backwards on stony roads ...
-We were used to walking on those roads, which were very difficult.
It wasn't that weird, although people were struck by it.
That doesn't matter.
There was nothing supernatural about it.
-Did that have a negative impact on your environment?
-My mother suffered a lot with that.
She got very nervous.
He had to go to the doctor and everything, for stomach problems.
I asked him to prescribe something because, although he said that
I was not a lying child, what happened to me could be due to a medical issue.
-You came to declare on one occasion that you did not see the Virgin or the angel, that
everything had been contrived by Conchita
.
But in 2005, in a handwritten survey of mother María de las Nieves García, she said she said such a thing to please her mother because of said stomach problems ...
-I don't remember, really.
It may be that I said that many years ago, because my mother was wrong ...
-Have you returned to Garabandal?
-I usually go every summer.
-And do you speak with the pilgrims who go there?
-I do not speak with anybody.
When I go and they identify me, everyone asks me.
But I don't feel like retelling everything that happened.
-Do you have contact with the rest of the seers?
-Barely.
Jacinta goes frequently to Garabandal.
I don't know anything about Conchita.
He had a special relationship with her.
I haven't seen her since I got married, over 50 years ago
.
-And wouldn't you like to see them again?
-Not.
I prefer to keep the memory of all that.
-Have you seen the Virgin again?
-Not.
When I have a problem, no matter how small, I ask him for things.
But he does not grant them to me.
I say,
"Virgin, I need money," for example.
And nothing
(laughs).
I don't think it's a sin to ask for something like that.
-And what do you think of
Garabandal, God only knows,
the 2018 film that was made about you?
-I didn't see her.
Just looking at the promotional poster, I had enough.
They would put me in a shirt with a shirt collar, for God's sake!
I wore round neck dresses with lapels that my mother made for me, beautiful.
Her leaders invited me to see her, but I gave up.
-Do you consider yourself someone special after your Marian media contact?
-No way.
We all have our value, but I especially do not consider myself a reference to anyone.
After our talk, after almost two hours of walking, we said goodbye to someone who always wanted, and still wants, to go completely unnoticed.
Mari Cruz no longer appears to be the same girl who came into contact with supposedly heavenly entities 60 years ago.
Nor does it want to be.
But whatever really happened in Garabandal, it
seems that only they know.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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