A Time of Hope - December 2019

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This website describes the events that took place in San Sebastián de Garabandal in Cantabria, Spain, starting in 1961. We do not intend to supplant the definitive judgment regarding the events that took place in Garabandal. Such judgment belongs to the authority of the Catholic Church alone, to which we submit ourselves.

December 2019

Dear friends,
Once again we enter into this time of Advent. The Virgin Mary has a special place in this Advent journey: she helps us prepare our hearts for the coming of her Son. She teaches us to hope in the promises of God and shows us that our response to His promise must be like hers: "fiat."
In a general audience, in which Benedict XVI speaks of Mary's faith, he tells us: “we encounter patches of light, but we also encounter stretches in which God seems absent, when his silence weighs on our hearts and his will does not correspond with ours, with our inclination to do as we like. However, the more we open ourselves to God, welcome the gift of faith and put our whole trust in him — like Abraham, like Mary — the more capable he will make us, with his presence, of living every situation of life in peace and assured of his faithfulness and his love.”(Pope Benedict XVI in the General Audience of December 19, 2012).
Something that we can imitate in Mary is the disposition to keep and meditate in our heart all the mysteries and that which we may not understand. She teaches us not to consider them superficially, but to deepen, to take him to prayer, and in the end to throw ourselves into faith and trust in God.
May we live this advent with our eyes fixed on Mary, our teacher, our Mother.
God bless you
Team garabandal.it

Marian Thought for December

This month's Marian thought comes from S. Paul VI's apostolic exhortation Marialis Cultus.

José María Pemán and Garabandal

Román Martínez del Cerro witnessed the apparitions of San Sebastián de Garabandal for eleven days of July 1962. His father, Miguel Martínez del Cerro, was a good friend of the prestigious Spanish writer José María Pemán, cultivator of every literary genres. Roman tells us in this article the moment in which his father relayed to José María Pemán the experience he had in Garabandal.
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