Pulmonary (Lung) Cure (Paquita de Garay)
A Pulmonary Cure
Reprinted with kind permission from GARABANDAL JOURNAL July-August 2005
Excerpted from Los MILAGROS o FAVORES DE NUESTRA MADRE DE GARABANDAL by Maria Josefa Villa de Gallego Translated from Spanish by Dr. Edward Serrano
On December 20, 1995,1 was admitted into a hospital clinic in serious condition. After the preliminary examination, I said to the doctor when he came to my room: “They tell me the right lung is the bad one.” He replied: “The entire right lung is filled with water and half the left.” I thought to myself: “People die from this!”
For many years, I wore a crucifix from a rosary that in 1961 had been kissed by the Virgin at Garabandal during an ecstasy in the kitchen of Mari Loli’s house. Realizing the seriousness of my condition, I crossed myself [with the cross] three times every day while saying at the same time: “Blessed Virgin, if it be God’s will that I continue living, intercede before your Father, Son and Spouse so that the promise you made at Garabandal (“Through the kiss I bestow on these objects, my Son will perform prodigies.”) will be fulfilled.
The first days went very badly; I had absolutely no desire to eat. They gave me such a mountain of medication that only with great effort could I take anything else.
But each day I got a little better until December thirtieth, just ten days from being admitted, I was discharged. Before I left, the doctor said to me: “I would like to know, because of the seriousness of your condition, how you healed so quickly.” “Because many people were praying for me,” I replied. This was the only explanation I gave him because I didn’t know if he was Catholic.
Paquita Manueco de Garay, right, with Mari Loli, husband Frank and children in Garabandal in the 1980s.
On the day of my discharge, my daughter came to pick me up in her car to take me home. When we got to the house, she said: “Get ready because all of us (all fifteen between sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren) are going out to eat at a restaurant.” It was another way of her saying that we weren’t going to spoil the family reunion that we usually have on such occasions.
When they saw how well I ate with such a good appetite, they were amazed. To put it another way, I was totally cured without a single day of convalescence. In this case it was also obvious that the Virgin had heard my prayers and healed me.
It was because my friend Pilar Alonzo went to Garabandal in 1961 that I have this crucifix. At the time, not many knew about the apparitions and only four or five people were in the kitchen [of Loli’s house] when Pilar said to the visionary: “I left those two rosaries on the table so that when the Virgin comes you can hold them up for her to kiss.” Mari Loli fell into ecstasy in front of Pilar, grabbed the rosaries, and held them up to the Virgin.
Whenever I would meet with Pilar, who has since died, we would speak a great deal about Garabandal, and it was on those occasions that she would tell me what is mentioned in the preceding paragraph. It had been when she saw my enthusiasm for the apparitions that she gave me the crucifix, taken from one of the kissed rosaries, which cured my lungs. I have worn it for many years and wouldn’t take it off for anything.
— Paquita Manueco de Garay, Valladolid, Spain
Reprinted with kind permission from GARABANDAL JOURNAL July-August 2005
