'Yes, it was. She had to live through prison, humiliation, and discredit. He must have described that to you. He must have told you the words of the visitation.'
'Some of them.'
'In the visitations at Lourdes, the phrases uttered by Our Lady wouldn't fill half a page of a notebook, but one of the things the Virgin said clearly to the girl was
I looked at the sun, the snow, and the bare branches of the trees.
'He is a revolutionary,' he continued, sounding humble. 'He has the power, and he converses with Our Lady. If he is able to concentrate his forces well, he can be one of the leaders in the spiritual transformation of the human race. This is a critical point in the history of the world.
'But if he chooses this path, he is going to go through a great deal of suffering. His revelations have come to him before their time. I know the human soul well enough to know what he can expect.'
The padre turned to me and held me by the shoulders. 'Please,' he said. 'Keep him from the suffering and tragedy that lie in store for him. He will not be able to survive them.'
'I understand your love for him, Padre.'
He shook his head. 'No, no. You don't understand anything. You are still too young to know the evils of the world. At this point, you see yourself as a revolutionary too. You want to change the world with him, open new paths, see the story of your love for each other become legend—a story passed down through the generations. You still think that love can conquer all.'
'Well, can't it?'
'Yes, it can. But it conquers at the right time after the celestial battles have ended.'
'But I love him. I don't have to wait for the celestial battles to end for my love to win out.'
He gazed into the distance.
'On the banks of the rivers of Babylon, we sat down and wept,' he said, as if talking to himself. 'On the willows there, we hung up our harps.'
'How sad,' I answered.
'Those are the first lines of one of the psalms. It tells of exile and of those who want to return to the promised land but cannot. And that exile is still going to last for a long time. What can I do to try to prevent the suffering of someone who wants to return to paradise before it is time to do so?'
'Nothing, Padre. Absolutely nothing.'
'There he is,' said the padre.
I saw him. He was about two hundred yards from me, kneeling in the snow. He was shirtless, and even from that distance, I could see that his skin was red with the cold.
His head was bowed and his hands joined in prayer. I don't know if I was influenced by the ritual I had attended the night before or by the woman who had been gathering hay, but I felt that I was looking at someone with an incredible spiritual force. Someone who was no longer of this world—who lived in communion with God and with the enlightened spirits of heaven. The brilliance of the snow seemed to strengthen this perception.
'At this moment, there are others like him,' said the priest. 'In constant adoration, communing with God and the Virgin. Hearing the angels, the saints, the prophecies and words of wisdom, and transmitting all of that to a small gathering of the faithful. As long as they continue in this way, there won't be a problem.
'But he is not going to remain here. He is going to travel the world, preaching the concept of the Great Mother. The church is not yet ready for that. And the world has stones at hand to hurl at those who first introduce the subject.'
'And it has flowers to throw on those who come afterward.'
'Yes. But that's not what will happen to him.'
The priest began to approach him.
'Where are you going?'
'To bring him out of his trance. To tell him how much I like you. To say that I give my blessing to your union. I want to do that here, in this place, which for him is sacred.'
I began to feel sick with an inexplicable fear.
'I have to think, Padre. I don't know if this is right.'
'It's not right,' he answered. 'Many parents make mistakes with their children, thinking they know what's best for them. I'm not his father, and I know I'm doing the wrong thing. But I have to fulfill my destiny.'
I was feeling more and more anxious.
'Let's not disturb him,' I said. 'Let him finish his contemplation.'
'He shouldn't be here. He should be with you.'
'Maybe he's communicating with the Virgin.'
'He may be. But even so, we have to go to him. If I approach him with you at my side, he will know that I have told you everything. He knows what I think.'
'Today is the day of the Immaculate Conception,' I insisted. 'A very special day for him. I saw his happiness last night at the grotto.'
'The Immaculate Conception is special for all of us,' the padre answered. 'But now I'm the one who doesn't want to discuss religion. Let's go to him.'
'Why now, Padre? Why at this moment?'
'Because I know that he is deciding his future. And he may make the wrong choice.'
I turned away and began to walk down the same path we had just come up. The padre followed me.
'What are you doing? Don't you see that you're the only one who can save him? Don't you see that he loves you and would give up everything for you?'
I hurried my steps, and it was difficult for him to keep up. Yet he fought to stay at my side.
'At this very moment, he is making his decision! He may be deciding to leave you! Fight for the person you love!'
But I didn't stop. I walked as fast as I could, trying to escape the mountains, the priest, and the choices behind me. I knew that the man who was rushing along behind me was reading my thoughts and that he understood that it was useless to try to make me go back. Yet he insisted; he argued and struggled to the end.
Finally, we reached the boulder where we had rested a half hour earlier. Exhausted, I threw myself down.
I tried to relax. I wanted to run from there, to be alone, to have time to think.
The padre appeared a few minutes later, as exhausted as I was.
'Do you see these mountains surrounding us?' he started in. 'They don't pray; they are already a part of God's prayers. They have found their place in the world, and here they will stay. They were here before people looked to the heavens, heard thunder, and wondered who had created all of this. We are born, we suffer, we die, and the mountains endure.
'There is some point at which we have to wonder whether all our effort is worth it. Why not try to be like those mountains—wise, ancient, and in their place? Why risk everything to transform a half-dozen people who will immediately forget what they've been taught and move on to the next adventure? Why not wait until a certain number of monkeys learn, and then the knowledge will spread, with no suffering, to all the other islands?'
'Is that what you really think, Padre?'
He was silent for a few moments.
'Are you reading my thoughts now?'
'No. But if that's the way you feel, you wouldn't have chosen the religious life.'
'I've tried many times to understand my fate,' he said. 'But I haven't yet. I accepted that I was to be a part of God's army, and everything I've done has been in an attempt to explain to people why there is misery, pain, and injustice. I ask them to be good Christians, and they ask me, 'How can I believe in God when there is so much suffering in the world?'
'And I try to explain something that has no explanation. I try to tell them that there is a plan, a battle among the angels, and that we are all involved in the battle. I try to say that when a certain number of people have enough
