THE APRON OF THE VIRGIN
On January 18, 1896, a girl of three years and three months was lost in Rojales, province of Alicante (Spain). The icy night came, and her parents, heartbroken with grief, went to the authorities. The news spread by word of mouth. The whole town mobilized. The young people, with lighted torches, toured the surroundings of the town and the neighboring mountain; but the little girl did not appear anywhere.
On the 19th, the surrounding towns were notified, and they all anxiously searched for the girl. The people hoped to find at least her corpse, supposing that she would not have resisted the cold of the raw night.
At three in the afternoon, some of her uncles, who were still searching, saw her lying on a projecting rock behind which there is a sheer cliff. The girl appeared to be dead. However, hearing the voice of her aunt and uncle, she got up and went to them with her little arms outstretched, as if she had woken up from a deep sleep. Her aunt, hugging her against her heart and crying with emotion, asked her:
Daughter, how could you bear this cold night?
If I haven’t been cold: well, a woman has been with me all night and she covered me with her apron, replied the girl, smiling.
The aunt with wide open eyes, continues asking:
But was a woman with you?
Yes aunt; a very good and affectionate woman.
What was that woman telling you? Didn’t you see the lights at night and hear our cries?
Yes, I heard them. But the woman told me: “Don’t move, my daughter, they’ll come looking for you”
The simple people of that town, excited by what they heard, shouted out of themselves: Miracle! Miracle!…
The next day a solemn mass of thanksgiving was celebrated. The girl was taken by her parents to the temple. While in it, her little restless eyes are fixed on an image of the Virgen del Carmen and, turning to her mother, she says with childish candor:
Mother! Mother!. That’s the woman who covered me with the apron.
This girl was about to fall off a cliff, because it was night and she could not be seen.
Then the Virgin, like a good mother, stayed with her next to that rock, so that, while the night lasted, she would not mistake her path and go to the opposite side of the precipice where there was a great abyss. That is why, when the girl heard the screams and saw the burning torches, the Virgin told her not to move, that they would come looking for her, because being in the dark and having the slope so close, she would have fallen down it without remedy.
Doesn’t it happen to us, that on some occasions, being desolate and in the dark, we don’t know where we are going?
The danger is that, being in the dark, if we allow ourselves to be guided, and believe that we can get out of that difficulty by our own strength, we are mistaken, because we go like a blind man to where our conscience leads us, which, in that moment walks in the dark, either because God wants it that way so that we can see our weaknesses or because we look for it, and so we can fall off a cliff and end up in sin. Saint Ignatius, in his Spiritual Exercises says: “In times of desolation, do not move” that is, let’s wait for those moments of despondency to pass, let’s not make decisions, which we later have to repent. Moments of peace and calm will come and we will see things clearly.
When we are in moments of desolation, let us place ourselves under the protection of our Mother, who covers us with her “apron” (the holy Scapular), and let us hear from her lips those words: Do not move…, they will come looking for you.
And as such an excellent Mother we have in heaven, let us meditate on the messages that in Fatima, Lourdes and so many places she left as advice, that no mother gives bad advice to her children, but very good ones, so that they follow the safe path and go straight to joy. eternal.
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