Young Joey Lomangino and St. Pio
I just read Joey Lomangino died.
I met him when I lived as a pilgrim, in Portugal. He was devoted to Our Lady and believed in the apparitions of Garabandal. I visited Garabandal the year I met Joey - though we met at Fatima. Please pray with me for him. He was a very kind man.
Joey was included in the message of Garabandal. He was promised that he would live to see the miracle, that his eyesight would be restored. He in turn was a great promoter of the apparitions. The 'style' of the apparitions was unusual due to the signs demonstrated there, although for me they resembled the phenomenon of Medjugorje. Medjugorje grabbed public attention and attracted a greater following of course - but I think that happened because of its appeal to Charismatic Catholics. Garabandal tended to be accepted by more traditionally minded Catholics. Each is promoted as a continuation of Fatima, each promises a sort of warning and sign to be left, and so on.
Mr. Lomangino spread devotion to Our Lady and did much good in his life. He also lived in anticipation of the promised miracle and sign, hoping for a cure - but I doubt his devotion was limited to those promises. It is said St. Pio was told he would see the miracle before death as well. Rumor has it he saw it in a vision before he died. We don't know these things.
It is fine to believe in such phenomena, if they help inspire and perfect our faith - but we have to be so wary of taking private revelations literally and at face value - God's ways are not our ways and we must await the Church's decision regarding the authenticity of such events - or at least a decision that the messages are not contrary to faith. If these things bring about reformation of life and devotion - fidelity to Catholic faith - they have accomplished a great deal.
May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
One of the more troubling images from Garabandal.
Two of the seers in ecstasy.
I went on a Pilgrimage that included Garabadal, somewhere between Fatima and Lourdes. It was a very unsettling place where I felt the presence of evil in the form of a man who appeared at the end of The Stations of the Cross in the Pines, sneering, and saying strange things while pretending to befriend our little group. I stayed in the room with a debilitating migraine for two days until we left. I would never recommend anyone go. That said, I thought Joey was a sincere, pious man and I loved to hear him speak about his love for Our Lady. I pray he is gazing at the Face of God this day.
ReplyDeleteI stayed at Garabandal awhile - I spent the night in a house owned by one the seer's family - I think. A French guy had the upper floor and they let me stay there. It was very 'country' and simple - but beautiful. My experience was peaceful yet non-eventful. I didn't get a sense of evil or anything unsettling - the parish church had a notice from the bishop saying nothing supernatural could be determined to have happened there - or something to that effect. I know the place attracted Marian enthusiasts - apparition trailers as I called them - sort of strange pilgrims who make the rounds of the purported apparitions. It was there that I met a guy who claimed to have compiled the Pieta Prayerbook.
DeleteAnyway - I left not knowing what to think. It's a beautiful place however. I think I was preconditioned to view it favorably since the local Carmelites here regarded the events as authentic. Whether it is authentic or not , the message of warning and chastisement took on a life of its own and influenced every other claimed apparition since then.
I wish my experience there had been peaceful. It is a beautiful villiage. Maybe it was case of "Where the Lord builds a temple, the devil pitches a tent." That scary guy and a few other incidents with pilgrims yelling a screaming at eachother about what is a legitimate scapular, gave me a negative impression.
DeleteLOL! I think that would discredit the place for me. I've run into those people over the years as well. Even priests who dispute what a legitimate scapular is.
DeleteBorn in the Spain, raised in a convent school and in the Catholic Church and spend summer very near-since some relatives came from the area and ...why had I never heard of Garabandal until I found information on the web ????
ReplyDeleteThat is strange. On my way to the place, I met people in San Sebastian who never heard about it either.
DeleteThe place itself is beautiful..though the whole story is strange and has "bad vibes." The girls acted more like the girls from Salem (besides the pointing of fingers and screaming witch) then any other of the people involved in other "visions." ...i.e. they put on shows and played "tricks." for the ever expanding crowds. I don't know if its something sinister or if it was just some weird thing the girls cooked up and it took on a life of its own, so much so they even believed it themselves. But I don't really believe in Fatima...(strange that so much of these visionary experiences are in villages that are perfect storms for things like this, steeped in both Catholicism and superstition, and they almost always involve adolescent girls...(with the exception sometimes of a younger brother.) Though this place is fascinating and creepy when you see the videos of the girls running backwards and looking very creepy elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteJoey from all accounts was a gentle soul who did a great deal of good work in his life. I think the lesson from this is that God can take some weird side show and produce good works. May he rest in peace..the world would be better with more people like Joey in it.
Mack - you were a big follower of Bayside weren't you? Did you have a blue beret? Haha! How is it you know so much about these things?
DeleteLOL...its something called Google! I actually knew nothing about Bayside until I just looked it up..cant wait to read about it.
DeleteI just think this stuff is interesting..I love history and spooky things, and did a paper on the Salem Witch Trials in college and first noticed the connection of a group of adolescent girls having visions, and how they become the center of a community attention, with the "modern age," Marian sightings. I am not saying they are all fakes, I just think its interesting. I love the Big G as the girls are especially creepy and really, really are similar to Salem...(in Salem the girls would all stare at a certain point in the room and see things and have fits, and almost seem to levitate and produce "things," in their hands. ) I think they faked it, got attention, then kind of went crazy and began to believe it themselves.
Joey I think was an innocent victim of this whole thing. In one case it is sad that he was led to believe there was going to be a miracle that never happened, but the flipside of that is that Joey never lost faith and did good things so God worked something in spite of little crazy girls desperate for attention.
My partner's dad is from Spain with many relatives still living in the beautiful mountains.
Thanks Terry, now I have to wait until tonight to get more information on my new favorites seer, Ms. Veronica Lueken! I mean, how can't you love a seer who would actually wear one of my Mom's bad rain hats when "communing with the infinite!"
DeleteI definitely believe the Fatima apparitions and Lourdes - but the others I'm just not sure. I never thought of Garabandal as something similar to Salem - that's interesting.
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