From the book “SECRETS, 15 women confess,” by journalist Juan José Montes, we extract, with the author’s permission, part of an interview in which a mother recounts her “conversion” of life through the mediation of Our Lady of Chandavila. “… What was that definitive experience that brought you closer to God? One night, it was August 13, I began to experience strong anxiety. I was awake until two in the morning. It was like when you have a premonition and a call to confession. I don’t know the reason. I got up, grabbed one of my husband’s books on confession, and spent about an hour and a half reading.
Moments in which I had misbehaved with people and with God flashed through my mind, prompting me to call my mother in Colombia the next morning to see if anything had happened. It was like a sixth sense, as we mothers say, but everything generated a strong need for confession. The next day, August 14, my husband, José María, invited me to visit a special place he knew: the Chandavila shrine in the town of La Codosera (Badajoz).
It is a shrine erected in 45 AD, following the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to some young girls under the title of Dolorosa. There is a tradition of celebrating Mass at this shrine on the night of August 14-15, the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady.
Before Mass, there were several priests hearing confessions. I was prejudiced against confessing to a priest I knew at the time. So I confessed to Don Francisco, a Codozeran priest. I closed my eyes and said, “Lord, I need to unburden myself of so much emptiness that occupies my life to fill myself with You. I will speak to this priest as if I were speaking to You.” I left very calm. That’s it, I’ve confessed! But that’s it. I participated in the following Mass, at 12 noon in that spectacular setting that brings great peace, on a beautiful starry night with very pleasant weather. Something happened during the Eucharist. Yes. It was at the moment of receiving Communion. I felt a very strange wind and cold, which caught my attention, but which I assumed everyone felt. I don’t know what happened that night, but the next day I had a feeling like I’d never had in my life. To give you an idea, I felt like I’d been reset. I’d forgotten everything. Look, such peace! Such tranquility! I couldn’t remember anything. Nothing mattered to me… I just wanted to be in front of the Virgin Mary praying.
After that event, I longed for the time of the Eucharist to arrive, to pray the Rosary. My husband thought something had happened to me. I didn’t want to leave after visiting the Blessed Sacrament; it was a necessity to be before God. I cried a lot, but I saw everything differently.
I had a peace that I would tell José María: “If right now they told me I was going to die, I would be happy, I would be happy.” It was a joy! All my worries, all of them, all of them, were over. Everything, everything, everything! I felt God’s forgiveness and love in the depths of my being. As I told you, it’s as if I were a computer that had been reset. I wasn’t interested in anything, only God. This world was nothing. How long did that gift, that little piece of Heaven on Earth, last? A week. During that week, I realized that many times we don’t want to realize it, but God is there and was giving me a new opportunity and was telling me: Girl, continue like this, bear witness, your family, your life, your children! I’m giving you a new chance to be happy! Faced with so much grace that overwhelmed me, I went to speak with the priest who had confessed to me, with Don Francisco, who told me it was a Marian conversion. A special grace from the Virgin Mary, which had meant so much in my life, and which, from that gift on, I had to continue because, as she told me, “the devil is a swine.” “You have returned to God, and now the devil won’t leave you alone. You have to keep confessing, you have to keep attending Mass, you have to keep praying. Now it’s up to you.” That stuck with me.
But it wasn’t the first time you went to Chandavila, right? No, I had been there before, but the time hadn’t come. It all happened after confession. I remember it was a very deep, calm confession, sitting before the priest, and I opened my life before God. From then on, I didn’t want to distance myself from God, I didn’t want to lose Him. I had gone to the sanctuary before, they told me to place whatever I wanted before the Virgin. But I didn’t ask for anything; I just said to the Lord: My God, fill me with your mercy, fill me with your mercy, make me come closer to you because I can’t see anything! I’ve already told you that I was distant from God and the Church. You’ve told me that, although that special grace of God lasted only for a week, special encounters with God continued in Chandavila during the following days. Yes, of course. I feel the urgent need to bring many families closer to the Virgin. Friends who need conversion. To serve as a guide, to accompany, and to explain the true encounter with Jesus. It’s like someone who keeps a great secret that they wish to share with those whom God places at their side. To teach them how to pray the Rosary…”
