During the apparitions witnessed by little Francisco he only saw the Angel and Our Lady, unable to hear what they said. But this was enough to develop his vocation and his specific role within the set of apparitions.  

With his eyes focussed only on the light that he was able to see, he lived marvelled at the beauty of God and the Lady. Subsequently, helped by his sister and cousin’s explanations of the words of the Angel and Our Lady, he then pierces the experience of the Mystery of God: “we were burning in that light which is God, yet we were not consumed. What is God like!!! It is impossible to say! That, we can never say”(MIL 145).

 

And even though he might never have found the right words to say to God, he was perhaps the one who better understood and penetrated His mystery. In fact, Francisco allowed himself to be so intensely invaded by God, that immersing in the Divine presence in adoration, he found in God the beauty and the purpose of his life, he learnt perfect worship. (Cf. Mt 21:16)

 

From his own experience of the compassionate love of God for all human beings and conscious that humanity so often chooses to wander from God, an intense feeling to correspond to this divine love grows in Francisco, consoling the One he called the Hidden Jesus. The witness we have that all he  “wanted (was) to console Him” (MIL 145) reveals to us a child of intense contemplative prayer, whose only concern was to intimately live a relation of friendship with God.

 

  This friendship is nurtured by the silence of the Aire Mountains, leading Francisco to “think of God”, “how beautiful He was” and “how sad He was”, and how he longed to give Him joy; it is nurtured by the endless hours in Eucharistic adoration in a corner of the parish church, before the Blessed Sacrament, learning from Jesus the way to live life as gift; it is renewed in the rosary prayer, so many that he prayed, taking comfort in the arms of his Mother, allowing himself to be transformed by Her heart centred in the Son, Jesus. In the simplicity of this silent surrender we narrate the story of the contemplative loving gaze of Francisco, and the touch with which the mystery of God converts his life into light for others.