The following event took place on January 31, 1906, in the town of Tumaco, belonging to the South American Republic of Colombia and situated on a very small island on the western side of that republic, washed by the Pacific Ocean. At that time the Reverend Father Friar Gerardo Larrondo de San José was serving there as missionary pastor, assisted in the care of souls by Father Friar Julián Moreno de San Nicolás de Tolentino, both Recollects.
It was almost ten o’clock in the morning when a terrifying earthquake began to be felt. It lasted so long that, according to Father Larrondo, it must not have been less than ten minutes, and it was so intense that it knocked all the images in the church to the ground. Needless to say, panic seized the town; everyone rushed in a crowd to the church and its surroundings, weeping and begging the fathers immediately to organize a procession and carry in it the images, which the people quickly placed on their respective platforms.
The fathers thought it more prudent to encourage and console their parishioners, assuring them that there was no reason for such horrible fright as had taken hold of everyone. The two fervent ministers of the Lord were occupied in this near the church when they noticed that, as an effect of that continuous shaking of the earth, the sea was moving away from the beach and leaving dry perhaps as much as a kilometer and a half of land that had previously been covered by the waters. At the same time the waters were piling up out at sea, forming a kind of mountain which, on descending in level, would become a formidable wave, probably burying beneath it or perhaps sweeping away completely the town of Tumaco, whose ground lies precisely below sea level.
Father Larrondo, then terrified, rushed into the church, went to the altar, and hurriedly consumed all the Hosts from the sacred ciborium, reserving only the large Host. Immediately afterward, turning toward the people, carrying the ciborium in one hand and Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in the other, he exclaimed: Let us go, my children, let us all go toward the beach, and may God have mercy on us. As if electrified by the presence of Jesus and by the imposing attitude of his minister, they all went forth weeping and crying out to His Divine Majesty to have mercy on them. The scene must surely have been one of the most tender and moving imaginable, for Tumaco was a town of many thousands of inhabitants, all of whom were there, with all the terror of a tragic death already engraved beforehand on their faces. The images from the church, carried on shoulders, also accompanied the Divine Savior, though the fathers had not ordered it, but only through the irresistible impulse of the faith and confidence of that fervently Christian people.
Little time had passed when Father Larrondo was already on the beach, and that mountain formed by the waters was beginning to move toward the mainland; the waters advanced like an impetuous flood, with no earthly power capable of resisting that overwhelming wave, which in an instant threatened to destroy the town of Tumaco.
The fervent Recollect, however, was not intimidated. Rather, he went down courageously to the sand and, placing himself within the ordinary reach of the waters, at the very moment when the wave was already arriving and the terror and anxiety of the multitude had reached their highest point, raised the Sacred Host with firm hand and a heart full of faith before the eyes of all, and with it traced the sign of the Cross in the air. Solemn moment! Terribly sublime spectacle! The wave advanced one step more and, without touching the sacred ciborium, which remained raised, came crashing against the minister of Jesus Christ, the water reaching him only to the waist. Father Larrondo had scarcely realized what had just happened to him when he heard first Father Julián, who was at his side, and then the whole people together, exclaiming as if mad with emotion: Miracle! Miracle!
Indeed, as if driven by an invisible power superior to every power of nature, that wave had instantly been restrained, and the enormous mountain of water that threatened to wipe the town of Tumaco from the face of the earth began to move backward and disappear out to sea, returning to its ordinary level and natural balance.
The reader can already understand how great must have been the joy and holy rejoicing of that people, whom Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament had just delivered from an inevitable and horrible catastrophe.
Tears of terror were followed by tears of deepest joy; cries of anguish and discouragement were followed by cries of gratitude and praise, and from every side and from every breast resounded thunderous cheers for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
Father Larrondo then ordered that the monstrance be brought from the church and, placing the Sacred Host in it, immediately organized a most solemn procession, which went through the streets and outskirts of the town, until His Divine Majesty entered again, with all pomp and splendor, into his holy temple, from which he had so poorly and hastily departed moments before.
Since the said earthquake did not take place only in Tumaco, but along a large part of the Pacific coast, because of the great damage and upheavals caused in other points of the coast—less exposed than Tumaco to being destroyed by the sea—by that wave which had been repelled at Tumaco, one can calculate the importance of the benefit that Jesus granted to that Christian people. Since, as we have said, their town lay below sea level, it would probably have disappeared with all its inhabitants. Here is what, in a letter we have before us, the Reverend Father Friar Bernardino García de la Concepción, who was then in the city of Panama, tells us about this: “In Panama the tide was at its lowest ebb, and suddenly (I saw it myself) the high tide came in and overflowed the port, entering the market and carrying off all kinds of crates; the small boats that were on dry land were thrown a great distance, and there were many misfortunes”.
The event of Tumaco had very great resonance in the world, and people from several European nations wrote to Father Larrondo, asking him for an account of what had happened.
Author: Fr. Pedro Corro, in “Augustinians Lovers of the Sacred Eucharist”.
Source: Web Católico de Javier
