God continues to reveal Himself to individuals "not indeed for the declaration of any new doctrine of faith, but for the direction of human acts" (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II q174 a6 reply 3). This post is a continuation from the last: Apparitions, Locutions, and Ecstasies. In it I failed to make the explicit connection between private revelation and prophecy; which I will do here.
"No one is obliged to believe in a recognized apparition, even Lourdes and Fatima which received the best guarantees. An apparition does not have as its function, the promotion of a new dogma, but to awaken the faith, charity, and especially hope. Thomas Aquinas stressed these points, and that the function of apparitions is essentially prophetic." [Laurentin, Rene. (1990). An Appeal From Mary In Argentina. Page 127, Milford, OH: Faith Publishing Company]
The above explanations serve to capture the essential characteristic of what private revelation is meant to accomplish. Properly discerned, it never threatens or contends with the 'Deposit of Faith'. This 'prophetic call' serves as an awakening or challenge to live the gospel more energetically where it is lackluster or dying. Ideally, we receive prophecy as a booster shot that arouses our awareness of spiritual matters.
Most of us find it rather easy to view this as the role of prophecy when we encounter it at a distance in Sacred Scripture. The detachment of time and space makes it easier to see the working of the living God among his people…but what of now? What is our expectation of ongoing prophecy? Has it ended with the passing of the last Apostle? If we understand the role of true apparitions and other private revelation as prophetic calls to resurrect our spiritual journey; to guide us into repentance, reparation, and renewal; we will not feel so threatened. We should rejoice that God chooses to speak anew to all generations.
The Church seems to accept the gift of prophecy with a prudent eye, which is for our benefit. Prophecy seems challenging and demanding partly because we often receive it when we are most complacent or wayward. This helps to explain why it is so often ignored or rejected. In addition to this (to use a modern analogy) our 'communication system' is so easily 'hacked' with fraud and deception; which is why careful discernment remains always in play. There seems to be no lack of false 'volunteer' prophets who want to insert their own message or vision into the mix. (Obedience to the Church, over and above any 'message', is paramount in avoiding confusion.)
"The apparitions are only episodes and particular facts in the life of the Church. They are not at all the essential, as are the Gospel and the Sacraments, dogmas and charity. They are a contribution, a stimulant to the faith and especially to hope, as we have seen. Particular attractions and devotions are left to the discernment of each one in the Church, which is a place of freedom. Christians adhere to them according to their affinities, and especially according to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit." [ibid. pg. 130]
This "place of freedom" mentioned above (as in all true freedom) does carry its responsibility for authentic discernment of the prophetic call. To discern is not to ignore and it would be a very poor excuse to close our hearts to any awakening of faith, hope and love. In other words, we should avoid such harsh skepticism that we preclude all possibility of opening our hearts to a surge of grace even in our own time.
Any 'prophetic call' can appear as both gift and admonition, simultaneously. Often it is met with resistance or ambivalence as it takes time for each of us to sort through our own conflicts and obstacles in our journey to God. We can and should hear 'the message' both on the individual level and again as a single body, 'the people of God'. We move together, for the most part, since we are united as a mystical body in communion with our Savior. Yet, in our freedom to respond to these prophetic calls, the 'seer' is aided by grace to act in singular accord if necessary, (sometimes the prophet stands alone) to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in announcing or accomplishing God's will.
It does seem that the prophetic call can be directed to a specific or limited audience. Perhaps a religious founder hears a call to 'get moving' and accomplish a specific task for the Kingdom (think of the beginnings of many religious orders). Perhaps a whole nation can be called to renewal, as seems the case in San Nicolas, Argentina. Some even appear to be worldwide calls to awakening of the faith, as in Lourdes and Fatima. But importantly, the faithful Catholic should remain open to the possibility of hearing a prophetic call even in our current age.
To Awaken Faith, Hope, and Charity
Apparitions, Locutions, and Ecstasies
Some two and a half decades ago I began to recover my faith after a dozen or so years of depriving myself of the sacraments. As part of this process of faith recovery I was led to an elderly widow who was regarded as 'holy and pious'. She was surrounded by a circle of friends who gathered regularly at her home in prayer. I will call her 'Mrs. M'. I was new in my 'reversion' and had accompanied a friend who was seriously ill at the time; he was looking for healing. Here's an extract from the epilogue to an earlier post when I spoke of this period:
We began to pray for healing and in doing so we
reached out to people who were truly devout and walking in the ways of the Lord.
We visited the home of one poor elderly widow, who I was told, had a 'bleeding
stature of St. Theresa of Liseux'. I saw the small statue of pewter with dried
blood but never saw a bleeding event. But the bleeding mystery became moot as
the genuine Christian love and concern of the widow and her companions for
desperate pilgrims spoke more powerfully than any statue could. These were the
earthly communion of saints who filled this holy widow's home - who truly
believed in the love of God - and they prayed for my friend – and they prayed
for me.
We went a number of times and I was shown another article of devotion; it was a copy of an image or painting as depicting our Lord's tortured body at his crucifixion. It showed the horribly scourged body of Jesus as seen in a private revelation by a mystic. The picture was not like any artwork I had seen and might have resembled the later depiction given in Mel Gibson's movie 'The Passion of the Christ'. Mrs. M took the image to be a true reflection of what our Savior's body looked like at that dreadful moment. No one could look upon the image without a sobering realization of what that sorrowful day involved. I had no reason to doubt any of this and I accepted them on her testimony and faith.
As I re-read my own comment I am struck by my trouble-free acceptance of the bleeding statue. I simply did not have any desire to challenge such a claim. The mystical picture could be easily explained either as a true supernatural gift of revelation or a devout meditation that supplanted true reality with a pious imagination. Either way it wasn't harmful to anyone's faith. But the issue of the statue was another matter; here I was dealing with a claim of the supernatural with physical manifestation. I did see what appeared as dried blood that had streamed down the small pewter figure. Yet I felt that the statue was almost reserved for those non-curious souls who weren't threatened or upset by such things.
Besides this, the statue's 'owner' appeared clearly well balanced and she herself continued to strive for sanctity and a holy life. Finally I noticed that my faith life grew steadily and in a healthy fashion; something which I always associated with this initial encounter of intercessory prayer and devotion. So if my faith was growing, why should I question the validity of supernatural claims, especially since they seemed almost irrelevant? None of this is isolated; indeed it's quite common in Catholic circles: apparitions, locutions, ecstasies, and bleeding or weeping statues.
All of this came to a head recently as I offered to re-do new brochures that are used to promote The Fatima devotion: Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. As I was researching and updating the brochure I stumbled across one particular author's claim, that some of the recent apparitions (Garabandal and Medjugorje in particular), were not authentic apparitions. The woman who leads our First Saturday devotion was highly attuned to most of the Marian devotions and gently told me that she was very much drawn to Garabandal and loaned me some books to investigate. Meanwhile I mentioned this also to my wife's aunt who has traveled to Medjugorje. To my surprise she told how she and others had seen the Blessed Virgin surrounded by a rainbow of colors while looking up at the sun. She insisted that this was not some vague image or shape but a very clear image seen by her and others while staring directly at the sun with no pain or damage to her eyes. This was more than a decade ago and each and every day she looks to the sky hoping to see the Blessed Virgin again.
I have generally accepted private revelations with little resistance as long as they contain nothing contrary to the Faith. I have often had my own faith in 'public revelation' (which is what we call 'the deposit of faith') bolstered by a new or renewed understanding. Beyond that, these revelations, locutions or ecstasies bring out the reality of having to put one's faith into practice NOW, rather than treating it as some intellectual musing. Since belief in 'private revelation' is not binding (even those apparitions declared authentic by the Church) it is sometimes viewed as unimportant to our faith. In my humble opinion, this is a mistake. We have to ask the obvious question: If God does allow for such prophetic communication, should it be ignored?
I'd like to take another post to reflect on that very question.
