The twentieth century has been rich in reported apparitions of the mother of Jesus Christ. Apparitions of Christ’s mother have been reported on every continent on our globe. The seers have been people from many walks of life: men, women, and children. The locations where Marian apparitions have occurred are numerous: large cities, remote areas, caves, churches, fields, homes, monasteries, and other places.
The Catholic Church has prudently been cautious to approve, disapprove or condemn reported apparitions. In general, studied apparitions are classed as “not worthy of belief,” “not contrary to the Faith,” or “worthy of belief.” The message of an approved apparition cannot have any content that is contrary to the teachings of the Church. The Church takes Marian (and other) apparitions quite seriously, and only after great care and study deems a particular apparition as “worthy of belief.”
It is also important to note that a Catholic is free to dismiss those apparitions that have been approved by the church, since they all fall into the category of “private” revelation. Scripture and Tradition are the only two sources of religious truth required for assent by the believing Catholic.
The University of Dayton, administered by the Marist religious order, has assembled a list of apparitions entitled “Marian Apparitions of the Twentieth Century” giving the year, place, number of people involved, approval (or disapproval) of prayers and devotions at the site, and world-wide approval. The list begins in 1900 and ends in 2011. Several hundred reported apparitions are listed. Go tohttp://campus.udayton.edu/mary/resources/aprtable.html and scroll down below the introductory remarks to the list. The list does not indicate that the Vatican studies all reported cases. Of the 295 reported apparitions studied by the Holy See through the centuries only 12 have been approved.
An authentic apparition is believed not to be a subjective experience, but a real and objective intervention of divine power. The purpose of such apparitions is to recall and emphasize some aspect of the Christian message. The Church states that cures and other miraculous events that often are the aftermath of the apparitions are not the purpose of them, but exist primarily to validate and draw attention to the messages of prayer, repentance, reparation for sin, and conversion of sinners.
There are a few famous sites where the Church has given its blessing to apparitions as “worthy of belief.” Perhaps the most famous is Lourdes, France. In 1858, at age 14, the poverty-stricken, asthmatic Bernadette Soubirous saw a vision of a beautiful Lady in a grotto on the banks of the Gave River near Lourdes, France. Though Bernadette was despised, disbelieved, and harrassed by local French authorities, crowds began to gather when news spread and when she wouldn’t recant the story of her vision.
On 25 February, Bernadette was told to dig in in the earth, which she did (see picture below of the pool), but there, the healing waters of the now-famous Lourdes shrine were discovered where the Lady had appeared, and on 25 March, the Lady of the vision announced that she was the Immaculate Conception and that a church should be built at the site. Bernadette became a nun at Nevers, France and, suffering much from physical ailments, died young. Her body remains incorrupt at her convent to this day. My wife and I visited Lourdes a few years ago. It was a cool April morning. We arrived at the grotto well before sunrise. There were only a couple of others there. Below are pictures of the pool, the grotto area, and my wife filling up a container with Lourdes water.
Another famous series of apparitions deemed by the Church as “worthy of belief” were those given to Sr. Catherine Labouré in her Parisian convent in 1830, before the apparitions at Lourdes. On 27 November of that year, Catherine saw a vision of Mary holding a globe that, Mary told her, represented the world. The vision changed to Mary standing on a globe, rays of light streaming from her fingers, enframed in an oval frame inscribed with the words, “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” The whole vision “turned” showing the back of the oval inscribed with the letter “M” entwined with a Cross, and the hearts of Jesus and Mary, the former surrounded with thorns, the latter pierced with a sword. 12 stars circled this oval frame. Mary told her to strike a medal in this form, and that all who wore it after having it blessed would receive graces. This medal, seen below, has become one of the most commonly worn sacramentals in the Western Church and is known as the “Miraculous Medal.” At the time Our Lady appeared to Catherine in 1830, the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, although widely believed, was not a dogma required to be believed. Pope Pius IX is thought to have been influenced by the apparitions to Catherine in the rue du Bac when he decided to consult with the Church if the Immaculate Conception of Mary should be declared a dogma. He received overwhelming support and on December 8th 1854 declared Mary to have been free of sin from the moment of her conception. Four years later in 1858 Mary appeared to Bernadette at Lourdes and when asked who she was she replied, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
If you know French, the words surrounding the image translate to “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” The words “conceived without sin” describes the Immaculate Conception of Mary.
In the document Ineffabilis Deus of 8 December, 1854, Pope Pius IX pronounced and infallibly defined, according to Catholic teaching, that Mary ”in the first instance of her conception…was preserved exempt from all stain of Original Sin”.
St. Catherine Labouré’s body remains incorrupt to this day. My picture, taken a few feet away, is that of the saint.
Another famous series of apparitions “worthy of belief” occurred in Fatima, Portugal, in 1916.
In the Spring of 1916, on the back edge of WWI, before the Russian Revolution and when the world was beginning to spin even more wildly out of control, an angel appeared to 3 shepherd children at Fatima, Portugal. The angel, who called himself the Angel of Portugal, appeared three times, taught the children various prayers and entreated them to penance and to offering sacrifices to the Lord.
After these 3 appearances, a lull of 8 months went by. Then, in 1917, when Lucia was 10, Francisco was 9, and Jacinta was 7, Our Lady appeared to the children, asking them to return to that site on the 13th day of each month for the next 6 months. (She would come 6 times to all the children, and also later to Lucia alone.)
During the first apparition (13 May), Our Lady answered questions from the children about their fates. She said that they would all go to heaven.
During the second apparition, she told the children to pray what has become known as the “Fatima Prayer” during their Rosaries. When asked, she said that Francisco and Jacinta would be in Heaven soon, but that Lucia would stay to help bring people to Christ.
During the third apparition, three secrets were given to the children.
- First, they were shown a vision of Hell.
- Second, they were told of the “errors of Russia” and how they would spread throughout the world unless the world mended its ways. To that end, she called for penance and said that Russia should be consecrated to her Immaculate Heart by the Pope and the Bishops in union with him, and that the faithful should receive Communion of reparation in atonement for the sins of the world on the first Saturday of each month (the “First Saturdays” devotion). If these things aren’t done, Russia’s errors would spread, the Church will be persecuted, various nations will be annihilated, and the Holy Father will have much to suffer. She said, though, that in the end, her Immaculate Heart would triumph.
- The third secret was given to Lucia alone. There is some controversy about the secret. In a 1980 interview for the German magazine Stimme des Glaubens published in October 1981, John Paul II was asked explicitly to speak about the third secret. He said:
“Because of the seriousness of its contents, in order not to encourage the world wide power of Communism to carry out certain coups, my predecessors in the chair of Peter have diplomatically preferred to withhold its publication. On the other hand, it should be sufficient for all Christians to know this much: if there is a message in which it is said that the oceans will flood entire sections of the earth; that, from one moment to the other, millions of people will perish… there is no longer any point in really wanting to publish this secret message. Many want to know merely out of curiosity, or because of their taste for sensationalism, but they forget that ‘to know’ implies for them a responsibility. It is dangerous to want to satisfy one’s curiosity only, if one is convinced that we can do nothing against a catastrophe that has been predicted.” He held up his rosary and stated “Here is the remedy against this evil. Pray, pray and ask for nothing else. Put everything in the hands of the Mother of God.” Asked what would happen in the Church, he said: “We must be prepared to undergo great trials in the not-too-distant future; trials that will require us to be ready to give up even our lives, and a total gift of self to Christ and for Christ. Through your prayers and mine, it is possible to alleviate this tribulation, but it is no longer possible to avert it, because it is only in this way that the Church can be effectively renewed. How many times, indeed, has the renewal of the Church been effected in blood? This time, again, it will not be otherwise.”
Back to the Fatima apparitions…
Lucia, warned by her Bishop that the apparitions could be demonic, asked the Lady if she would tell them who she was and if she would perform a miracle to help prove to others that the visions were real. The Lady said she would.
Lucia, warned by her Bishop that the apparitions could be demonic, asked the Lady if she would tell them who she was and if she would perform a miracle to help prove to others that the visions were real. The Lady said she would.
During the 4th apparition, Our Lady gave the children instructions concerning the chapel which was to be built and reassured them of the miracle that would take place.
During the 5th apparition, she said that the promised miracle that all could see would take place during her next visit (on 13 October).
During the last apparition common to all the children, crowds gathered; around 70,000 people sloshed through the mud caused by the heavy rains that had fallen all night to see the promise fulfilled. Mary referred to herself as the “Lady of the Rosary,” mentioned again the chapel that would be built, and said the war would end soon. Suddenly, the dark clouds that obscured the sky parted, revealing the sun as a softly lit disk of spinning silver or an opalescent pearl shade. Thousands and thousands saw the sun spin, dance, throw off many different rays of color — red, yellow, purple, blue light coloring all they saw. Some swore they saw the sun crashing toward the earth. Even secular newspapers reported what happened with the sun and that one could witness the phenomenon without hurting one’s eyes. People who’d gone to the site to mock the children and the faithful found themselves in tears, staring at the sky in amazement, converted to Christ. Then Our Lady disappeared, and St. Joseph, holding the child Jesus, appeared to the children, blessing the world by signing the Cross in the air. This apparition went away, and then Christ and Mary (as Our Lady of Sorrows) appeared, Christ blessing the world as his step-father had done. Then Our Lady appeared alone again, only to Lucia’s eyes, as Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. After the miracle of the sun, the crowds saw that the muddy, wet fields and their clothing had dried.
Francisco and Jacinta died very young, as Our Lady said. They were beatified in 2000. Lucia joined the Carmelite Order as a nun. Sister Lucia died on February 13, 2005 at the age of 97 at her Carmelite convent in Coimbra, Portugal, after a long illness.
On a personal note, I believe hundreds of miracles, both physical and spiritual, have occurred at the many Marian sites around the world. For those who doubt or those who dismiss miracles, the Church, from which miracles spring, will stand despite attacks from the gates of Hell as Christ promised until his Second Coming. However, if one is a Catholic, miracles are part of one’s faith and the countless private testimonies, as well as Church approval, of them reinforces that belief.
