Apparitions of the Virgin Mary

Listen carefully to what I say to you and inform your superior
If humanity does not repent and improve, the Eternal Father will allow a terrible punishment to befall all humankind
This punishment will be worse than the flood or any that has ever been seen before
A fire will fall from the sky and annihilate large numbers
Neither priests nor the faithful will be spared
The survivors will be in such desolation they will envy the dead
Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa

A Marian apparition is a supernatural appearance of Mary, the mother of Jesus, as perceived by a person or persons. Mary must be present in the environment, not in a dream or in the imagination, and seen, not just heard. The Catholic Church follow strict criteria to determine whether a Marian apparition is genuine, and reject the vast majority of claims, but considers some to be genuine appearances of the Virgin Mary.

According to tradition, the first apparition of the Virgin Mary was in 40 CE when the Apostle James claimed he saw Mary in Zaragoza, Spain. Few visionaries have been such eminent characters, and most have been simple peasants, children or teenagers. It may be that these people are more receptive to these apparitions, or chosen because their inexperience and lack of education means they are less likely to influence or embellish the message.

In some cases the recipients of the vision do not associate the apparition with the Virgin Mary, instead simply reporting that they saw a woman. A notable example of this was Bernadette Soubirous, who set the standard by which the Church assesses the recipients as to how accurately they deliver their message.

Bernadette refused to accept that the woman she saw was the Virgin Mary despite the fact that she referred to herself as the Immaculate Conception. When a priest tried to explain to Bernadette that this meant the woman was the Virgin Mary, she replied, ‘no, I saw a young woman who said she was the Immaculate Conception, not the Virgin Mary.’

A common feature in all the Marian apparitions is that the woman speaks the same language, and appears to be of the same race, as the visionary. Despite this she is invariably identified as the Virgin Mary by the Church, a Jewish woman who probably spoke Aramaic. Most visionaries identify her as the Virgin Mary too, but they have all been Catholic or lived in a Christian country. In another era she might have been associated with a pagan Goddess such as Cybele or Astarte. Whatever she is, she is clearly supernatural, and beyond the ability of current science to explain. For want of a better name I will call her Mary.

The woman rarely refers to herself as the Virgin Mary, but identifies herself as such by using phrases like the ‘holy mother of the true God’, the ‘Immaculate Conception’, the ‘Lady of the Rosary’, and the ‘Mother of the Word.’ These titles all echo Catholic dogma, so, considering that most of the recipients have been Catholic, she may have used these terms to help them feel at ease. Seeing an apparition of a supernatural entity would be rather unsettling.

In the majority of cases the apparitions are only visible to a select few. An exception to this was the apparitions at Zeitoun in Egypt where, according to local legend, Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus had sheltered after fleeing from King Herod. In 1918 a businessman named Khalil had a dream in which the Virgin Mary asked him to build a church in Zeitoun. Mary promised Khalil that if he did she would return in 50 years to bless the church, so he built it and called it the Church of Saint Mary.

On April 2, 1968, 50 years after Khalil’s dream, an image appeared on the roof of the Church. During the next three years thousands of people, including Egyptian President Gamal Nasser, saw an image hovering over the Church in Zeitoun. Although only vaguely human shaped, the image would last for several hours, and was sometimes accompanied by dove-shaped luminous bodies. Photographs were published in newspapers and footage shown on Egyptian television.

The first person to see the apparition was a Muslim labourer called Atwa, who thought it was a woman about to commit suicide. He pointed to her with a heavily bandaged hand and shouted for her to wait in an attempt to stop her from jumping. When he attended a medical clinic the next day to have his gangrenous finger amputated the doctors found his hand to be fully healed. This was followed by many more reports of the sick and blind being cured while attending the apparitions at Zeitoun.

The apparitions were investigated by the Coptic Church of Egypt, which declared them to be authentic. Egypt’s Department of Information and Complaints also conducted an investigation, during which they searched an area up to 25 km from the Church for anything that could be used to project the image. They concluded that ‘official investigations have been carried out with the result that it has been considered an undeniable fact that the Blessed Virgin Mary has been appearing on the Zeitoun Church in a clear and luminous body, seen by all present in front of the church, whether Christian or Muslim.’¹

The Coptic Church of Egypt deemed the apparitions at Zeitoun to be authentic inside a month, a stark contrast to the Catholic Church, which usually takes a few years to a few decades to approve an apparition. Of the hundreds of apparitions the Catholic Church have investigated only 18 have been declared authentic.

While authenticity is normally determined by the local Bishop, six apparitions have also been endorsed for veneration by the Holy See (the Pope in his role as Bishop of Rome).

When the Church declares an apparition to be ‘worthy of belief’ (i.e. an authentic appearance of the Virgin Mary) it does not confer authority to the message. According to Catholic dogma the era of public revelation ended with the death of the last Apostle, so a Marian apparition can only emphasize some facet of the faith, not add anything new to the deposit of faith.

This means that, despite the Church recognising the event as a genuine appearance of the mother of Jesus, nothing she says or does can change Catholic doctrine or challenge the authority of the Church.

The Church’s Criteria for Evaluating an Apparition

Positive Criteria

1. Moral certainty—the ability to act morally in a situation of doubt.
2. Evaluation of the personal qualities of the visionary—i.e. mental balance, honesty, moral life, sincerity, obedience to the Church, a willingness to practice the faith in the normal way, etc.
3. Evaluation of the content of the revelations themselves—that they do not disagree with the faith and morals of the Church, and are free from theological errors.
4. The revelation results in healthy devotion and spiritual fruits in people’s lives—i.e. greater prayer, greater conversion of heart, works of charity, etc.

Negative Criteria

1. Glaring errors in regard to the facts.
2. Doctrinal errors attributed to God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, or to the Holy Spirit in how they appear.
3. Pursuit of financial gain in relation to the alleged apparition.
4. Gravely immoral acts committed by the person or those associated with the person at the time of the apparition.
5. Psychological disorders or tendencies on the part of the person or persons associated with the apparition.

If, after a preliminary investigation, the event meets these criteria, a cautionary permission is granted that allows public participation in devotion to the apparition. Further examination of the event is then conducted before the Church gives it final approval.

It is worth noting that nearly all these criteria are set to verify that the visionary is an obedient Catholic practicing in the ‘normal’ way, or that the message conforms to Church doctrine. There is nothing to ascertain whether the apparition involved a miraculous event, which is required when the Church assesses a claim for sainthood.

That so few apparitions have been approved by the Church is somewhat perplexing given the profound effect they have had in promoting Catholicism, and the positive effect they have had on the lives of millions of Catholics, including:

• The conversion of hundreds of millions of people to Catholicism.
• The construction of some of the largest Catholic churches in the world.
• The formation of large Marian Movements and Societies.
• The promotion of Marian devotions, especially the rosary, among millions of Catholics.

The reticence of the Church to declare an apparition to be genuine is understandable considering the nature of these events, but their refusal to approve the apparitions at Medjugorje is mystifying.

The apparitions at Medjugorje have been ongoing since 1981, and the visionaries have been extensively tested using modern scientific equipment and medical techniques not available in previous cases. More than a dozen scientists and doctors have determined that the visions are authentic, yet the Church still refuses to acknowledge them as genuine (although they have been approved for pilgrimage).

Of the many criteria the Church require to be fulfilled before they will approve an apparition it is the requirement that the message must be free from theological errors, and not disagree with the faith and morals of the Church, that I find most intriguing.

Insisting that a message from the mother of Jesus must conform to the existing dogma of the Catholic Church makes the apparitions seem rather pointless, and you have to wonder why Mary would make so many appearances if she can add nothing new to Church doctrine. She has not been deterred by the obduracy of the Church though, and the frequency of her visits has increased over the last century, which suggests that she has an important message to deliver.

There was also a dramatic change in the nature of these messages during the nineteenth century. Prior to the visions of Catherine Laboure in 1830 they were comforting and encouraging, with a general ‘be good and good things will happen’ theme. Catherine Laboure’s message was one of worry for, and disappointment with, the human race. And from La Salette in 1846 until now the messages have been dire warnings, telling us to change our ways or face severe consequences (e.g. the Great Chastisement and Armageddon).

In Catherine Laboure’s vision Mary appeared as a luminous woman adorned with various objects associated with the Book of Revelation. She warned Catherine that the world was about to be overcome by evil, a warning that was repeated to Melanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud at La Salette. Melanie and Maximin were also given a secret message that they were told not to reveal to anyone.

This combination of dire warnings and secret messages was repeated with the visionaries at Fatima, who were told three secrets, and again with the visionaries at Medjugorje, who were given with ten secrets. Why the messages are to be kept secret is a mystery, but it appears that the timing of their release is important.

Reference

1. Zaki, P. ‘Our Lord’s Mother Visits Egypt in 1968’ Dar El Alam El Arabi, 1977, p. 24, 27.