Question:
We have met a woman who seems very nice and very Catholic, who supposedly receives private revelations from Our Lady. In the prayer group my wife and I belong t, the person in charge allows this woman to give us a little ‘talk’ about the topics of her private revelations. My wife and I do not know what attitude to take. Thank you for your opinion.
Answer:
To whom it may concern
It is not wrong to have a spontaneous distrust for everything that sounds like ‘apparitions’ and ‘messages’, as long as the Church does not pronounce itself on the matter.
In general, those who run after apparitions and heavenly messages, sooner or later, are deceived by the devil. It is necessary to know how to taste the Gospel and be content with it. All that is necessary for our personal salvation is revealed there. Private revelations add nothing substantial. That is why the eagerness to know and divulge them is usually an indication of superficiality or at least of the vice of ‘curiosity’ (except in the case of those that the Church explicitly endorses, particularly when canonizing visionaries, as is the case of Lourdes and Fatima, or the Sacred Heart and the Divine Mercy).
In this regard, it seems to me that the criterion must be the advice of St. John of the Cross, that is, not to seek them but, on the contrary, to flee from them. This saint said: ‘How much more necessary will it be not to admit or give credit to the other revelations that are of different things, in which the devil ordinarily puts his hand so much, that I consider it impossible for him to stop being deceived in many of them if he does not try to discard them, according to the appearance of truth and the seat that the devil puts in them? For he puts together so many appearances and conveniences so that they may be believed, and so firmly establishes them in the sense and imagination, that it seems to the person that it will undoubtedly be so. And in such a way it makes the soul settle and cling to it, that if she has not humility, they will hardly bring her out of it and make her believe the contrary. Therefore, the pure, cautious, and simple and humble soul, with as much strength and care is to resist (and cast off) revelations and other visions, as the very dangerous temptations; for there is no need to want them, but to not want them in order to go to the union of love. That this is what Solomon meant (Eccl. 7:1) when he said: What need has man to desire and seek the things that are above his natural capacity? As if to say: ‘He has no need to desire supernatural things by a supernatural way, which is above his capacity’ (Ascent of Mount Carmel, 27:6). And in another place: ‘In this and in other ways the words and visions of God can be true and certain, and we can be deceived in them, because we do not know how to understand them highly and principally and to the purposes and meanings that God carries in them. And so, it is most right and safe to make souls flee prudently from such supernatural things, accustoming them, as we have said, to purity of spirit in dark faith, which is the means of union’ (Ascent, 19,14).
In a magnificent way, St. John of Avila said: ‘I recommend you to be very careful, as they say, to be careful not to allow yourselves to desire these singular and supernatural things, neither too much nor too little, because it is a sign of pride and dangerous curiosity… St. Bonaventure says that many have fallen into many follies and errors, as a punishment for having desired the things already said. And he says that they should rather be feared than desired. And if they come to you without your desiring them, fear them, and do not give them credit, but go to our Lord, begging him not to lead you in this way, but to let you ‘work out your health in his holy fear’ (cf. Phil 2:12), and the ordinary and plain way of those who serve him’ (Audi, filia, c. 51).
It is striking that the alleged visionary ‘speaks of her visions’. It is a bad sign. Usually false mystics and false seers want to draw attention to themselves. On the other hand, it is a sign of authenticity to judge oneself unworthy of such graces, to reject them with modesty, to manifest them with the greatest secrecy only to those who can advise them not to deceive themselves. Such was the way of proceeding of the true mystics; we read, for example, in the life of the Desert Fathers, the case of one who, before a vision of Christ, said with fear and humility: ‘I do not want to see Christ on earth, I will be content to see him in Heaven’ (PL 73,965). St. John of Avila also says: ‘And do not fear that, because of this humble resistance, God will be angry or absent if the matter is his own; but rather he will come near and make it clear. For he who gives his grace to the humble (Jas 4:6) will not take it away by making an act of humility. And if it is not from God, the devil will flee, wounded with the stone of humility, which is a blow that breaks his head like Goliath (cf. 1 Kings 17:49)’ (Audi, filia, c. 51).
Therefore, until the Church rules on the matter, I recommend you to be suspicious of any ‘heavenly message’.
Fr. Miguel A. Fuentes, IVE
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