I am opening the flood gates for a topic I would like to understand more about, Marian apparitions.
You will find shrines built in honor of Marian apparitions all over the world. This can leave one contemplating the authenticity of these great claims. However, the Vatican is very slow to judge apparition claims as we can see by the almost 300 years it took to approve those from Our Lady of Laus in France. The process starts with approval from the local bishop where the apparition took place. The process includes examination of witnesses and visionaries as well as an evaluation of their mental and spiritual health. Time is also required to determine the fruits of the apparition and any cases of conversion, miracles or healing to take place.
Ultimately there are bishop recognized apparitions and Vatican recognized apparitions. Originally, I tried compiling a list of church approved Marian apparitions but that quickly became frustrating as I kept finding discrepancies on either the classification or details of the events.
I think it is important to note that the church does not require the faithful to believe in these apparitions. We live in a world that demands concrete evidence, and when dealing with spiritual phenomenon it is not so black and white. I also think it is important to remember that the list of church-recognized Marian apparitions is in no way complete. Just as the church may never recognize the saintliest souls as “saints,” the church may never recognize or perhaps even know about legitimate apparitions.
Typically, the visionaries are children which remains consistent with Jesus’s fondness for them in the bible.
Let the children come to me and do not prevent them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these
Luke 18:16
What I find interesting in Marian apparitions is that there is typically an urge to pray the rosary for the conversion of sinners. Now some of us might say, what do I care about sinners? One’s eternal fate is one’s own business.” Except the actions of grave sinners often do have a direction correlation to us here on earth which brings me to my next part.
There is also frequently a foreshadowing of a horrific event, it seems Heaven is trying to prevent. We see this in Fatima Portugal in 1917, prophesizing WWII as well as the perils of Communism in Russia. We also see this in Kibeho, Rwanda in the 1980’s before the genocide.
When grave sins against humanity occur, we often turn away from God, angry that he allowed this to happen. Although perhaps he is sending his Ambassador, Mary, to try to assemble an army of good against evil. Maybe the only way to fight evil is with prayer and our complacency is part of the problem. Maybe we are so preoccupied with ourselves, we fail to see the blinding danger the actions of others can have on us. As with everything else in our society, we tend to be reactive rather than proactive and frankly until injustice is happening to us, we just don’t care that much. I mean we care enough to avoid the topic or change the news channel because it’s just too sad to think about. Realistically, a full rosary can be said in 15 minutes, and most of us cannot even be bothered to pray that in a day.
So, what started as a sort of fact-checking of Marian apparitions, leaves me with this. Rather than evaluating the “how,” we should start asking the “why” of Marian apparitions. Perhaps if we do, we won’t have to change the news channel because God’s people might actually be at peace with one another. Pipedream yes, but you know what they say about that butterfly effect…