Private Revelations: You Can Be a Mystic!

Detail of Our Lady of Lourdes
window; St Adalbert Church (Chicago).           

In the course of the research I have been doing for this series of posts, I have become aware of at least a dozen people who are reporting heavenly visions or apparitions, in addition to the sequence that began in Medjugorje in the 1980’s.

There’s no question that people are longing for signs of God’s presence among us here and now, and flocking to wherever they hear it may be found. It is not that Divine Revelation is incomplete or lacking in any way, but surely the desperate hunger to hear from living witnesses signals that whatever may have been communicated in religious formation, it wasn’t a convincing testimony from someone who seemed to have seen or heard God in a vitally personal way. Private revelations seem to fill that gap.

 

In one case the local bishop is actively involved in all the events surrounding the alleged seer. The bishop is acting as a wise pastor, accompanying the faithful who are seeking God through the intercession of Mary, and so as the phenomenon develops, it is unfolding with solid instruction by the bishop himself. Whether the mystical aspect is later recognized as authentic or not, the process will not have been “crowdsourced” but “pastored,” and the people of the diocese will have been catechized and supported in a process of faith development that respects their desire to be close to God and his holy Mother.

 

The Church is quite familiar with the concept of private revelations. There is a well-established tradition in the lives of the saints of recounting their mystical experiences. The Solemnities of Corpus Christi and the Sacred Heart originated in private revelations (though both feasts have solid Scriptural and theological foundations); the Marian feasts of Our Lady of Lourdes and Our Lady of Fatima also commemorate significant private revelations. 

 

So what is private revelation? How is it different from Divine Revelation? And how are we to determine our own attitude toward reports of “apparitions” or “locutions” by people in our time?

 

Divine Revelation (public revelation) is the self-revelation of God that reached its apex in the Incarnation, Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus. Once God has come to earth and given himself completely to us, even leaving himself (Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity) in the Eucharist, there is nothing left to say or reveal! Until the end of time the Church, with its teaching role exercised by the Pope and the Bishops in union with him (Magisterium), will continue to unpack the infinite mysteries left in her hands. It is absolutely complete, and is “contained” in Scripture and Tradition (the life of the Church). We see the “unpacking” happening when dogmas of the Church define truths of the faith that are implicit in Scripture and the Church’s liturgy or moral practice, but were not articulated until hammered out through controversy, theological reflection, liturgical piety or even the growing awareness within the Church that this was a reality that was always treasured and defended.

 

Private revelations are given to individuals or groups of people, often for a specific need at a particular point in time. Not every experience of prayer has to be submitted to the local bishop! (More about that soon.) If intended to be shared with the Church at large, the story and/or message must be “recognized” (authenticated) by the local Bishop. It is part of the bishop’s task to “discern all spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 Jn 4:1). In the case of private revelations, the bishop seeks to determine the supernatural origin of an experience. 

 

Most of the time, as in the recent case of “Our Lady of America,” investigations find that what a person reports are “inner religious experiences rather than objective external visions and revelations." That is not to say that people are deluded! It is just saying that what was experienced was a deeply personal form of prayer, not a message or visit from Heaven sent for the sake of the wider Church.

After 45 years of religious life, I have gotten to know a lot of people (and not just sisters!) who practice a consistent life of prayer. And it seems to me that most people who are faithful to a life of prayer seem to experience some kind of communication from God. It may be one-off; it may be sporadic; it may take one form or another. But I have heard so many examples that I can’t help but assume that God is waiting, waiting, waiting for all of us to be ready for a familiar relationship with him. God wants to share our life with us. All of it! He wants to reassure us in our uncertainties, enjoy the big and little delights of the day, shed light on our regrets in real time, even tease us. (Really; I’ve heard lots of stories about how playful God can be.)

 

The thing is, this seems to require a sort of training in prayer; something that calms the inner conversations with oneself to the point that God can get a word in edgewise. Still, pretty much everyone I know who has ever maintained some kind of daily pattern of silent space with God for years on end can probably report (in private, with extreme reserve, to a really close friend) something on the order of a communication from God.

 

But I also suspect that most Catholics don’t know that. 

 

So maybe what happens is that when something God has been saying (probably for years) finally breaks through the distraction, and a person recognizes God’s “voice,” he or she may think that this is an absolutely extraordinary thing; that they are receiving locutions and are now a designated messenger who must promulgate what has been received. 

 

Because no one ever talks openly about their prayer life except messengers, right?

 

What if some (or most, or all) of the people reporting messages from Heaven are simply devout persons who have reached a stage in their relationship where they have become receptive to God’s self-communication, but the social media culture we all live in has convinced them to share everything with the world? 

 

It is extremely unwise to seek out, follow, and promote unrecognized (unauthenticated) private revelations. Persons who have these experiences may be quite convinced of the truth of what they have heard or seen, but unless that has been affirmed by the local bishop, this should be at the most considered a personal grace for themselves alone. The examples and teachings of the saints tells us as much. Let the recipient rejoice in the mercy of the Lord and share the message not in words or declarations, but in a transformed way of living that is more powerful than any verbal message. Let them discover new ways to spread the Gospel, rather than promote a message that is necessarily linked with their own ongoing experience of prayer. 

 

The apparitions of Guadalupe, Lourdes, and Fatima are examples of private revelations that had a significance far beyond their original context and are still bearing fruit. However, they are still private revelations and do not belong to the “deposit of faith” (the core of authentic Church teaching). No one has to believe that Our Lady appeared to St Juan Diego in what is now Mexico City, or told Bernadette of Lourdes to tell the people to do penance; no one is obliged to believe that the saintly shepherd children of Fatima saw the Virgin Mary (although their lives alone give an extraordinary witness to divine love).

 

Private revelations can be accepted or not according to the degree to which they assist us in our life of faith. They are not essential and cannot be. Nothing can be added to Divine Revelation. In giving us his Son, God held absolutely nothing back.

 

It’s possible that there is a genuine visionary (or two) in the world right now. Personally, I am unconvinced that there are a dozen or more. But I do believe that there are thousands of people with whom God is in daily, intimate communication. And billions more with whom he would gladly converse if they would accept the conditions that are necessary for that kind of relationship. It’s not that God needs the conditions (he speaks freely!); we do. We might be unable to listen because we are too busy, or nervous, or distracted, or set on putting too many lesser things in place when all we really need to do is slow down just enough (on the inside) so we could hear all the ways God is already talking to our hearts and sharing our lives.

 

Helps for slowing down on the inside:

If your life permits it, set aside 15 minutes every single day for you and God alone. (Pre-pandemic, many people used their commute as their time alone with God; public transit systems are probably still full of people at prayer every morning.)

If your family duties do not leave you personal time for prayer right now, the “Jesus prayer” fosters communion of mind and heart with God in the midst of life’s activities. It connects the words “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner” with one’s breathing.

 If you need to just start small, your morning coffee ritual or some other morning must-do could be a time of quietly receiving the new day from God’s hands.

 

  

The Catechism of the Catholic Church on Revelations

66 "The Christian economy, therefore, since it is the new and definitive Covenant, will never pass away; and no new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ." Yet even if Revelation is already complete, it has not been made completely explicit; it remains for Christian faith gradually to grasp its full significance over the course of the centuries. 

67 Throughout the ages, there have been so-called "private" revelations, some of which have been recognized by the authority of the Church. They do not belong, however, to the deposit of faith. It is not their role to improve or complete Christ's definitive Revelation, but to help live more fully by it in a certain period of history. Guided by the Magisterium of the Church, the sensus fidelium knows how to discern and welcome in these revelations whatever constitutes an authentic call of Christ or his saints to the Church. 

Christian faith cannot accept "revelations" that claim to surpass or correct the Revelation of which Christ is the fulfillment, as is the case in certain non-Christian religions and also in certain recent sects which base themselves on such "revelations".

I have been researching "chastisement prophecies," and as I develop these themes, hope to include them in future posts. I think this is important for the peace of many hearts.

You might also be interested in "Three Days of Darkness?"