Posted on 04/24/2006 6:38:50 AM PDT by pravknight
"Trust His Majesty." thank you all
Your Godly Statement is Filling my Heart with Joy! His Sweet Name be Exalted Forevermore!
On this thread -- Feast of The Divine Mercy - April 23, 2006 - EWTN Program Listing -- you repeatedly derided the private revelation to St. Faustina about Divine Mercy Sunday/Novena, etc..
Yet on this thread -- Private and Public Revelation you claim that you reached a decision NOT to trust private revelation based on the private revelations of St. John of the Cross in Dark Night of the Soul.
Go figure???!!! I do believe you are talking out of both sides of your mouth. LOL!
Perhaps it was privately revealed to Pravknight to disbelieve all private revelations?
I didn't view St. John of the Cross as presenting a "private revelation" in that book.
Just because a private revelation is declared by the Church to be acceptable does not mean all Catholics should accept it.
I stated my case.
The spirituality of the "Divine Mercy" is penitential and browbeating in character, and in my opinion has no place in the Easter season, period.
"For the sake of his sorrowful passion." I would say that is a penitential refrain, not one that is appropriate for the time we ought to be celebrating Christ's resurrection.
It is wrong for Catholics to base their faith in private revelations. I stand by my opinion.
It's a matter of orthodoxy. I would rather be a skeptic than believe something that stands a chance of being pure fantasy, or even if approved by Church official as being harmless could be a fabrication.
Only Public Revelation is worth believing in as far as I am concerned. All divine revelation ended with the death of the last apostle.
The Dark Night of the Soul is a meditative book of divine intimacy that has nothing to do with the sort of fantasies found in the works of Faustina Kowalska, Mary of Agreda or Anne Catherine Emmerich.
I place the works of the last three nuns in the category of spiritual fiction.
What about the Miraculous Medal, Brown Scapular, and the miraculous icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help?
If they are used as symbols of piety fine, but if they take on lives of their own in a superstitious fashion I condemn them in that context.
1)The brown scapular is a simplified version of the scapular or yoke work by the Carmelite monastics symbolizing the yoke of following Christ. If it is viewed that way I don't have a problem with it; however, if it is worn superstitiously, that is with the belief that simply wearing it will keep its wearer from damnation, I reject that as heretical.
2)I don't have a problem with a person wearing the Miraculous Medal to honor the Mother of God. If it is worn as a testimony of inward faith, I don't oppose it, although, It's not my cup of tea personally. If my girlfriend wore one, I wouldn't mind.
Even though the Church approved the message St. Catherine Laboure had, I remain a skeptic based upon the fact divine revelation ceased after the death of the last apostle.
We have apparitions too in the East, such as at Zeitun in Egypt, but Mary stood there in a silent witness.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help as you know the icon or as Our Lady of the Passion as she is known in the East is one of countless miraculous icons. Our Lady of Kazan, Our Lady of Tichvin and Our Lady of the Protection among others.
The difference is our Eastern Church does not give any creedence to messages. The Mother of God was said to have appeared to St. Seraphim of Sarov, a Russian Orthodox saint also recognized by Rome, but she never gave the holy saint any messages.
I am as free as a Catholic to argue against the prudence of basing spirituality on apparitions as you are for them because the Church doesn't require me to assent to them.
Keep to the facts -- not your views. It was a private revelation, right?
Did you see The Passion of the Christ?
**Anne Catherine Emmerich**
Are you aware that Mel Gibson used the revelations to Anne Catherine Emmerich in producing his movie?
Not in the same sense. It was a contemplation, not revelation in the same fantasy sense found in Faustina Kowalska's diary.
St. John's writings are no more revelations than my writing down my own spiritual meditations.
""In all other matters", says St. John of the Cross, "He wishes men to have recourse to human means" (Montée, II, xxii). Finally, a revelation is suspect if it is commonplace, telling only what is to be found in every book. It is then probable that the visionary is unconsciously repeating what he has learnt by reading."
http://carmelitesofeldridge.org/juan16.html
I do not see any evidence that St. John of the Cross believed his works were dictated to him by God. He uses the person of God the Father of Jesus as literary tools to teach, and considering he abhorred private revelation, I doubt he would have made such a claim.
Face it, divine revelation ceased with the death of the last apostle. That's Catholic dogma.
Again, I will repeat what I said in the other thread Faustina was the author of the Divine Mercy, not Jesus.
Public and Private revelation
The various Marian apparitions are classed as "private" revelations, in that the Public revelation of the Church was completed during Apostolic times, and is now closed. All that the Church has done since then is to develop and clarify those public truths, and Catholics are bound to believe them as truths of the Faith.
Private revelations though, including the approved Marian apparitions, are given to an individual or group for their own good or that of others; Catholics are not obliged to believe in them and they do not add to the sum total of Public revelation.
On this point Fr. Frederick Jelly says: "According to Vatican II's Dei Verbum, the Magisterium of the Church has the charism of infallibility only when Scripture and Tradition, in mutual interdependence, form the foundation for a dogma - whether solemnly defined by an ecumenical council, by an ex cathedra pronouncement of the Pope, or by the universal ordinary Magisterium, that is the constant preaching and teaching (sensus fidelium) of the Church as a whole. The certitude that can be reached as a result of investigating apparitions and private revelations can never be the certitude of divine faith ..."
There is always the danger of illusion or deception in visions or apparitions, and that is why the Church, in the person of the local bishop initially, has always been reluctant to accept them without a great deal of scrutiny. In approving particular private revelations the Church is only proposing them for assent on the basis that they require an act of human faith based on human testimony.
The classic view on this matter was expressed by Pope Benedict XIV (1675-1758), as follows: "Although an assent of Catholic faith may not and can not be given to revelations thus approved, still, an assent of human faith, made according to the rules of prudence is due them; for, according to these rules such revelations are probable and worthy of pious credence."
Marian apparitions as a "special" form of private revelation
It might be remarked in passing though that Pope Benedict wrote in the period before the major modern Marian apparitions, and so obviously did not say the last word on the subject. This is particularly so if we recognise the special nature of the messages received and transmitted by the various more recent Marian seers, which seem to go beyond "private" revelation. At the very least they seem to be a special case of such revelation, since they form a series which has been of great importance in strengthening the Church in modern times.
They certainly differ from the various "private" revelations given to individual saints which might have been concerned with, for example, the foundation of a religious order. That is such revelations only concern part of the Church, whereas the major Marian apparitions have been taken up by the Church as a whole, and so can, in some sense, be described as "public."
As Fr. William Most states, "Some private revelations of our own times, such as those at Fatima, are directed to all Christians, not only to one individual; still they are technically called private, to distinguish them from that revelation which closed with the death of St. John."
Thus we have to distinguish between those revelations made to individuals, for their own good, and those meant for the whole Church. Fatima and Lourdes certainly fall into the latter category, and, given the miraculous events surrounding them, which are evidence of the divine, seem to call for more than a simply "human" faith, even if it does not appear that they demand a truly "theological" faith.
The fact that these apparitions seem, from a secular historical point of view, to have been of little importance, is not the crucial point; the same could be said for Israel, which too made little impression on history, and yet our whole civilisation is built on the foundation laid by that small country.
In the same way the Marian apparitions have a significance that goes far beyond their surface importance as a reiteration of the Gospel message of prayer and repentance. They can also be seen as the first presentiments of the certain fact that Christ will come again at the Last Day. Mary was an intimate part of Christ's first coming, and similarly, she has an important role in preparing the way for his second advent, principally, it would seem, by means of her apparitions.
Stages in Church approval of apparitions
The decision as to the authenticity of particular apparitions rests in the first place with the local bishop, who is the "Pope" of his own diocese. If after sufficient study there is solid evidence to support the apparition, in terms of the facts surrounding it and the activities of the seer or seers, and also regarding such matters as miraculous healings, then the bishop is empowered to issue some form of edict declaring the authenticity of a particular apparition.
Such a statement is not of course infallible, and no one is absolutely obliged to believe in that particular apparition, but the position of the bishop as the spiritual leader of the diocese means that his decision should be respected, and certainly not treated dismissively. Over time the papacy may grant special privileges to particular shrines, and these are a sign of further approval by the Church as a whole.
One such liturgical sign is the granting of a feast day, as for example that of Our Lady of Lourdes on 11 February. In recent times popes such as Paul VI and John Paul II have visited a number of Marian shrines, thus giving them the highest possible level of approval. These are the elements then that we have to bear in mind when considering the authenticity of the Marian apparitions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
For details about St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila on visions and visionaries click here
Sources: Rev. Michael Walsh, The Apparition at Knock, (St Jarlath's College, Tuam, 1959); Fr. Frederick M. Jelly, OP, "Discerning the Miraculous: Norms for Judging Apparitions and Private Revelations," in Marian Studies 44, 1993; Fr William Most, Mary in our Life, (The Mercier Press, Cork, 1955); Joseph de Sainte-Marie, OCD, Reflections on the Act of Consecration at Fatima of Pope John Paul II on 13th May 1982, (Augustine, Devon, 1983); Louis Lochet, Apparitions of Our Lady, Their Place in the life of the Church, (Herder, Freiburg, 1960).
http://www.theotokos.org.uk/pages/appdisce/smasters.html
St. John of the Cross on visions and visionaries
This is what St. John of the Cross, the acknowledged spiritual master in these matters, has to say about the dangers which visionaries are open to in his Dark Night of the Soul (2.2:3). Although he is essentially talking about "imaginative" visions, these points also broadly apply to "exterior" visions.
"... the devil causes many to believe in vain visions and false prophecies; and strives to make them presume that God and the saints are speaking with them; and they often trust their own fancy. And the devil is also accustomed, in this state, to fill them with presumption and pride, so that they become attracted by vanity and arrogance, and allow themselves to be seen engaging in outward acts which appear holy, such as raptures and other manifestations. Thus they become bold with God, and lose holy fear, which is the key and the custodian of all the
virtues; and in some of these souls so many are the falsehoods and deceits which tend to multiply, and so inveterate do they grow, that it is very doubtful if such souls will return to the pure road of virtue and true spirituality."
Speaking of visions in general, and in particular of the danger of desiring them, he writes in The Ascent of Mount Carmel (2.11:8,12):
8. "It is always well, then, that the soul should reject these things, and close its eyes to them, whencesoever they come. For, unless it does so, it will prepare the way for those things that come from the devil, and will give him such influence that, not only will his visions come in place of God's, but his visions will begin to increase, and those of God to cease, in such
manner that the devil will have all the power and God will have none. So it has happened to many incautious and ignorant souls, who rely on these things to such an extent that many of them have found it hard to return to God in purity of faith; and many have been unable to return, so securely has the devil rooted himself in them; for which reason it is well to resist and
reject them all. For, by the rejection of evil visions, the errors of the devil are avoided, and by the rejection of good visions no hindrance is offered to faith and the spirit harvests the fruit of them."
12. "It is clear, then, that these sensual apprehensions and visions cannot be a means to union, since they bear no proportion to God; and this was one of the reasons why Christ desired that the Magdalene and Saint Thomas should not touch Him. And so the devil rejoices greatly when a soul desires to receive revelations, and when he sees it inclined to them, for he has then a great occasion and opportunity to insinuate errors and, in so far as he is able, to derogate from faith; for, as I have said, he renders the soul that desires them very gross, and at times even leads it into many temptations and unseemly ways."
St. Teresa of Avila
St. Teresa of Avila makes these comments about those with a tendency to believe that they have received revelations:
"Not three or four only, but a large number of people have spoken to me on the subject, and therefore I know by experience that there are souls which, either because they possess vivid imaginations or active minds, are so wrapped up in their own ideas as to feel certain that they see whatever their fancy imagines. If they had ever beheld a genuine vision, they would recognise the deception at once. They themselves fabricate, piece by piece, what they fancy they see: - no after effects are produced on the mind, which is left less moved to devotion than by the sight of a sacred picture (Interior Castle, Sixth Mansion, ch. ix, 6).
Big deal. So he did. Anne Catherine Emmerich was a good writer, but I don't believe she received any divine revelations.
I view them only as pious embellishments of the Biblical accounts, not as revelation.
Her writings are no more inspired than the Gospel of Nicodemus, which was of Catholic rather than Gnostic origin and was written in the 4th or 5th century.
The Gospel of Nicodemus was a work of pious belief by an unknown author that deals exclusively with the Passion.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0807.htm
Bishop Kallistos Ware of Diokleia reflects how Byzantines, both Catholic and Orthodox, view images during prayer, etc.
"As we invoke the Name, we should not deliberately shape in our minds any visual image of the Saviour. This is one of the reasons why we usually say the Prayer in darkness, rather than with our eyes open in front of an icon. ‘Keep your intellect free from colours, images and forms’, urges St Gregory of Sinai; beware of the imagination (phantasia) in prayer — otherwise you may find that you have become a phantastes instead of a hesychastes! ‘So as not to fall into illusion (prelest) while practising inner prayer,’ states St Nil Sorskii (+1508), ‘do not permit yourself any concepts, images or visions.’ ‘Hold no intermediate image between the intellect and the Lord when practising the Jesus Prayer’, Bishop Theophan writes. ‘… The essential part is to dwell in God, and this walking before God means that you live with the conviction ever before your consciousness that God is in you, as he in everything: you live in the firm assurance that he sees all that is within you, knowing you better than you know yourself. This awareness of the eye of God looking at your inner being must not be accompanied by any visual concept, but must be confined to a simple conviction of feeling.’ Only when we invoke the Name in this way — not forming pictures of the Saviour but simply feeling his presence — shall we experience the full power of the Jesus Prayer to integrate and unify.
The Jesus Prayer is thus a prayer in words, but because the words are so simple, so few and unvarying, the Prayer reaches out beyond words into the living silence of the Eternal. It is a way of achieving, with God’s assistance, the kind of non-discursive, non-iconic prayer in which we do not simply make statements to or about God, in which we do not just form pictures of Christ in our imagination, but are ‘oned’ with his in an all-embracing, unmediated encounter. Through the Invocation of the Name we fell his nearness with our spiritual senses, much as we feel the warmth with our bodily senses on entering a heated room. we know him, not through a series of successive images and concepts, but with the unified sensibility of the heart. So the Jesus Prayer concentrates us into the here and now, making us single-centred, one-pointed, drawing us from a multiplicity of thoughts to union with the one Christ. ‘Through the remembrance of Jesus Christ’, says St Philotheus of Sinai (?ninth-tenth century), ‘gather together your scattered intellect’ — gather it together from the plurality of discursive thinking into the simplicity of love.
Many, on hearing that the Invocation of the Name is to be non-discursive and non-iconic, a means of transcending images and thoughts, may be tempted to conclude that any such manner of praying lies altogether beyond their capacities. To such it should be said: the Way of the Name is not reserved for a select few. It is within the reach of all. When you first embark on the Jesus Prayer, do not worry too much about expelling thoughts and mental pictures. As we have said already, let your strategy be positive, not negative. Call to mind, not what is to be excluded, but what is to be included. Do not think about your thoughts and how to shed them; think about Jesus. Concentrate your whole self, all your ardour and devotion, upon the person of the Saviour. Fell his presence. Speak to him with love. If your attention wanders, as undoubtedly it will, do not be discouraged; gently, without exasperation or inner anger, bring it back. If it wanders again and again, then again and yet again bring it back. Return to the centre — to the living and personal centre, Jesus Christ.
Look on the Invocation, not so much as prayer emptied of thoughts, but as prayer filled with the Beloved. Let it be, in the richest sense of the word, a prayer of affection — although not of self-induced emotional excitement. For while the Jesus Prayer is certainly far more than ‘affective’ prayer in the technical Western sense, it is with our loving affection that we do right to begin. Our inner attitude, as we commence the Invocation, is that of St Richard of Chichester:
O my merciful Redeemer, Friend and Brother,
May I see thee more Clearly,
love thee more dearly,
and follow thee more nearly.
Without denying or diminishing the classic teaching of the Hesychast masters on the Jesus Prayer as a ‘shedding of thoughts’, it has to be acknowledged that over the centuries most Eastern Christians have used the Prayer simply as an expression of their tender, loving trust in Jesus the Divine Companion. And there is surely no harm in that."
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