Apparitions of Mary

[LilyM]

Really? I thought Fatima websites will state that everybody saw the miracle.

And you forgot to mention that everybody’s clothes and the muddy grounds, after a very wet day, were suddenly dry.

How can you be so sure that there were movie cameras there? The average family didn’t have movie cameras in those days.

I wouldn’t advise you to stare at the sun for too long. You’ll go blind.

Firstly - even if it was 50,000 as opposed to 100,000, and not everyone saw it, surely it would be unprecedented for 50,000 people all at the same time to suffer from this sort of mass delusion or hysteria or whatever - especially those who were 30kms away from Fatima and thus not really suggestible in the same way as those who were on the spot.

And why would they stare at the sun? A miracle was mentioned beforehand, but nothing was said beforehand of anything happening to the sun. No reason to look at the sun until it actually happened, and who says anyone was staring at it? Even back then I’m sure they knew better than to stare at the sun for long periods of time.

 

[peary]

Originally Posted by Eschato
Oddly enough, there is an encyclical called “Garabandal” that is sent out 6 times a year. The publisher sent my Grandmother a free trial type thing. It is basically just different accounts of happenings, healings, and other things that have happened. I don’t believe that she subscribed to it, because I kind of talked her out of it. It did have some interesting stories. One was of an African single mother who had to have her kneecap surgically removed after falling down a set of stairs. Long story short, she spontaneously grew a knee cap in a certain small village in northern Spain. I would imagine that you could find even more things if you just go to Fatima websites or what have you.

An encyclical is a formal letter to the Church and the world from the pope. What you are referring to is a ‘magazine’.

 

[peary]

This is a normal event. First of all, usually surgeons don’t remove a kneecap. They may have removed part of a kneecap. But assuming they did. The leftover tissue and blood can form an ossification which will then function as a ‘kneecap’. Noting unusual.

When you have a knee meniscus removed, new tissue grows in which functions as a meniscus. It looks and acts like one. Only the pathologist knows for sure.

Like the duplicated bladder, a rare but described and not unknown finding, particularly in the setting of severe chronic infection of the original bladder. The surgeons go in to remove the infected bladder and lo and behold, there’s another one there! No miracle at all.

If you go to all the Fatima miracle of the sun websites, you find out that half experienced it, half didn’t. If you stare at the sun long enough, it will appear as dimmer, many colored and a spinning disc–which is what everyone saw. I suggest that the children started lookinging at the sun and screaming, and everyone else, worked up to a fever pitch, expecting the apparition to do something, stared, started to see things, started screaming, etc.

I would question closely those few that saw something from a distance, whether they saw it before or after they heard about it.

surely there were movie cameras there, didn’t they film anything??
The thing that strikes me about the Fatima ‘miracle’ is that nothing was accomplished–nothing really happened as the sun was undisturbed, it was just something about half of them saw, which can be reduplicated by staring at the sun.

That isn’t what happened. You need to read the accounts.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Well, this is the Non-Catholic part of this forum so I’m going to post…

There are characteristics of the Marian visions and visions in general which make me doubt them.

Mary tends to appear to girls and children. No recent visions of Mary to men. Why not?

Mary tends to have appeared in areas with a lot of contention between a powerful church and a powerful stat AND in a remote location–in Portugal (Fatima) in the boonies, not Lisbon, and in Lourdes, France, not Paris.

JESUS has appeared to young or middle-aged nuns, often in contexts which are highly charged with eroticism–sorry, folks, but the visions of St. Teresa of Jesus and St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and St. Faustina have more than a little of the erotic in them.

The ‘miracles’ tend to die out in time and/or to be poorly documented. There a lot of pilgrims to St. Mary of Walsingham, famous for cures in the middle ages, but not now. Why not? Are the miracles at Lourdes well-ducumented with modern medicine–CAT scans, MRI’s, lab work, pathology? Anyone grown an arm or leg back yet? Anyone, like Lazarus, risen from the dead?

**Well put **​

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**She never appears to anyone with well-developed critical abilities - such as an unbelieving professor of logic at a metropolitan university in a busy city; only to “soft” targets - women, the uneducated, the poorly-catechised. At the risk of looking like a ghastly snob, one has to say this, because the sort of people she is said to appeared to are, with very few exceptions ,just the people who would believe this kind of stuff - so why should those not in those groups be impressed ? It’s hardly a severe test of an apparition that it appears to people who are unlikely to reject it. If she does genuinely appear - why did she not appear to Lenin or Trotsky, or someone else of that sort ? Or is that too much of a test ? Why only to soft targets, such as Catholic children or nuns ? **

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[dolphinlove]

**Well put **​

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**She never appears to anyone with well-developed critical abilities - such as an unbelieving professor of logic at a metropolitan university in a busy city; only to “soft” targets - women, the uneducated, the poorly-catechised. At the risk of looking like a ghastly snob, one has to say this, because the sort of people she is said to appeared to are, with very few exceptions ,just the people who would believe this kind of stuff - so why should those not in those groups be impressed ? It’shardly a severe test of an apparition that it appears to people who are unlikely to reject it. If she does genuinely appear - why did she not appear to Lenin or Trotsky, or someone else of that sort ? Or is that too much of a test ? Why only to soft targets, such as Catholic children or nuns ? **

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Matt 5:
1 Seeing the crowds, he went onto the mountain. And when he was seated his disciples came to him.
2 Then he began to speak. This is what he taught them:
3 How blessed are the poor in spirit: the kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
4 Blessed are the gentle: they shall have the earth as inheritance.
5 Blessed are those who mourn: they shall be comforted.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for uprightness: they shall have their fill.
7 Blessed are the merciful: they shall have mercy shown them.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart: they shall see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers: they shall be recognised as children of God.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted in the cause of uprightness: the kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
11 'Blessed are you when people abuse you and persecute you and speak all kinds of calumny against you falsely on my account.
12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven; this is how they persecuted the prophets before you.
13 'You are salt for the earth. But if salt loses its taste, what can make it salty again? It is good for nothing, and can only be thrown out to be trampled under people’s feet.

I put these verses in to display the reason Jesus/Mary most probably have chosen the ‘weak’ or ‘uneducated’ as you put it.
Jesus himself, was born into a life of poverty and of a level that people were uneducated. But look at the teachings and experience he was able to achieve, even from his own background.

But, people of nobility who they have appeared to are St Domenic, St Egwin… cant find any others at the moment, but these are from nobel famlies.

God has chosen the people he selected for his reasons. Those people are the ones people probably would vote least likely to succeed. Look at Joan of arc for example, who on earth would think a 17 year old girl would go onto lead the armies of France? This could not be done without the assistance of God. Just think, at the time, if a 17 year old girl said she was to lead the army, you would laugh so hard at her, but if it wasnt for the intervention of God, it would not have been done.
The story of Joan of arc is a brilliant example of how God can work through people.
God alone really knows why he chooses the people he does, but im sure he has got good reason for it. I for one do not want to question God on his reasons.

Also, look at the miracles at Lourdes, this apparition was to another peasant girl, Saint Bernadette, who was not anyone of major standing in society. But look at the legacy left behind, millions of Catholics visiting the shrine each year. Yet another miracle of God.

 

[peary]

How many children has Mary ‘appeared’ to over the course of 2,000 years? In the most noted and approved apparitions:

Fatima, Portugal (1917): 3 children
Lourdes (1858): 1child
La Salette (1846): 2 children
Kibeho, Rwanda (1981-88): 2 teenagers, 1 adult

Non-approved apparitions:

Garabandal, Spain (1961-65): 4 children
Medjugorje, Bosnia-Hercegovina (1981-) 6 children

“Unless you become as little children, you cannot enter the Kingdom” (Matt. 18:3)

"Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to him, saying, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” (Luke 18:15-17)

 

[Charlie_Zeaiter]

**Well put **​

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**She never appears to anyone with well-developed critical abilities - such as an unbelieving professor of logic at a metropolitan university in a busy city; only to “soft” targets - women, the uneducated, the poorly-catechised. At the risk of looking like a ghastly snob, one has to say this, because the sort of people she is said to appeared to are, with very few exceptions ,just the people who would believe this kind of stuff - so why should those not in those groups be impressed ? It’s hardly a severe test of an apparition that it appears to people who are unlikely to reject it. If she does genuinely appear - why did she not appear to Lenin or Trotsky, or someone else of that sort ? Or is that too much of a test ? Why only to soft targets, such as Catholic children or nuns ? **

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What are you suggesting? Are you suggesting that 70,000 people didn’t witness a miracle that day?

 

[BloodWashed]

God isn’t the only one who can perform miracles. When God was plaguing Egypt, the pharoah’s magicians were able to reproduce many of God’s miracles through the power of the devil. I think it’s possible that some of these apparations are the work of the god of this world.

 

[LilyM]

God isn’t the only one who can perform miracles. When God was plaguing Egypt, the pharoah’s magicians were able to reproduce many of God’s miracles through the power of the devil. I think it’s possible that some of these apparations are the work of the god of this world.

Yes it’s possible, I think that’s part of the reason why Catholics are by no means required to believe in any of them - and certainly none of our teachings on the faith stem from any of these apparitions. Instead the apparitions are merely declared ‘worthy of belief’, meaning the content of the messages contains nothing contrary to the Catholic faith.

And if you look at the messages you can ‘test the spirits’ to some extent - it’s unlikely that the devil would teach us a prayer that says ‘O my Jesus forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, lead all souls into Heaven especially those who most need your mercy’ as the apparition of Fatima did, for example.

 

[BloodWashed]

Yes it’s possible, I think that’s part of the reason why Catholics are by no means required to believe in any of them - and certainly none of our teachings on the faith stem from any of these apparitions. Instead the apparitions are merely declared ‘worthy of belief’, meaning the content of the messages contains nothing contrary to the Catholic faith.

And if you look at the messages you can ‘test the spirits’ to some extent - it’s unlikely that the devil would teach us a prayer that says ‘O my Jesus forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, lead all souls into Heaven especially those who most need your mercy’ as the apparition of Fatima did, for example.

But from a Baptist’s point of view, Satan would have an apparation which encouraged works salvation and devotion to Mary.

 

[Charlie_Zeaiter]

**Well put **​

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**… If she does genuinely appear - why did she not appear to Lenin or Trotsky, or someone else of that sort ? Or is that too much of a test ? Why only to soft targets, such as Catholic children or nuns ? **

---

God isn’t the only one who can perform miracles. When God was plaguing Egypt, the pharoah’s magicians were able to reproduce many of God’s miracles through the power of the devil. I think it’s possible that some of these apparations are the work of the god of this world.

Maybe she didn’t appear to Lenin or Trotsky because they would dismiss her as the devil.

 

[LilyM]

But from a Baptist’s point of view, Satan would have an apparation which encouraged works salvation and devotion to Mary.

That prayer encourages neither of those things, though, quite the opposite - and all the prayers taught by the apparition of Fatima are similarly based on the Trinity and don’t mention Mary at all. True, there’s the Rosary, but the Rosary is also incredibly scriptural (we more or less use the Hail Marys as background while we meditate on different scriptural episodes from Jesus’ life).

And remember Paul’s statement that if a spirit acknowledges Jesus as Lord (and that prayer comes close - acknowledges Him as our saviour at least) it can’t be from the devil?

 

[BloodWashed]

That prayer encourages neither of those things, though, quite the opposite - and all the prayers taught by the apparition of Fatima are similarly based on the Trinity and don’t mention Mary at all. True, there’s the Rosary, but the Rosary is also incredibly scriptural (we more or less use the Hail Marys as background while we meditate on different scriptural episodes from Jesus’ life).

And remember Paul’s statement that if a spirit acknowledges Jesus as Lord (and that prayer comes close - acknowledges Him as our saviour at least) it can’t be from the devil?

1. The Rosary is not scriptural. Jesus admonished prayer by “vain repetitions”
2. Paul also wrote about those who would preach “another Jesus”

 

[LilyM]

1. The Rosary is not scriptural. Jesus admonished prayer by “vain repetitions”

and then turned around and

a) praised the publican who repeated many times ‘Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner’

b) prayed the Psalms (one of which repeats the line ‘His faithful love endures forever’ almost thirty times in the one Psalm!) and

c) repeated the same words in his own prayer three times in Gethsemane.

Clearly not all repetition is vain repetition.

And read the first chapters of Luke - the first half of the Hail Mary is directly the words of the Angel Gabriel and Elizabeth to Our Lady. If they said them to her, so can I

1. Paul also wrote about those who would preach “another Jesus”

There have been plenty of those, for sure - heretics who denied His divinity or His humanity, for starters (and there were plenty of both in the early Church).

What I want to know is how does devotion to Mary preach another Jesus? She’s His mother, she more than anyone alive today would preach the right Jesus She leads us to Him as she did at Cana.

 

[BloodWashed]

and then turned around and

a) praised the publican who repeated many times ‘Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner’

b) prayed the Psalms (one of which repeats the line ‘His faithful love endures forever’ almost thirty times in the one Psalm!) and

c) repeated the same words in his own prayer three times in Gethsemane.

Clearly not all repetition is vain repetition.

And read the first chapters of Luke - the first half of the Hail Mary is directly the words of the Angel Gabriel and Elizabeth to Our Lady. If they said them to her, so can I

There have been plenty of those, for sure - heretics who denied His divinity or His humanity, for starters (and there were plenty of both in the early Church).

What I want to know is how does devotion to Mary preach another Jesus? She’s His mother, she more than anyone alive today would preach the right Jesus She leads us to Him as she did at Cana.

If 7,000,000 on the planet were all praying the Hail Mary at the same time, would Mary be able to hear all of the (spoken aloud or just thought to onself), and recognize each praying individual?

Also, Gabriel did not call her Holy Mary or Mother of God, because either of these titles would be heresy

 

[LilyM]

If 7,000,000 on the planet were all praying the Hail Mary at the same time, would Mary be able to hear all of the (spoken aloud or just thought to onself), and recognize each praying individual?

Also, Gabriel did not call her Holy Mary or Mother of God, because either of these titles would be heresy

John in Revelation could hear everyone in heaven, on earth and under the earth all praying at the same time. No reason why God can’t grant this same gift to others.

Good grief, what’s wrong with calling a person holy though? We’re certainly ALL supposed to be holy (in fact Jesus goes further and says we’re to be ‘perfect’), and I hope we all prove ourselves worthy to be ***called ***holy!

Paul calls everyone in his community ‘saints’ - saint comes from the Latin sanctus which means, you guessed it, holy! What else did you think Paul was calling them, hmmm?

As to the title ‘Mother of God’ - you see it as heretical, I’d guess, because you see it as somehow implying that Mary is either divine or greater than God. Neither of these is the case.

I’ll make an analogy here. Would it be wrong to call the mother of the President of the US ‘mother of the President’? Does that mean she’s either herself the President or that she’s greater than the President? Neither. It simply refers to her relationship to the person who IS President.

So if Mary = mother of Jesus and Jesus = God then Mary most certainly can rightly be called the mother of God.

 

[BloodWashed]

John in Revelation could hear everyone in heaven, on earth and under the earth all praying at the same time. No reason why God can’t grant this same gift to others.

Good grief, what’s wrong with calling a person holy though? We’re certainly ALL supposed to be holy (in fact Jesus goes further and says we’re to be ‘perfect’), and I hope we all prove ourselves worthy to be ***called ***holy!

Paul calls everyone in his community ‘saints’ - saint comes from the Latin sanctus which means, you guessed it, holy! What else did you think Paul was calling them, hmmm?

As to the title ‘Mother of God’ - you see it as heretical, I’d guess, because you see it as somehow implying that Mary is either divine or greater than God. Neither of these is the case.

I’ll make an analogy here. Would it be wrong to call the mother of the President of the US ‘mother of the President’? Does that mean she’s either herself the President or that she’s greater than the President? Neither. It simply refers to her relationship to the person who IS President.

So if Mary = mother of Jesus and Jesus = God then Mary most certainly can rightly be called the mother of God.

John could hear the prayers, but he didn’t know who each one was coming from and was not able to handle them specifically. Only God is omniscient and omnipotent like that. There is one God and ONE mediator between man and God.

And as for mother of God, it is because Mary is not the mother of God. She was the mother of Jesus’ fleshly body. Jesus created Mary long before Mary’s parents were even thought of. The term mother means she begat the child. Mary didnt beget God, God created Mary.

 

[LilyM]

John could hear the prayers, but he didn’t know who each one was coming from and was not able to handle them specifically. Only God is omniscient and omnipotent like that. There is one God and ONE mediator between man and God.

And as for mother of God, it is because Mary is not the mother of God. She was the mother of Jesus’ fleshly body. Jesus created Mary long before Mary’s parents were even thought of. The term mother means she begat the child. Mary didnt beget God, God created Mary.

So how did John know that ALL creatures were praying - let alone what words they were praying - if he didn’t see and hear them all individually? And presuming John prayed the same prayer along with 'em (surely he would if all were praying) then he WAS handling them, as Mary does, by presenting them together with His own prayers to the Father. It’s called intercession.

Jesus from all eternity knew His destiny - to come to earth and to be the son of Mary - that’s called omniscience. So in a real sense he was/is/always will be Her son just as He always was/is/will be the Paschal Lamb - remember the lamb in heaven ‘standing as if slain’? Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross is still very much occuring in the eternal now of heaven.

Remember there’s no such thing as time in heaven, time is a created thing so God, Jesus and heaven necessarily are outside of time. So there’s no such thing to Jesus as ‘at this time Mary wasn’t my mother, at this time she was’ ‘at this time I wasn’t man, at this time I was’ - that way of thinking is meaningless to a timeless God.

Amen, Jesus is the one mediator between man and God - but there are many mediators between man and Jesus, no? When your pastor baptises you, marries you or gives you communion isn’t HE mediating between you and Jesus - bringing the grace of God to you? If not, why not baptise yourself or marry without the Pastor’s presence?

 

[BloodWashed]

So how did John know that ALL creatures were praying - let alone what they were praying - if he didn’t see and hear them all individually? And presuming John prayed the same prayer along with 'em (surely he would if all were praying) then he WAS handling them, as Mary does, by presenting them together with His own prayers to the Father. It’s called intercession.

Yes, Jesus is the mediator between man and God - but there are many mediators between man and Jesus, no? When I pray for you or you for me, aren’t you mediating between me and Jesus? Presenting my prayers to him? When your pastor baptises you, marries you or gives you communion isn’t HE mediating between you and Jesus - bringing the grace of God to you? If not, why not baptise yourself?

There’s a difference between mediating and fellowshipping.

When someone mediates, they say “You can’t go to Jesus yourself, you have to go to me, and I go to Jesus for you.”

Fellowship is when someone uses the concept Jesus talked about when he said that if two or three be gathered in His name, He is there with them.

And why do you need Mary and the Saints anyway? Why not go straight to Jesus? Mary didn’t die on the cross for me, and Mary didn’t lovingly create me.

In fact, the Bible talks more about Mary Magdalene than Jesus’ mother.

 

[LilyM]

There’s a difference between mediating and fellowshipping.

When someone mediates, they say “You can’t go to Jesus yourself, you have to go to me, and I go to Jesus for you.”

Fellowship is when someone uses the concept Jesus talked about when he said that if two or three be gathered in His name, He is there with them.

And why do you need Mary and the Saints anyway? Why not go straight to Jesus? Mary didn’t die on the cross for me, and Mary didn’t lovingly create me.

In fact, the Bible talks more about Mary Magdalene than Jesus’ mother.

Who says we NEED to go to Mary or the saints? The Catholic Church doesn’t. Rosaries aren’t compulsory, prayers to the saints aren’t compulsory.

It’s very much to our own advantage to pray to them, of course, just as it’s very much to your advantage to have others pray for you. For several reasons.

Firstly, as James says, ‘the prayers of a righteous man availeth much’, so the prayers of many righteous people praying together are powerful indeed!

Secondly, as Our Lord said ‘where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them’. The two or three can be you and me, it can also be me and Mary or me and Joseph, Peter, Mary Magdalene - being in heaven they are surely righteous, whereas with someone who’s still alive, no matter how good, you can never be 100% certain