Fatima and private revelations in general

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BayCityRickL

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Because the apparitions and messages were private revelations, we are not obligated to believe in them.

I have several reasons for being skeptical about these, generally based on the recent EWTN tv programs about the alleged event that the virgin appeared to them to be
“brighter than the sun.” That sounds like pure embellishment, to begin with, and it would have been, by natural laws, impossible to tell who or what the apparition was.

The second thing that strikes me, in the run up to the 100th anniversary on Oct 2017, is whether there is more importance being attached to the apparitions themselves, or to the message(s) of Fatima.

Third, the Church was already encouraging the devotion to praying the rosary.

Fourth, the emphasis on the conversion of Russia seems to be a non-supernatural concern of the 1917 time frame, and, literally, an out-of-date message for our day.

Fifth, Sr Lucia wrote the “messages” down at a much later time, when she was sequestered in a convent in N. Spain, not at Fatima. So, the messages were seemingly NOT at Fatima.

Sixth, Mary is often depicted holding a rosary, which is not historically accurate - Mary didn’t know what a rosary was, in gospel times. She certainly would not have used one to pray to herself.

The promotion of Fatima just seems to be out of control.
 
BayCityRickL said:
Sixth, Mary is often depicted holding a rosary, which is not historically accurate - Mary didn’t know what a rosary was, in gospel times. She certainly would not have used one to pray to herself.
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I do not know why you would think Mary would need to appear in a “historically accurate” form, as at this point Mary is not bound by time or space or history. But in any event, Mary, when she has a rosary at an appartion, does not pray the Rosary to herself. She prays it to God, which is in keeping with our asking her to pray for us.
At Lourdes, she prayed along with St. Bernadette on the Our Father and Glory Be. She did not pray the Hail Marys but simply let the beads pass through her hands as Bernadette said them.
 
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I’m not a fan of private revelations being promoted by the Church. I think if they weren’t, there’d be fewer of them. People wouldn’t bother if they couldn’t become famous.
 
Exactly, and there would be fewer shrines and pilgrimages, which are conspicuously “big business.” The gospel says, blessed are those who have not seen yet believe.

,And the claim of St. Faustina is that she spoke with no less than Christ himself. Doesn’t the gospel say not to look for Jesus here or there?

The proper context is what is necessary for salvation, and shrouds and shrines apparitions which cannot be proven do not pop into my mind.

Jesus said to teach them all that He had commanded. This stuff is extra, I think.
 
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Well said, Bonnie and Rick. As I’ve been reading the writings of St. Augustin, I find myself wishing for the simple faith of the 5th-century Church.
 
Exactly, so I fail to see the practical purpose when somebody goes on a rant about private revelation.

I personally believe in Fatima, but I have heard priests and others say things about it that I personally considered wack. I have no problem just saying “meh” and setting those things aside. I don’t feel a need to get het up about it.

The point of Fatima is prayer for world peace and prayer and sacrifice for sinners and in reparation for the sins of man.
The point of the Divine Mercy is prayer to save sinners.
These are causes worth getting behind, to me, and they don’t require me to spend a dime; prayers are free.
I’m also pretty sure that the Fatima kids did not do what they did “for attention” when they had authorities threatening to kill them, parents angry with them, both parents and authorities trying to get them to say they lied, and their families suffering negative effects in general. They were little backwards country kids. They had no idea that this would become such a big deal. Just my opinion.
 
How simple do you think it was? (Think, this is the time of the Arian heresy and the fall of Rome, the beginnings of iconoclasticism, etc.). Remember, this was the time when the majority of the Catholic world from bishop to lay person had gone over to Arianism. When you had syncretism all over the place. You had Druids to contend with in Britain, barbarians throughout today’s continental Europe, the ‘orientalism’ of the Byzantine empire, fanatic asceticism in Africa, near constant war, poverty, illiteracy. . . how much opportunity to know one’s faith did Scipio or Marcus or Gunhild or Jaques or Aelstan have???
 
Tis_Bearself said:
I personally believe in Fatima, but I have heard priests and others say things about it that I personally considered wack. I have no problem just saying “meh” and setting those things aside. I don’t feel a need to get het up about it.
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You can say “meh,” but not all Catholics are able to. When I was a new Catholic (back in 1976), I didn’t know that apparitions were an optional belief. They were presented as Catholic Truth. At the time, I thought they were cool because there was nothing in my Protestant background like it. Then I started reading more & found out they are not Truth, but are mostly legends (for the really old ones) or a mixture of possible truth & “pious imagination.” I felt that the Church - or those representing the Church - had lied to me.

Why isn’t Biblical Truth enough? Why make up stories & say they really happened? When I first started learning the truth I felt betrayed. I’ve come around to thinking they are (sometimes) nice fantasies. For example, I enjoy the Guadalupe image, but don’t think it was a miracle. Tho years ago I stopped praying to my confirmation saint when I found out she never existed.
 
I would feel more concerned about people feeling betrayed or whatever over apparitions, if it did not also seem that people were being put off the Faith on a daily basis (based on this forum alone, although I hear some of the same elsewhere too) by everything from people not being friendly enough at church, to reading something in the Bible they found amiss, to hearing the Pope say something they disagree with, etc. etc.

Bottom line is, if people want to question their faith or take issue with the Church over something, they will find something. You could erase all the private revelations tomorrow and people would still find reasons to doubt or question or complain based on other things.

There are at least a dozen things I could take issue with the Church about or question my faith over, if I chose to do so. I do not choose to do so. I choose Jesus instead and when I hit a difficulty, then if it’s not something essential for me, I pray over it and set it aside. If it is something essential for me, I pray and trust in God to guide me. Perhaps this does not work for everyone, but to me it is similar to a marriage. My husband will never meet all of my expectations perfectly. I can nit pick and complain about the ways he falls short, or I can be happy about the ways he exceeds expectations, especially in the most important areas. Much happier to choose to be happy.
 
I agree there is too much focus on the medium and not the message.

As Jesus told Thomas, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

BELIEVE !
 
stpurl said:
How simple do you think it was? (Think, this is the time of the Arian heresy and the fall of Rome, the beginnings of iconoclasticism, etc.). Remember, this was the time when the majority of the Catholic world from bishop to lay person had gone over to Arianism. When you had syncretism all over the place. You had Druids to contend with in Britain, barbarians throughout today’s continental Europe, the ‘orientalism’ of the Byzantine empire, fanatic asceticism in Africa, near constant war, poverty, illiteracy. . . how much opportunity to know one’s faith did Scipio or Marcus or Gunhild or Jaques or Aelstan have???
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At that time the summary of the Christian faith (all that one needed to believe) was summarized in the Credo. There has been a lot added since then.
 
The Catechism says two somewhat inconsistent things.I can’t find paragraphs, but in the first of two paragraphs, it says the saints automatically and spontaneously intercede for us, then in the second of the two paragraphs it says that we should seek the assistance of the saints. I tend to think the first is more logical. e.g. if Mary is our mother, then she would be praying for us constantly. I got down this train of thought, because on youtube, there was a critic questioning about how many hail marys we have to say to get to heaven (thus critical of the catholic church) while neglectful of the Biblical injunction to pray without ceasing. But, I don’t recall what point I got into the CCC on the previous point about intercession.

It’s not what I think, but what I just read in the CCC. The saints already are praying for us.
 
Without trying to be disagreeable, I don’t think that’s exactly accurate. For example, neither the apostles creed nor the later nicene creed mentions the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, while I tend to accept that that was a belief right from the beginning, as is testified in scripture. The creeds tended to be summaries for easy memorization perhaps by neophytes in the Church. And, esp. he nicene creed was to resolve and settle some big disputes, like the heresy of Arius.
 
You would be surprised at how many Saints that have said they have spoken with Jesus.
 
DaveBj said:
Actually, no, I would not be surprised.
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You and I aren’t, but BayCityRickL would seeing that he doesn’t believe St. Faustina which is a 100% approved private revelation .
 
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The fact that private revelations are sometimes taken out of context, to extremes, does not invalidate approved private revelations themselves. Even Scripture is sometimes taken out of context, or twisted to justify bad things. It just means we must never give to private revelations - even approved ones - the degree of credibility or reliance we give to Scripture to Sacred Tradition.

To those who deny the “need” for private revelations at all, consider music. It is totally unnecessary for our salvation. But sometimes the right hymn, sung or performed well, can open the heart to Living Out the words of the sermon, Scripture, Tradition, to the Creed. But a song that inspires Bill might not inspire John, or might not have inspired Bill last year.

It would be wrong to rely on hymns for the bulk of one’s theological formation, or for that matter to rely primarily on private revelation. Private revelation can sometimes go astray (and let me tell you about some of the nonsense hymns in Oregon Catholic Press), but in the long run, the bad private revelation gets addressed, and the bad music gets phased out. But it seems fruitless to demand “I don’t need one note of music to be saved”! Or private revelation either.

So if you don’t like private revelation, fine, but don’t throw water on those who do. Maybe they have a need you don’t have at the moment, or maybe they are seeing deeper you might benefit from.
 
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commenter said:
So if you don’t like private revelation, fine, but don’t throw water on those who do. Maybe they have a need you don’t have at the moment, or maybe they are seeing deeper you might benefit from.
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When a Pope like St. JPII (who is now a Saint) gets behind a private revelation to the degree he did with both Fatima and the Divine Mercy, then I do not think Catholics should be throwing cold water on it in public.
One has the option of choosing to not believe or not practice it, but if Pope JPII was here, would you tell him you think it’s a load of bunk and the Church doesn’t need it? What do you think he would say to that?
 
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there was really nothing new in the private revelations that are mentioned here. Sr. Faustina did not discover or invent Divine Mercy.

There are about 11 documents in the EWTN document library. I downloaded them all, which add up to over 700 pages. Well, I skimmed these for some insights, and private revelations are thought to contain errors.

I am turned off with the apparent embellishment of Fatima, for example, that the Lady who appeared to the children was brighter than the sun. What could the children actually see, under these circumstances?
 
BayCityRickL said:
it says the saints automatically and spontaneously intercede for us, then in the second of the two paragraphs it says that we should seek the assistance of the saints. I tend to think the first is more logical. e.g. if Mary is our mother, then she would be praying for us constantly.
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Moms like Mary look out for their kids like us, regardless of whether the kid is paying any attention to Mom or not. But how happy it makes a Mom when her kid thinks to ask for her help, or take her a bouquet, or tell her she’s a good Mom and I love you.

Saints are like loving siblings, same deal. It’s not like anybody in Heaven doesn’t care. There are also likely many saints in heaven we don’t know by name because they lived their good lives and died in obscurity, without being officially recognized, so we couldn’t ask for their intercession by name because we don’t know their names (although a general prayer to “all the saints” would likely cover it). But specifically asking to the extent we can is a polite and good thing. It’s like networking with a holy person, but you say a prayer instead of having a cocktail with them at a reception. That’s how I see it, anyway.
 
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