How can I be sure of the authenticity of St. Faustina's visions?

  • Thread starter Thread starter cathjuche
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
C

cathjuche

Guest
I’m aware it isn’t mandatory to hold her revelations as authentic, but they really do interest me. I can’t find much evidence of her authenticity though, and as much as I want to believe it, I want to be sure considering the countless other experiences people have had that aren’t always true.
 
The Church has vetted her. She’s gone through the process of beatification.

Her diary isn’t the result of her alone. She was encouraged by her confessor(s) to write. She didn’t exist in a bubble.

Also, her diary has Nihil Abstat from different bishops.
 
Her writings would be a great choice for reading during Lent. You can use her writings to talk to Jesus in prayer. Let us know after Easter how that went. God bless.
 
It is interesting to note that there was strong opposition to St. Faustina’s diary. This information comes from National Catholic Register.

“In 1959, the Holy Office (the Vatican’s doctrinal agency, today known as the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith) issued a cease and desist order against Faustina’s diary and the devotion to Divine Mercy, a ban that was to last almost 20 years, until 1978.”

In 1965, when St. Pope John Paul II was archbishop of Kraców, he supported Faustina’s cause for sainthood. The ban on Faustina’s diary was lifted after St. John Paul II became pope.

I don’t say this as a criticism. I’m just giving some historical context to views about her diary.

http://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2002c/083002/083002f.htm
 
Last edited:
Yeah, I want to, I just feel uneasy about reading it when I’m not sure on it’s veracity. And thanks, God bless you too.
 
Last edited:
She’s a canonized saint. I don’t think they’re going to canonize saints who make up a lot of stuff about having seen Jesus, especially when it’s just about their only claim to sainthood.
 
njlisa said:
It is interesting to note that there was strong opposition to St. Faustina’s diary. This information comes from National Catholic Register.

“In 1959, the Holy Office (the Vatican’s doctrinal agency, today known as the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith) issued a cease and desist order against Faustina’s diary and the devotion to Divine Mercy, a ban that was to last almost 20 years, until 1978.”
Click to expand...
The reason generally given is that the diary was poorly translated and gave the wrong impression of what she wrote. When Pope JPII came along, he could actually read the original.

Edited to add, OP, this is the second thread you’ve started asking about this Diary, if I’m not mistaken. Why is it so important to you?

Many saints have received many apparitions of Jesus, Mary, other saints, and have written about their experiences. We are never going to have God come down and put a big stamp on their writings and say, “It’s All True.” We are free to accept or reject the writings after we read them. It’s not a big deal. Believe it or don’t.
 
Last edited:
It’s not her only claim to sainthood.

In any event, it’s best not to seek certainty in general from private revelation. I find it a reliable guide for me, personally, and read it a few times a week. I recommend it to others. It is simply advice I find helpful.
 
commenter said:
I find it a reliable guide for me, personally, and read it a few times a week. I recommend it to others. It is simply advice I find helpful.
Click to expand...
Right, and that’s all it’s supposed to be.
It’s not a substitute for Scripture or the deposit of faith.

That’s why I can’t understand why determining truth of it is so important.

As for other claims of St. Faustina to sainthood, aside from the fact that she was a holy person, what else is there? Many holy people go to Heaven; they don’t become canonized saints with a very large church built near their grave.
To say she has other claims to sainthood is like saying that the Marto children or Bernadette Soubirous would have somehow been canonized without seeing any apparitions.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Edited to add, OP, this is the second thread you’ve started asking about this Diary, if I’m not mistaken. Why is it so important to you?
Click to expand...
Wasn’t really that important to me the first time, just had a question about a saint I heard about. Time passed and I got more interested, but that’s only been going on for 2 days though.
And I guess the other things you’ve said make sense
 
If this or any, private revelation, brings you acts of prayer and the spiritual and corporal works of Mercy, then it is authentic. If it leads a person to extreme analysis and preoccupation with it, or treating it on a level with public revelation, it isn’t authentic.

Private Revelation is like the music during Mass. If you’re focused a lot in the music itself, that’s not good. If the music leads your mind and heart to focus on God, in the Mass, that’s authentic.

The best music, or private revelation, does not call attention to itself.
 
commenter said:
If it leads a person to extreme analysis and preoccupation with it, or treating it on a level with public revelation, it isn’t authentic.
Click to expand...
With the caveat that authenticity as you use the word applies to the particular person’s experiences only. For every approved private revelation, you can find many people including bishops and Popes who got much out of it spiritually, and many other people who went down the path of obsession and conspiracy theory with it.
 
Perhaps it caused the process to be initiated due to the attention it brought, but a life of heroic virtue is the criteria not revelations. There are some that had visions like the jewish athiest that was converted and the children that saw Our Lady at La Salette and they weren’t canonized.
 
Last edited:
VanitasVanitatum said:
Perhaps it caused the process to be initiated due to the attention it brought, but a life of heroic virtue is the criteria not revelations.
Click to expand...
Yes, this is correct. If this is what commenter meant also, then I agree.

However, like you said, her private revelations are almost certainly what caused her sainthood process to be initiated. After her death, the archbishop of Vilnius noticed that her prediction about WWII had taken place, and allowed public access to the Divine Mercy image which led to the spread of the Divine Mercy Devotion, which became very popular, and probably led in turn to Archbishop Wojtyla (later Pope JPII) beginning to investigate her life and resulting in her eventual canonization.
 
There are different things evaluated here.
The thread title asks about authenticity of the visions. I don’t think that matters to anyone, exception of St Faustina. If her ideas came from a vision of Christ, or from a prayerful summarizing of Scripture, Tradition, and spiritual direction, they are the same ideas. The Church isn’t basing approval on her visions but on the diary, and her overall holiness.

The Chaplet of Divine Mercy is a Private Devotion. Like all approved private Devotions it must draw its strength from, and bring us back to, the Mass.

The Diary is Private Revelation. It draws its credibility from, and should lead us back to, Public Revelation. Faustina’s Diary contains many spiritual insights besides remarks attributed to Jesus and Mary. It is kind of a Midway point or mixture between something like Fatima, and something like reading St Teresa of Liseaux, etc.
 
Last edited:
cathjuche said:
I can’t find much evidence of her authenticity though, and as much as I want to believe it, I want to be sure considering the countless other experiences people have had that aren’t always true
Click to expand...
I don’t know that you can verify her authenticity other than accepting the Church canonized her as a Saint.

While reading her diary, if you find anything that contradicts doctrine, it’s not authentic.
 
Justin_Mary said:
While reading her diary, if you find anything that contradicts doctrine, it’s not authentic.
Click to expand...
The Diary of St. Faustina has been given the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur.
The Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur are official Church statements that the book has been reviewed and found to be free of doctrinal and moral error.
Therefore, you are not going to “find anything that contradicts doctrine” in the Diary of St. Faustina.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top