Apparitions of the Virgin Mary
Within the larger consideration of apparition, a special place has been given to apparitions of one figure, the Virgin Mary, believed to be the mother of Jesus whom Christians worship as the Christ. Apparitions of the Virgin play an important role in doctrinal development and devotional life of the Roman Catholic Church, the largest religious organization in the world, and to a lesser extent are also acknowledged in the Eastern Orthodox and Coptic Churches. The apparitions of Mary are also important in terms of the diligent effort made by Roman Catholic authorities to investigate incidents that are brought to their attention, often by the attraction of large crowds to them, and the amount of energy spent on attempting to verify them. Some of the apparitions stand as among the most well-documented cases in the parapsychological realm.
In the modern cases of apparitions, especially where initial approval is given for church members to focus devotion around a particular apparition, the investigation may continue for many years, to the very death bed of people claiming to have had such apparitions to record their final words. Investigation is also made of associated "supernatural" phenomena such as the healings at Lourdes, France. While many in the highest levels of the Roman Catholic Church are eager to report on its claimed miraculous life, they are just as eager not to be trapped into offering their support to incidents that might better be explained by hoaxing, pathology, or other more mundane explanations.
In the Roman Church, apparitions are not part of what the church considers the deposit of faith and hence, no one is compelled to believe in them or to follow the devotions they suggest. However, the church does view them as helpful in encouraging devotion in general and confirming faith. The church grants permission for the veneration of Mary in a certain way and/or in a certain place. That permission may be relatively weak, as a letter from a bishop in whose diocese the apparition has occurred, or strong, as when the pope visited Fatima on the 50th anniversary of the apparition.
Many of the apparitions during the first centuries of Christianity were seen as purely personal revelations, but helped bolster the church's consideration of Mary and inclusion of her as an item on its theological agenda. However, over the centuries, several apparitions introduced a variety of new devotional practices into the church. The rosary, for example, first became popular when the Dominicans, following an apparition of Mary to their founder St. Dominic, began to spread its use in the twelfth century. Attention to Mary reached a high in the Middle Ages, but came under heavy attack from Protestant leaders in the sixteenth century (many considered it idolatry) and from the eighteenth-century Enlightenment that saw most supernaturalism as mere superstition.
From the eighteenth century one can see documented an attempt to revive interest in Marian devotion with the call for a definition of the Immaculate Conception (the belief that the Virgin Mary was born free of original sin) as official dogma (teachings). It also saw the publication of several massive works on Mariology, especially the eminently successful Glories of Mary (1876) by Alphonsus Liguori, which became one of the most highly circulated books on Mary in modern times.
Through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the role of Mary in theology and her place in the devotional life of the church has increased significantly. In 1854, Pope Leo IX issued the bull defining the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Over the next century, there were to be numerous papal encyclicals on Mary that would culminate in 1950 with Pope Pius XII's definition of the Assumption of Mary (that at the end of her life she was taken body and soul into heaven) as dogma. Integral to this expansion of theological and devotional interest in Mary are a set of apparitions that began in 1820. In the last generation literally hundreds of apparitions of Mary have been documented, but of these less than 20 have received the approbation of the church and become part of its ongoing devotional life.
Mary in the Nineteenth Century
A new era in Marian apparitions began in 1820 in Paris, France, with a young visionary, Catherine Labouré. A peasant girl with visionary tendencies, Catherine entered the convent of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul in April of 1820. Soon after settling in, she began to experience visions. Then, on the evening of July 18th, at around 11:30 P.M., she was awakened by a child who told her to go to the chapel. There she saw the Virgin. That evening she received only some personal instructions. But in November she had a vision of the Virgin surrounded by an oval frame and was told to have a medal truck in the likeness of what she saw. This medallion, known as the Miraculous Medal, first appeared two years later but the wearing of it has now become a popular form of devotion worldwide.
Fourteen years later, in southern France, on the side of a mountain called La Salette, Mary appeared to two children, Maximim Gigaud (age 11) and Melanie Matthieu (age 15). The pair were tending some cattle when they saw Her. She relayed to them a message of warning concerning the neglect of attendance at Mass and the use of Christ's name in a profane manner. The continued impiety was destined to lead to crop failures and then famine, which in fact plagued the region for the next decade. Mary appeared next to a spring that had dried up. Several days later, when the villagers finally heard about the claimed apparition, they went out to the site and found that the spring was once again flowing.
Possibly the most famous of the modern apparitions occurred to young Bernadette Souberous, also in France, this time at the village of Lourdes not far from the Spanish border. Bernadette was the subject of a series of apparitions beginning February 11, 1858, just four years after the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. She had been sent out to gather firewood when she wandered close to a grotto of Massabielle. There she saw the Lady whom she originally described as something in the shape of a girl. During the ninth apparition on February 25, she was told to drink and wash with water from a spot that Mary pointed out to her. People dug around the spot that soon turned into a heretofore unknown spring. She would see the Virgin several times more in March and April. When asked her name, the Lady finally answered, "I am the Immaculate Conception."
The Virgin told Bernadette that she wanted a chapel built at the grotto. After a few ups and downs, the report of the bishop affirming a belief that the Virgin had appeared at Lourdes was issued in 1862. The place would become known for its healings and in 1884 a medical bureau was established to keep records of the miraculous cures. Bernadette was canonized in 1933.
A fourth officially approved apparition also occurred in France at Pontmain. It was during the closing days of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 that Eugené and Joseph Barbadette (twelve and ten years old respectively) saw the Virgin. Their father, standing close by, saw nothing. As others gathered, the adults saw nothing, but two additional children, both female, immediately saw the apparition. The apparition closed with what resembled a set of tableux-like scenes of Mary in the same position as depicted on the Miraculous Medal, and then a red cross appeared and a white cross. As the priest who had arrived led the group in their evening prayers, the vision faded.
Twentieth Century Apparitions
The four French apparitions set the stage for what possibly were the most spectacular of the modern apparitions whose fame closely rivals that of Lourdes. The apparitions at Fatima, in central Portugal, began on May 13, 1917, and continued monthly into October. Here Mary offered the three children to whom she appeared a vision of hell as the consequences of impiety and unbelief, and called for reparations and prayers for the conversion of Russia. What set the apparitions apart, however, was the fulfilled promise of a miracle to complete the apparitions on October 13. Tens of thousands of people gathered at the site of the apparitions though the day was rainy. As the children were conversing with the Lady, whom none of others could see, Lucy, one of the children, suddenly cried out, "Look at the sun!" The clouds parted, and a bright silver disk appeared and began to rotate. It plunged downward toward the crowd and its heat dried out clothes soaked in the earlier rain. A mysterious white substance fell from the sky and after about 30 minutes of the "sun" dancing in the sky, the phenomenon ended. Not only did everyone see, including some prominent Freethinkers who had come to ridicule the children, but people from as far away as 30 miles witnessed it.
Besides the aerial phenomenon of the last day, Mary had also presented the children with a secret message, as had occurred at La Salette. While two parts of the secrets of Fatima would be revealed, the third part has remained unknown to the public at large, even though the initial indication was that it would be made public in 1960. It is known that the popes since John XXIII have read the secret message and there has been intense speculation as to the content of the secret among the millions who have adopted the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary that was called for in 1917.
Since Fatima, two approved apparitions occurred at Beauraing (1932) and Banneax (1933), Belgium. Also, back in 1879, in the midst of the potato famine, there had been a reported apparition at Knock, Ireland. Though investigated immediately afterward and in 1936, approval from the church has been slow in coming. While pilgrimages to Knock were not forbidden, the succession of local bishops refused to rule on the matter of the apparition's credibility. Beginning in 1954, popes have honored the devotion of the people and recognized Knock as a major center of Marian devotion. Finally in 1979, on the hundredth anniversary of the apparition, Pope John Paul II himself visited Knock.
And not to be forgotten in the midst of the growth of Marian devotion in Europe, is the fifteenth-century apparition of Mary in Guadalupe, Mexico. This apparition centered upon an amazing image of the Virgin left behind on the cape of Juan Diego, the young man who saw the Virgin. The image became the focus of veneration of the Virgin throughout Latin America, and has during the last half of the twentieth century been integrated into the Marian devotion that swept through Europe and North America.
Other Apparitions
The number of apparitions of the Virgin have grown throughout the twentieth century. Most have had only local effect. Although a few have been the subject of books, the great majority have gone unreported except to the most dedicated of gatherers of Marian data. A few, however, became the objects of mass gatherings and pilgrimages that forced local bishops to act. In 1954, for example, Mary Ann van Hoof began to claim visions of the Virgin at a spot near Necedah, Wisconsin. She also began to circulate lengthy messages dictated from Mary, not unlike messages received through what is known as channeling. Through the late 1950s large crowds gathered at the site and a shrine was created. For a number of years the leaders of the shrine negotiated with the bishop of LaCross to approve the apparitions, but following several unfavorable rulings, he gave a final statement discounting the apparitions and calling Roman Catholics to abandon support of the shrine. The core of shrine supporters, however, reorganized and have continued as an independent group. A similar course has been followed by those around Mary Ann Lueken, who has claimed continuous visits by the Virgin in Bayside, Long Island, New York.
In Europe, the most prominent of the questionable apparitions began in the 1960s in Garabandal, Spain, in which solar phenomena not unlike that in Fatima was reported. However, the apparitions could not pass the scrutiny of church investigators and have now been abandoned. The more important apparitions began in 1981 at Medjugorje, then in Herzegovina. Since the first day, they have continued daily for almost 20 years and even at the height of fighting in the 1990s from the breakup of the country, pilgrims continued to flock to the area. The apparitions have been the source of a barrage of books supportive of the young people who have been the subject of Mary's attention. However, they have also acquired some strong critics within the church, both scholars and members of the hierarchy, who have condemned the phenomena. No definitive ruling has yet occurred.
In the midst of the ongoing debates concerning some of the recent apparitions, the most spectacular of Mary's appearances occurred in Cairo, Egypt, where not only thousands saw her, but pictures were taken. Investigations have been filed to offer reasonable alternative mundane explanations. However, Mary appeared on the roof of a Coptic (not a Roman Catholic) cathedral. While Roman Catholic scholars have investigated and written about the sightings, the fact that Mary chose to appear in a Muslim country in a non-Roman Catholic setting has kept this apparition from being integrated into the body of material considered relevant by Western Mariologists.
The Meaning of the Apparitions
For conservative Roman Catholics, the apparitions are a major building block of faith in God's activity in the world. They, in effect, prove the existence of the supernatural and allow participation in it while living in an otherwise secular world. Many liberal Roman Catholics see in the apparitions a form of devotion that is quite foreign to the secularized outlook they have adopted. Critics approach the apparitions in much the same way as other psychic phenomena, as a threat to the worldview that they have adopted that has no space for such occurrences. The most vehement of critics, over the last 200 years, have seen the apparitions as supportive of a return to pre-scientific superstition. Also critical are conservative Evangelical Christians who view Roman Catholicism as a distorted form of Christianity, and attack the apparitions as a counterfeit supernaturalism. In the middle are people who believe that such phenomena occur, but do not tie the phenomena to Roman Catholic theology.
In fact, the Marian apparitions do supply a vast amount of data for contemporary parapsychology, and the ongoing apparitions provide an interesting set of data for those concerned about the phenomenon of channeling. The material channeled by van Hoof, Lueken, and their peers is structurally like that from New Age channelers, but its content could not be more different.
Sources:
Connor, Edward. Recent Apparitions of Our Lady. Fresno, Calif.: Academy Guild Publishers, n.d.
Delaney, John J. A Woman Clothed with the Sun: Eight Great Appearances of Our Lady. Garden City, N.Y.: Hanover House, 1960.
McClure, Kevin. The Evidence for Visions of the Virgin Mary. Wellingborough, UK: Aquarian Press, 1983.
Sharkey, Don. The Woman Shall Conquer. Kenosha, Wis.: Franciscan Marytown Press, 1976.
