Last night I went to a talk, given by Janice Connell at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. Afterwards, with about 10 to 15 other people, I stood right next to her, for over an hour, while I listened to her riveting accounts of her experiences with the Medjugorje visionaries. She went from one story to the next without being interrupted. She said that according to the visionaries great positive and negative things are going to happen including the end of the world. This is going to take place within the lifetime of the visionaries. They're in their twenties now. She and her husband are both attorneys and they've lived in Scottsdale for the past three years. She was extremely credible. The accounts of her of interviews with the visionaries are in her book "Queen of the Cosmos". She didn't seem to care to promote her book. She just recommended it in light of questions people were asking. Ever since last night a song has been resonating in my head - "Jesus is coming better get ready soon we'll be going home".
http://www.medjugorje.org/overview.htm
3 comments:
Chuck, the visionaries weren't told the exact day or time. Before Monday night I had a lot of scepticism for anyone predicting the future. I thought it's God's business and we all need to be ready. The Church doesn't require us to believe in private revelations. But on Monday night, first, I judged this women credible and thus came as close to a major private revelation as I'm probably ever going to. Secondly, the message from the Blessed Mother was this: She is coming for the last time to bring as many people as possible back to God before the end of the world and we are to spread the message. There are huge consistencies with what happened at Fatima. In fact I'll share with you later something else Janice witnessed that was a continuum of Fatima. It's taken almost 25 years for the message to get to me. I encourage you all to explore the internet, also, read "Queen of the Cosmos" and decide for yourselves.
His Holiness, Pope Urban VIII stated: "In cases which concern private revelations, it is better to believe than not to believe, for, if you believe, and it is proven true, you will be happy that you have believed, because our Holy Mother asked it. If you believe, and it should be proven false, you will receive all blessings as if it had been true, because you believed it to be true."(Pope Urban VIII, 1623-44)
I have mixed emotions about private revelation. On the one hand, I embrace those visions that seem to be wholeheartedly embraced by the Church--Fatima, Lourdes, etc--and the good things they promote that reflect timeless Catholic teaching (prayer, repentance, etc). Where I get uncomfortable is when the message of the vision or apparition kind of takes on a life of it's own and people draw inferences and conclusions from it --sometimes lifechanging-- that they are not really bound to.
It's kind of like the "Left Behind" craze. People have taken a basic core message (that Jesus will come again) and made a whole theology out of it designed to scare people into evangelization and conversion. The "Left Behind" people haven't set any dates either, and it works to their benefit since if the "imminent" threat is always hanging over peoples heads, they can stretch it out and use it to their advantage as long as they choose.
There's nothing wrong with having a healthy understanding of the Last Things, but it should not be to motive of one's faith because eventually one may get tired of waiting and become lukewarm or disillusioned.
Here's what the Catechism says:
67 Throughout the ages, there have been so-called "private" revelations, some of which have been recognized by the authority of the Church. They do not belong, however, to the deposit of faith. It is not their role to improve or complete Christ's definitive Revelation, but to help live more fully by it in a certain period of history. Guided by the Magisterium of the Church, the sensus fidelium knows how to discern and welcome in these revelations whatever constitutes an authentic call of Christ or his saints to the Church.
Christian faith cannot accept "revelations" that claim to surpass or correct the Revelation of which Christ is the fulfillment, as is the case in certain non-Christian religions and also in certain recent sects which base themselves on such "revelations".
As always I have a helpful article from Catholic Answers:
http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2000/0011bt.asp
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