Discerning Apparitions

I haven't been praying for Trump (or Hillary), just general prayers for our leaders. But good idea, I will start adding Trump to the intentions for my daily rosary, for heaven to protect him.

 

Yes, I've certainly experienced the humor and friendly banter, JAK. Actually, I have posted other things, which are easy enough to look up.

 

So it's on to the next deadline Jan. 20 2017 for Charlie, eh? It's a good thing he's quitting after that because stringing people along year after year gets old. The US has excellent prospects to become an abortion-free country due to a Republican House and Senate and a Republican President who will pick Supreme Court justices like Antonin Scalia to the court. It is a joyous day, indeed. It is cause to celebrate and thank God. Why plan on disaster when God has given us a huge victory?

 

I understand how you feel Harper. You won't have long to wait. January 20 isn't that far away.
It will be Charlie's LTTW moment.

 

This is a perfect reflection of my state of mind, especially the last two sentences.

Thank you, Mary Ann!

 

Just one more thought to add. I kind of wonder what God thinks about our response to His permitting will. God permitted Trump/Pence to win this election because of the will of the voters. The voters chose Trump/Pence. During this election cycle I found a forum of mainly American people who discussed in great detail each and every moment of the last year of campaigning. It was from a conservative viewpoint and a large segment of commenters was presumably Christian but not Catholic. As you may imagine, after the election people are over the moon happy and ecstatic that Mr. Trump and Gov. Pence won. Many commenters stated how much they were praying everyday for the protection of Trump/Pence etc.... We certainly view that God favored our prayers with a victory. I think it shows a weak faith to believe that God would permit satan to take Trump/Pence away from being President and Vice-President. God is so much more powerful than satan. Why concede any power to satan by imagining disaster and despair? Why not celebrate?
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Geographically speaking, Trump won at least 80% of the Nation. The only states Hillary carried are Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.

Trump won every county in Oklahoma and West Virginia. Trump won all but one county in Wyoming, and Kansas. Trump won all but two counties in North Dakota, Kentucky, Tennessee, Utah, and Nebraska.

Nearly the entire state of Minnesota, Illinois, New York, Oregon, Iowa, Missouri, Ohio, Michigan, etc., went for Trump.

Geographically speaking, except for big cities and a few isolated areas, the country cannot stand Hillary.

 

In all honesty...i have been smelling sulfer the past three days. Hope its not for me. I also hope its not something big. I am at a spiritual low. Thats what makes it scary.

Pray for brother al

 

I was watching Michael Voris and he said we have been granted a reprieve. We need to use it. Thank you to Our Lord and Our Lady for responding to our prayers.

 

The election analysis in this post was done by someone else that I borrowed from.

 

Many prayers for you and all of the battle weary warriors. We are on the winning team!

 

Praying for you, Brother Al.

 

Prayer said.

 

I don't know whether you mean that literally, but if you do I think it would be wise to visit your doctor.

Keep on praying and trust that Jesus will pull you through this down spell. I will pray for you too.

 

I was wondering why you weren't posting much on the presidential thread. I will pray for you Al. I agree this is a reprieve. I have enjoyed the victory and I am proud of my country. I am excited about a trump presidency too, with a focus on jobs and getting rid of ridiculous bathroom laws and moving down the traditional path. But in listening to CNN right now, this good feeling won't last. These liberals are mad and I am not sure they will accept the election results. We really are a country divided between liberal and conservative/traditional.

So yes MaryAnn, I am enjoying the moment. But yes brother Al, I have a queasy feeling in my stomach listening to CNN. I really don't think there will be a peaceful transition of power. I believe that is where the sulfer smell is originating.

 

It's well to remember that the Orcs are still around us, we wee hobbits. Pray the Rosary! Viva Cristo Rey!

 

Michael Brown on Discernment, from Spirit Daily:

A challenge it is, to approach apparitions and other so-called phenomena with equipoise.

How to discern a real supernatural episode from a false one?

That's easier said than done.

The most valuable passage from the Bible may be the one that tells us to keep what is good and discard the rest (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

In other words, don't always toss out the baby with the bathwater. But do test that bathwater! It can be badly tainted.

Many real experiences are compromised by the time they get through the medium of the sensible faculties. Most (when they are not mere imagination) are a "mix."

Balance.

The most frequently cited standards come from Scripture: "You will know them by their fruits" (Matthew 7:16) and "By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God" (1 John 4:2).

The problem is that religious apparitions virtually always acknowledge Jesus (deceptive or not), and "fruits" aren't always initially apparent, or on the other hand are deceptively fleeting (good things are seen on the surface).

Discernment comes chiefly through fasting, receiving the Eucharist, Adoration (with a confessed heart), humility (critical), love, and prayer. There is no magic formula.

Some things are obvious: Be wary of a seer who is prideful, haughty, rude, attention-seeking, loquacious (locutions that are too long and wordy), sullen, insistent, or divisive. They claim more than they present evidence, take more than they give.

The renowned mystical theologian Father Augustin Poulain, in his classic, The Graces of Interior Prayer, said:

"When a seer wishes to be believed on his bare word, we can generally get rid of him by saying: 'You assure me that God speaks by your mouth. I have no right to believe you unless you prove it. What sign do you bring?' In his ingenuousness he had not expected this question, and retires abashed."

Beware, said Poulain, of a seer who tells you that Heaven has mentioned or chosen you (as a spiritual director, in the case of a priest).

When a seer has had prophecies that did not materialize, this is most certainly a warning signal. The person who mouths a false prediction or posits dates is what Scripture calls "presumptuous." Nor are we to become overly attracted and attached to alleged mystics (and hostile to those who differ). Fanaticism, cult, and rancor are bad fruits for certain (as opposed to heartease, patience, and joy).

Imagination? "When people strongly desire a thing, the imagination makes them fancy they see or hear it, just as when one's mind is set on a subject all day, one dreams of it at night," said Teresa of Avila. The evil, she says, is not usually in the vision so much as in the person.

At the same time (here comes that balance again -- or is it a tightrope?): there are those too dispensed toward skepticism and even caustic disregard due to a mechanistic mindset nurtured strongly by the current educational culture.

If we are humble, said Saint Teresa, a vision, whatever the source, will do us no harm. "The good or the evil is not in the vision," she said, "but in him to whom it is given, and who does not profit by it in humility."

"If we believe a corporeal apparition of Our Lord or of the saints to be due to the devil," is one of Poulain's rules, "[do] not to go to the length of insulting it or treating it with contempt, any more than we should do towards a sacred picture that had been painted by a scoundrel."

The Venerable Louis du Pont related the account of a priest who received visions. One day, he asked himself if he was not the sport, notes Poulain, of his own imagination. "He then heard Our Savior address these words to him: 'When thou art hungry, if thou art given a branch of a tree loaded with fruit, what dost thou do?' 'I eat the fruit and cast the branch away,' he replied. 'Even so,' Our Savior continued, 'act in the same way with regard to the visions. Eat the fruits thereof, humility, patience, and the other virtues; and whatever the vision may be, be not troubled any more.'"

Sounds like good advice to us. We must be cautious. Discern always. But first make certain you have discerned yourself.

 

An overview on how to approach apparitions and seers , this time from Cardinal Arinze. It is from 2008, and Cardinal Arinze was speaking as Prefect for the Congregation of Divine Worship and Discipline of Sacraments. Transcript below.

Cardinal Arinze on how to discern alleged apparitions and “seers”


What are apparitions? Since many people are attracted by them, especially as this century and millennium are drawing to an end, not only in this country but also in other countries: Apparition, apparition, apparition; seer, seer, seer.

“Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the saints can appear to anyone as Divine Providence may decide. And God can send visions or thoughts or locutions to anyone He wishes. If such apparitions or locutions are genuine, they are called ‘private revelations’. If they are genuine.

“Public Revelation was concluded with the death of the last of the Apostles, Saint John. That means it’s already almost two thousand years minus one hundred when Public Revelation was concluded. If a private revelation is genuine, it will always be a confirmation of what is already in Public Revelation.

“Only Public Revelation becomes an object of Divine Catholic Faith. That is what we must believe with Divine Catholic Faith — dogma. Only such does the Church demand that we all believe.

“The Church never imposes belief in a private revelation, even when a private revelation is approved by the Church as coming from Heaven. Like Lourdes and Fatima. These are said to come from Heaven, but even than, the Church does not impose them as objects of Catholic Faith.

“It is very difficult to know in practice if that an apparition is really from God or if it is the fruit of somebody’s overfertile imagination, somebody’s pious ideas, somebody who does not distinguish between reality and dream, or somebody who has a type of journey. It is very difficult to know when they are a result of deceit of the devil.

“And even in a genuine private revelation, the seer can make mistakes in recounting or interpreting some of the details. This has happened even to saints canonized. They made a few mistakes in details, they were confused.

“‘In practice’. It means that we should test a reported apparition by such questions as the following:

“Does it agree entirely with the revealed and Divine Catholic Faith?
“Does it lead us to the center of our Faith, which is where Holy Scriptures is, and Sacred Tradition, and where the Pope and the Bishops are?
“Does it lead us to obey the Pope and the Bishops?

“If you said, ‘The private revelation told us not to mind the Pope and the Bishops’, we’d tell you, ‘It’s not from Heaven.‘

“It is therefore a mistake if a Christian now makes a reported apparition a central event in the Christian life or a test of those who are fervent Christians. If now you test people, ‘If you don’t believe in the apparition, you are not a good Catholic,’ you have the whole thing wrong.

“It is a negative sign when some Christians follow seers or visionaries, they follow them, they read daily their writings and utterances – but they won’t read the Gospels, they won’t read the Catechism of the Catholic Church, they won’t read the documents of the Pope – and they read the documents of the Seer/Visionary XYZ.

“It is a very negative sign when some people disobey or ignore the Pope and the Bishops in union with him all in the name of a vision or an apparition. Christ told His Apostles, ‘Anyone who listens to you, listens to Me. Anyone who rejects you, rejects Me. And those who reject Me reject the One who sent Me.’

“Somebody asked me, ‘There is one apparition that is reported, are you going on pilgrimage there?’ I said, ‘Oh yes, I go on pilgrimage, but do you know where I go on pilgrimage? The Chapel. Where we have the Blessed Sacrament in the Tabernacle. Where we are not guessing, where we are sure! That’s my pilgrimage.’

“Please understand me. I do not say ‘Do not go to Lourdes, do not go to Fatima’. Those are certain. Jerusalem is where our Faith began.

“But there are some other places where we don’t know whether Our Lady was there or not. I don’t go there. They can do good to people, it doesn’t prove yet. We don’t know. Might be, might not be.
“It takes a lot of challenge – Years and Years – to know when they are genuine. Sometimes it takes fifty years, one hundred years.

“We don’t base our Faith on such because we have solid foundation for our Faith already. You want pilgrimage? Jerusalem! Of course.”

 

Ah, the famous Cardinal Arinze video beloved of all those who are skeptical of contemporary apparitions! No doubt the good Cardinal has still not discerned whether Medjugorje is true or not after 35 years! So I'm not sure his advice in this area is going to be too helpful for people....

 

Out for your daily troll, David?

ETA: I don't find anything wrong with his statements, certainly nothing against Church doctrine. What counter-arguments can you present to his words such as these:

“It is a very negative sign when some people disobey or ignore the Pope and the Bishops in union with him all in the name of a vision or an apparition. Christ told His Apostles, ‘Anyone who listens to you, listens to Me. Anyone who rejects you, rejects Me. And those who reject Me reject the One who sent Me.’

 

Could you explain why you view my post as 'trollish' (whatever that means)?

There is probably nothing in what the Cardinal says that I disagree with. The problem is that his words are not, in my view, helpful for those seeking to discern contemporary apparitions. It seems to be helpful only for those who don't believe in modern apparitions and who wish to show a Cardinal who shares their negativity. I repeat that they are words of advice from a Cardinal who appears not to display good discernment in this area.

I don't expect you to agree with what I am saying here but surely you will allow me to speak without being accused of deliberately trying to upset people (which is presumably what a 'troll' is)??