Medjugorje

The issue is clearly one of attitude and proportion. A few days ago I commented that several Francophone websites oriented towards private revelation unfortunately demonstrate precisely the sort of mentality that the Pope is lampooning: an over-heated sensationalism and very little discernment or solid Scriptural/theological grounding, with messages from various sources being put out as urgent and then denounced as demonic even only a few hours later!

In authentic private revelation there is actually no novelty when it comes to the question of Christian identity: quite the opposite, its function being to point us back to the source and essentials of the faith, something which it does with such regularity that some actually find it excessively repetitive. IMHO one of the signs of authenticity is when after reading an alleged locution you return to the Gospels and re-discover what was there all along but which our all-too-human interpretations often screen out. Genuine private revelation of whatever epoch, whether we're talking about St Bridget of Sweden, the visions of St Faustina or the journal of Gabrielle Bossis, doesn't reveal a different Jesus from that of the New Testament. What it does is to remind us that Christ today really is the same person as Jesus of Nazareth, fully God and fully man with all that implies, rather than any of the countless other Jesuses that modern culture has on offer (Jesus the political revolutionary, the New Age guru who spent his formative years in India, Jesus the projection of our own 'Christ-consciousness', Jesus the apostle of secular humanism etc. etc.). If your reading of private revelation brings you closer to Christ and deepens commitment to a practical life of discipleship, that's fine. If it doesn't, then there's a problem...

 

I have been to medjugorge many times since 1986, I was instantly healed in 1989 from a painful back condition, through rebuking stan on apparition hill. Every year I went I experienced a tangible grace and I think I was blessed because I discovered early on the graces that came from adoration. That is where I spent 99% of my time there and as much as I could when at home. I have met people who could tell you exactly how often they have been there (some up to 100 times) but they had very little growth in faith and I wondered about this. One will always see where another is at on their journey by the words they use. They obviously had received graces but appeared to have lost them again. The conclusion I came to was there was very little nurturing coming from the church in Ireland, and also that people themselves don't seek God in adoration, they would be too busy saying prayers. I was there 3 years ago and I felt that would be the last time Our Lady would call me. I went with a friend the following year and it was the only year I did not experience a tangible blessing.
I do believe in Medj because the graces I received were in sequence like being taught at school. I don't believe stan would have had the patience or concern for me to teach me so tenderly!

 

Priests prepare for pilgrimages to Medjugorje



More than 1,000 priests expected to visit Medjugorje in the coming weeks...

This time of the year in Medjugorje sees three major events taking place: the International Priests Seminar, the International Youth Festival and the Anniversary Day of the Medjugorje phenomenon.

The three events attract hundreds of priests from around the world and it will be interesting to see how the news of a soon-to-be-announced Vatican decision on the Medjugorje phenomenon will affect attendances.

Last year around 300 priests, deacons and seminarians from 25 countries attended the 19th International Seminar for Priests held across six days. Accommodation and hospitality was provided free of charge by the residents of Medjugorje.

This year’s Seminar topic is “Peace be with you!”, the motto adopted by Pope Francis for his recent apostolic visit to Sarajevo. The event, scheduled from July 6 to 11, is co-ordinated by the parish priest Fr Marinko Sakota.

The week-long Medjugorje International Youth Festival also attracts a large number of priests and religious and as many as 50,000 young people and families from around 60 countries worldwide. The daily evening Mass is concelebrated by upto 500 hundred priests while another 100 plus priests assist with confessions.

The 26th Medjugorje Youth Festival starts on July 31 and ends August 6.

There is also the Medjugorje Anniversary on June 25, set aside to mark the beginning of the Medjugorje phenomenon. Again, upto 500 priests are expected to attend this one-day event and assist with pastoring some 70,000 pilgrims.

It is in this regard that it seems likely the Vatican will remove or clarify perceived restrictions on priests visiting Medjugorje. There is a great need for priests to assist with confessions. It is impossible for the small number of Franciscans attached to the parish to cope with the large number of pilgrims seeking the Sacrament of Reconciliation. More ‘Missionaries of Mercy’ are required.

There were so many fish that they could not haul in the net […] The other disciples came in on the boat, towing the net and the fish. (John 21 6, 8)

 

As I am sure you are aware the Church has ruled negatively on Vassula Ryden on multiple occasions. We must be obedient no matter how much we like the messages.

https://www.ewtn.com/library/curia/cdfrydn1.htm

 

Gang,
I will keep "beating my drum"!! Why!!?? ... in these perilous times are we wasting our time-n-energy on "things" that are not essential, core and approved in OUR QUEST FOR SALVATION ...EH!!!??!!
JESUS I TRUST IN YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I don't want to turn this thread into a discussion of Vassula especially as your view has often been discussed on the forum. I advise you to read the detailed information at http://www.cdf-tlig.org/

 

Because people are not being fed by those with a mandate to feed!!

 

Davidltg, I mean no disrespect at all to you. I am sure you are a good person. The fact remains though these messages have multiple negative statements form the Vatican for both the clergy and the faithful. There are so many approved messages from Our Lady and Jesus Christ I don't know why there is a need to go to shady ones.

You put up a link from her website giving an explantion of the Vatican's position. First off, I would never go to a seers website to get the explanation of their position with the CDF. I will be happy to look at any documents you wish to post from official Vatican sites or other reputable sources such as EWTN, etc. as I did. Perhaps there is some more recent proclamation overturning what I posted. If there is, I will certainly retract what I posted, but I couldn't find any.

 

Sadly, we are in times where our church is divided on multiple issues....at a time when I personally feel we are about to enter into worldwide events of untold spiritual magnitude and physical change. Somewhere in this great confusion of the faithful, is the work of satan....master of lies and confusion.

In my humble opinion, the only sure way we can proceed to the truth on any of these decisions is to do exactly what we can all agree on....focus on the sacraments.....pray our daily rosary and Divine Mercy. We know these spiritual exercises will not ever fail us.....we know they are the total truth....we also know that if we just cling to them, that the Holy Spirit will lead us to the ultimate truth that is the only necessary belief for our salvation.

You good men and women of faith have these spiritual practices in common and in the end, they are all you will need.

 

As David said, there has been extensive discussion on this forum about the case of Vassula Rydén which I don't wish to recapitulate, but having studied all this at great length as a theologically-trained professional faith-science researcher, the idea that Vassula Rydén's writings are condemned by the Vatican is far too simplistic. It would be more accurate to say that opinion within the Catholic Magisterium has been divided about her.

The key witnesses to her dialogue with the CDF are Danish academic theologian Niels Hvidt, who initiated it, and now-Cardinal Prospero Grech who was one of the theologians assigned to evaluate her. Niels Hvidt, source of the account of the Vassula-CDF proceedings to which David posted a link, was a doctoral student of Cardinal Ratzinger who subsequently prefaced Hvidt's Oxford University Press book Christian Prophecy: the post-Biblical tradition (2007) containing a chapter on Vassula Rydén. Cardinal Grech's review of Vassula's autobiography Heaven is Real was published by Inside the Vatican magazine in January 2014 and can be read here:
http://insidethevatican.com/magazine/people/vassula-reviewed

Whether one believes that Vassula Rydén's messages are 'supernaturally' inspired or fall into the category of 'private meditation' is not the issue here. On that readers have to make up their own minds. What is at stake is the accurate portrayal of her dealings with the CDF. The latter's position is less than clear, something which as far as I can see it would seem to point to an internal split (Cardinal Ratzinger hints at this in his remark reported by Hvidt that he would have like to have seen a new notification rectifying that of 1995 but had to 'obey the cardinals' - draw your own conclusions from that). What can however be said with certainty, despite much disinformation on the part of her many detractors, is that True Life in God obtained a Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur in 2005 as not being contrary to the Faith.

 

I know how it feels when you suddenly realize that you have believed something which not real. When God gave me the grace by waking me up from my Medjugorje beliefs, it was a shock for me! But at the same time I knew it was from God. Still, my head was full of thoughts and combats (+) and (-) like "was this what I experienced from God or from the enemy?" It took a long time to recover. I can't say I felt shame of what I had believed before... no, I was grateful to God and also relieved that was FREE of that stuff. I was in a way Medjugorje addicted... It was first difficult to get rid of the "Gospa" & FIND again the real Virgin Mary.

It saddens me that my good friend is so attached to Medjugorje. He/she doesn't even want to think the possibility of Mary not appearing there. If Vatican crack down Medj. it will be a huge dissappointment to many. But there is always hope for better! If Vatican gives a positive verdict, I would be stunned just like Praetorian. But I would not go back to "that business" anymore - that is for sure.
God bless everyone.

 

Opinion by the clergy may be divided about her, but so are they about things such as gay marriage. The official proclamations by the Vatican, however are not ambiguous. Here is an excerpt:

Given the negative effect of Vassula Ryden's activities, despite some positive aspects, this Congregation requests the intervention of the Bishops so that their faithful may be suitably informed and that no opportunity may be provided in their Dioceses for the dissemination of her ideas. Lastly, the Congregation invites all the faithful not to regard Mrs Vassula Ryden's writings and speeches as supernatural and to preserve the purity of the faith that the Lord has entrusted to the Church.

I am not a theologian, but I do not need to be to follow the official proclamations of the Magisterium to the faithful and they are all opposed to her. In the view of the Church her messages are no more inspired by God than if I sat down and wrote something. This is proven by the fact that she has changed the wording of her messages over time. Again I ask, with so many actual prophetic, important and helpful messages that actually come from Heaven, why divert any of our time to ones the Church says to avoid?

Here is the official Vatican posting:
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/c...ents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19951006_ryden_en.html

 

There is one great thing that Medjugorje has done for all of us. Those 'for it' and those 'not for it.'

And it is this. There are no lukewarm posts relating to Medjugorje. Jesus likes us to be one or the other not lukewarm. So no matter what you thing. No matter how fiercely your fire is burning, that is how Our Lord likes us to be. He can work with souls on fire with zeal, He can't work with lukewarmers.

So everyone here is a wonderful work in progress on the path to salvation. No matter what we think.

Thank you Jesus, for this little corner for sharing out thoughts and feelings.

No one can put out the fire of hope and affection Medjugorje has lit in my heart over 30 years ago. No even the Pope. He can ask me to be silent; but he can't put out the fire. Jesus, I surrender myself to You. Take care of everything.

 

Nobody is saying that reading True Life in God is obligatory. Nor is there anything wrong with refusing to do so out of a desire to be obedient to the letter of the 1995 Notification. However, for those who genuinely want to get to the bottom of Vassula's case, it really is necessary not only to read the 1995 document but also all the ensuing details of Vassula Rydén's dealings with the CDF, including Niels Hvidt's report of the dialogue with Cardinal Ratzinger. There is simply no way that Cardinal Ratzinger would subsequently have agreed to preface his former doctoral student's published work if the remarks attributed to him in this report by Niels Hvidt were a mis-representation. It is also worth pointing out that if it really were the case that the strictures against Vassula Rydén were as watertight as is sometimes made out, then the Cardinals and Archbishops who have manifested open support for her ought to have been subject to disciplinary action. This is quite palpably not so.

As for the question of correcting messages, this is only a problem for those who have the idea that locutions appear on paper perfectly formed, 'as if by magic', without being limited by the capacities of the receiver. Anyone who does serious study of Christian mysticism throughout the centuries will quickly discover that such a view is a vast over-simplification and that private revelation is inevitably received 'in the mode of the recipient' with all that implies in terms of human subjectivity and the mistakes it can generate. Furthermore, even some of the greatest mystics have made serious errors, such as Catherine of Siena who once claimed that the Blessed Mother had told her that the Immaculate Conception was untrue. According to the yardstick of many of the commentators out there on the internet at the moment, that would make St Catherine a 'false visionary', but evidently the Church doesn't take a 'one strike and you're out' attitude to things like this - even the holiest of saints can make mistakes. The problem comes when readers approach seers and locutionaries as if they were infallible oracles, which is downright dangerous. Not only does it lead to a sectarian mentality within Christianity when people put private revelation above Scripture and tradition, but it is also how many fully-fledged false religions have been created, e.g. Mormonism, or the most devastating false private revelation of them all - Islam.

 

And as Michael Brown has written, "A number of mystical cases, including apparitions in Amsterdam, Holland, known as "Our Lady of All Nations," have been rejected by the Vatican before later acceptance. Lourdes came close to condemnation due to a flurry of false seers who swarmed over the site. The bishop at Fatima was initially against the apparitions. Others, such as Laus, have continued for extended periods of time: in the case of Laus, fifty-six years of apparitions during the 16th and 17th centuries, but acceptance by Rome in 2008 -- 290 years after the appearances ended".
His whole article can be read here: http://spiritdaily.com/medjpope2.htm

 

I feel strongly that we will see whether Medjugorje is authentic before the end of 2015. Things are going to take place quickly and providing the seers foretell of them in detail, and they are manifested, they will be authenticated by God and the Blessed Mother themselves. This is how all the 'approved' apparitions came to be. I look for some or many of the secrets to be revealed soon enough.

 

Peter B, you have quite a lawyerly intellect (That is actually meant as a compliment) but most of the average lay-people out there will not delve into the intricacies of these events as you are able to. That said, the Vatican still issued the warning and verdict they did. We are still bound to follow their instructions and I for one will.

I understand mysticism is not a black and white affair. In the case of Catherine of Sienna that you cited it was judged that God allowed the devil to masquerade and give her the false information, not a mistake in her interpreting what was told to her.

Again I just point out the fact that we will all have to stand before the judgement seat of Almighty God some day. I have no understanding of why someone would want to follow someone's messages who has all of these problems attached to their claims, when the Vatican has spoken in such a negative way about them. God has sent us Mary for these times. Jesus Christ has even appeared to warn us of what is coming. We were told to beware of false prophets. I guess I am less trying to convince you and Davidtlig, than I am trying to give information to the casual passerby who might peruse this thread and think these messages are fine.

 

This makes me smile a little. The 'casual passerby' is deluged with the sort of negative stuff you and Brian have posted. It is almost impossible to mention 'Vassula' without the same stuff being pasted endlessly.
Anyway, I apologise for mentioning Vassula in this thread which was only to try to illustrate why Pope Francis' remarks about Medjugorje should not be viewed as negative.

Incidentally, I've just seen the following encouraging quote from Medjugorje promoter Paolo Brosio who was invited to the Vatican in April (see http://motheofgod.com/threads/medjugorje-and-pope-francis.7330/#post-83870 )

Pope Francis will not leave Medjugorje alone, says the Italian writer Paolo Brosio who was recently summoned by the Pope. Brosio criticizes the Church’s doctrinal office for stopping Medjugorje meetings while doing nothing about the positive reports from the Medjugorje commission. Medjugorje will be protected by Pope Francis and be recognized as a place of worship when the Pope announces his conclusions on the place later this month, the leading Medjugorje writer Paolo Brosio tells the Italian news agency Adnkronos. “The Pope does not leave Medjugorje alone, but will protect it. I know it is in his heart”

 

http://medjugorje.org/anniversarynovena.htm

 

Very sad for our Blessed Mother! May She forgive us!