October 20, 2024 Essay: Mary Sightings
Have you noticed that the press has recently reported on alleged sightings of Mary the Mother of God? The alleged appearances have occurred in different parts of the world—for instance, in Marlboro, New Jersey; Trevignano, Italy; and Velankanni, India. The Vatican has not yet weighed in on the supernaturality of these sightings. What the Vatican has done is to acknowledge that the locations have become popular centers of devotion to Mary and sources of grace for many.
Thus far, the only apparitions the Roman Catholic Church has endorsed are the 19th-century apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Lourdes, France, and those in the early 20th century in Fatima, Portugal. At both sites, the Church has declared that something miraculous had indeed occurred.
More recently, the sightings that have captured the most attention began to occur in 1981 at Medjugorje, Yugoslavia—now Bosnia and Herzegovina. This past August, the Vatican issued its latest report on these sightings. The report acknowledged the spiritual fruits many have received from their visit to the shrine but concluded that no declaration can be made on the supernatural character of the apparitions.
The reaction of the institutional Church to alleged sightings has always been one of deliberate caution. The Church is like a wise old mother, wily as a serpent and simple as a dove, with centuries of rich, sometimes bitter, experience. She knows that at the end of the first millennium much superstition and something like hysteria swept through Europe with wild predictions about the end of the world.
So the institutional Church acts slowly. Usually, she ignores or opposes these phenomena, knowing most of the alleged apparitions will quickly be forgotten. If they refuse to go away, she scrutinizes them with great care. If they pass all the scientific tests, the Church may say—not that Mary appeared on earth and delivered a message—but that it is a good thing to make a pilgrimage to this place and pray there for healing and conversion and world peace in accordance with the Gospel.
The Church has to help protect religious-minded people from an innocent attachment to extraordinary religious phenomena: miracles, vision, prophecies, private revelations—even spiritual “highs”. These have a perennial fascination for us. But attachment to them can retard growth rather than advance it.
To paraphrase Jesus in the Gospels, why should people look for spectacular signs? They have Moses and the prophets. If they do not believe Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe the spinning sun or an apparition from heaven. “A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign. Blessed are they who have not seen and have believed.”
Authentic religion is always a call to the world of pure faith. This is the dark world of the unseen where we face the God who is mystery of mysteries. In the world of pure faith, there are no voices, no visions, no miraculous healings—nothing that the senses can cling to. There is God and only God.
Nothing more. Nothing less. And God is enough. Authentic religion has little to do with flashes of light in the sky or with rosary beads changing color. It has everything to do with deep faith.
— Fr. William J. Bergen, S.J., Senior Priest