Expert: Fr. Michael - 1/12/2007

Question
Dear The Father,


             I humbly speak that I had three visions of the blessed mother: 1) I saw her when I was play with my friends on the lawn at the age of eight, 2) I saw her in a tree, and 3) I saw her at the age of 19 at the cemetery. She said,  "Dear child! Today I bring you the newborn Jesus in my arms. He who is the King of Heaven and earth, He is your peace. Little child, no one can give you peace as He who is the King of Peace. Therefore, adore Him in your hearts, choose Him and you will have joy in Him. He will bless you with His blessing of peace. Thank you for having responded to my call."  She said to me that she wants me to make a shrine like a beautiful garden of flowers in a circle and her holding Jesus in her arms as she said she said to put her statue in the middle of the garden and in the part where she is standing on to have it say call me Blessed. Was this a true vision am I called to be a nun and a saint. I want to be a nun but I also will do what God wants but by all means am I called to be a saint?

Answer
       Everything necessary for our salvation is contained in the Public Revelation of the Church, that is, the Deposit of Faith:  Sacred Scripture (the Bible) and Sacred Tradition, which closed with the death of the last of the Apostles, St. John.

       In place of Catholic and Apostolic teaching and practice, to presume to find a new basis of faith in private revelations prophecies, visions, and "signs and wonders," loosely called extreme Fatimism, is a grave error.  We
must be very cautious indeed about these things, since Sacred Scripture warns us again and again about the fact that even visions, apparitions, signs, and wonders may be of the Devil:  

"Beloved, do not trust every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they belong to God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world" (1 John 4:1/DRV)

       And again:        

"For such false apostles are deceitful workmen, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.  And no wonder: for Satan himself transformeth himself into an angel of light.  Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers be transformed as the ministers of justice, whose end shall be
according to their works" (2 Corinthians 11:13-15/DRV)

       And again:

"And then that wicked one shall be revealed:  whom the Lord Jesus shall kill with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:  him Whose coming is according to the working of Satan, in all power
and signs and lying wonders:  And in all seduction of iniquity to them that perish:  because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.  Therefore God shall send them the operation of error, to believe
lying" (2 Thessalonians 2:8-11/DRV).

       St. John of the Cross (1542-1591), perhaps the Church's greatest mystic, warned:  "The desire for private revelations deprives faith of its purity, develops a dangerous curiosity that becomes a source of illusions,
fills the mind with vain fancies, and often proves the want of humility, and of submission to Our Lord, Who, through His public revelation, has given all that is needed for salvation.  We must suspect those apparitions that lack
dignity or proper reserve, and above all, those that are ridiculous.  This last characteristic is a mark of human or diabolical machination.  STAY AWAY FROM VISIONS, APPARITIONS, AND MIRACLES AS MUCH AS YOU CAN.  BE CAREFUL OF
VISIONS, EVEN WHEN THEY ARE AUTHENTIC.

       St. Vincent Ferrer similarly warned:  "The first remedy against spiritual temptations which the devil plants in the hearts of many persons in these unhappy times, is to have no desire to procure by prayer, meditation, or any other good work, what are called (private) revelations, or spiritual experiences, beyond what happens in the ordinary course of things; such a desire of things which surpass the common order can have no other root or foundation but pride, presumption, a vain curiosity in what regards the things of God, and in short, an exceedingly weak faith.  It is to punish this evil desire that God abandons the soul, and permits it to fall into the illusions and temptations of the devil, who seduces it, and represents to it false visions and delusive revelations. Here we have the source of most of
the spiritual temptations that prevail at the present time; temptations which the spirit of evil roots in the souls of those who may be called the precursors of Antichrist."

       Pope St. Pius X captured the truly Catholic sense when he wrote in 1913:  "When anyone tells me about the extraordinary, I am the most incredulous man in the world..., but when holiness results from the practice
of virtue..., I believe in it.  Just this morning ... I was saying that long ago the devil manifested himself openly in the possessed whom he caused to suffer, and from whom he could be driven out only by exorcism.  Now he has changed his method; he takes the appearance of sanctity and makes people believe in visions.  He even gives to certain persons the knowledge of hidden things, so that they may appear to prophesy; sometimes he even simulates stigmata!  But as for holiness expressed in the simple practice of virtue...,
I believe in that.  That is indeed holiness....  The way to sanctity is not difficult.  It is a thorny road, but easy."