The Nature of Apparitions

Interpretations and Theological Definition of Apparitions

To designate apparitions, the terms “apparition,” “vision,” “locution,” “private revelation,” etc., are frequently used in an ambiguous and polyvalent way. It is true that apparitions, like visions and locutions, belong to the order of divine communication and of God’s revealing action, since they reveal certain aspects of the divine mystery, but they do not come about in the same way.

As for the “perception” of the supernatural object, for example, while the term “vision” is used, in an analogical sense, to describe corporeal experiences, that is, the sensible perception of a reality objectively invisible to man, imaginative experiences, that is, the perception by way of the imagination of an object existing in the present, and intellective experiences, that is, a supernatural knowledge without perception of an object, the term “apparition” can be used only for corporeal and imaginative perceptions, but not for intellective ones.

Furthermore, while “apparition” underscores the essential role of the object that manifests itself, Christ, Mary, a saint, etc., “vision” brings out the action of the seer who perceives the “invisible” nature of the supernatural object. Even clearer is the difference between “apparition” and “locution.” While the apparition is the perception of a supernatural object, the locution is the perception of a word that reveals the will of that object. Especially in more recent times, these two phenomena prove to be intimately connected, in the sense that the seer, more and more, besides “seeing” the supernatural object, also “hears” its word. In this way, he becomes not only the “revealer” of the supernatural object, but also its “messenger.”

The very terminology used to describe apparitions has not always been uniform in the history of the Church. The Council of Trent, for example, speaks of them as “special revelations,” while Benedict XIV prefers to call them “private revelations,” in order to distinguish them clearly from “public Revelation,” from which they differ essentially, (Sur Augustinus, Le rivelazioni private nella vita della Chiesa, pp. 29-31).

Nor is there a univocal interpretation of apparitions, owing to the cultural, ideological, and religious presuppositions with which they are read. A good synthesis of the various positions is offered by Stefano De Fiores:

a) Oraison defines apparitions as a hallucinatory mechanism, that is, a perception without an object. For this reason, the seers would be visionaries and the apparitions a psychic illness, (Stefano De Fiores, Maria Madre di Gesù, sintesi storico salvifica, EDB, Bologna 1992, p. 347).

b) Holstein sees in the apparition a mechanism of response to three psychosocial needs: the need for verifiable facts, the need for protection and for religious emotion, and the need for security. (Stefano De Fiores, “Le apparizioni all’incrocio degli studi teologico-interdisciplinari. Stato della questione nell’odierna riflessione culturale,” in Actas do Congresso Internacional de Fátima, October 9-12, 1997, Santuário de Fátima 1998, pp. 47-48).

c) Drewermann holds that apparitions are the visual projection of ideal images that come from the deep stratum of the human psyche. For this reason, they belong to symbolic language and can be interpreted only by means of a symbolic reworking. (Stefano De Fiores, “Le apparizioni all’incrocio degli studi teologico-interdisciplinari. Stato della questione nell’odierna riflessione culturale,” in Actas do Congresso Internacional de Fátima, October 9-12, 1997, Santuário de Fátima 1998, pp. 49-51).

d) Vergote compares apparitions to dreams. They would thus be a representation that includes the sensation of reality, made up of images and models present in the memory and arising from powerful affective motivations. (Stefano De Fiores, “Le apparizioni all’incrocio degli studi teologico-interdisciplinari. Stato della questione nell’odierna riflessione culturale,” in Actas do Congresso Internacional de Fátima, October 9-12, 1997, Santuário de Fátima 1998, pp. 52-53).

e) Dierkens considers apparitions not as a pathological or religious phenomenon, but as normal manifestations of human creative experience, such as artistic creation or dream activity. (Stefano De Fiores, “Le apparizioni all’incrocio degli studi teologico-interdisciplinari. Stato della questione nell’odierna riflessione culturale,” in Actas do Congresso Internacional de Fátima, October 9-12, 1997, Santuário de Fátima 1998, pp. 53-56).

A scholar who believes in God and in the possibility that He reveals Himself in history defines the apparition as “a psychic experience in which persons not perceptible by our visual and auditory faculties, though inaccessible to our human experience, enter by supernatural means into the sphere of the senses.” (Karl Rahner, Herbert Vorgrimler, entry “Apparizioni,” in Nuovo Dizionario di Teologia, Herder, Morcelliana, Rome, Brescia 1968, p. 42).

René Laurentin sees in the apparition “the visible manifestation of a being the sight of whom, in that place or at that moment, is unusual and unthinkable according to the natural order of things,” (René Laurentin, entry “Apparizioni,” in Stefano De Fiores, Salvatore Meo, eds., Nuovo Dizionario di Mariologia, Edizioni Paoline, Milan 1986, p. 126).

In the light of these definitions, the apparition is characterized by two elements: the “presence” of a person who is outside ordinary sensible experience and the “perception” of that presence by way of sensible knowledge. The seer, who often falls into ecstasy, withdraws from the world around him, although he remains in full command of his faculties, and is convinced that he is in direct and immediate contact with the being that has manifested itself. This being does not present itself as a static image, but with all the characteristics of three-dimensionality, (Stefano De Fiores, Maria Madre di Gesù, sintesi storico salvifica, EDB, Bologna 1992, p. 348).

However, one must reaffirm a priority and a difference that qualify the dignity and the truth between a theophany of historical-salvific Revelation and a transcendent manifestation that does not concern the essence of the faith. To “public Revelation” is owed the obedience of faith. To “private revelations” one must grant an adherence dependent on the proofs presented and on the exercise of one’s own critical sense, (Giandomenico Mucci, Rivelazioni private e apparizioni, p. 15).

On the Border Between Natural Reality and Transcendent Reality

According to Saint Thomas Aquinas, the apparition would not imply, in the place where it occurs, the “real” presence of the glorified body, which can be seen only where it is definitively found, (Summa Theologiae, Pars III, quaestio 76, articulus 8). He states, in fact: “Corpus Christi non potest in propria specie videri nisi in uno loco, in quo definitive continetur,” (Summa Theologiae, Pars III, quaestio 76, articulus 8).

Instead, there would be the perception, on the part of the seer, of a sensible or luminous form that represents it, which would explain, for example, how Mary appears now under one form, now under another, (Adolphe Tanquerey, Compendio di teologia ascetica e mistica, Società di San Giovanni Battista, Rome, Tournai, Paris 1927, pp. 914-915).

Saint Teresa of Jesus, in this regard, writes that Jesus, after having ascended into heaven, never again came down to earth to communicate Himself to men, except in the Most Blessed Sacrament (Adolphe Tanquerey, Compendio di teologia ascetica e mistica, Società di San Giovanni Battista, Rome, Tournai, Paris 1927, p. 915).

Starting from what Saint Thomas and Saint Teresa affirm about the immobility of the glorious body, and seeking to understand what happens in an apparition, it is necessary to clarify the notions of the “place of the apparition” and of the “place of the Transcendent.” The “place of the apparition” is understood as a natural place inserted within history, clearly distinct from the “place of the Transcendent,” where there is no longer history but eternity, and which therefore lies beyond our categories of time and space.

Nevertheless, the “place of the apparition” as well, belonging to reality and to history, can be considered as “part” of God’s eternity, in the sense that all reality and all history are mysteriously “close” to Him, who is their author and Lord, depend on Him, and are oriented toward Him.

In this perspective, the “place of the Transcendent,” as conceived by Saint Thomas, is not a “place” remote in relation to our reality. It is so close to us that even the skin is far from the bones when compared with the “closeness” and the presence of the Transcendent beside us. Both the Old and the New Testaments constantly underscore this active “closeness” of God, His “being with,” His “being near” to man and to the “places” of his history, as author and worker of salvation.

The Qur’an itself forcefully expresses the idea of the extreme “closeness” of transcendent reality in relation to our reality, affirming many times that it is close to men, knows what lies before them and what lies behind them, as close “as the carotid artery” to the neck (Paolo Branca, Introduzione all’Islam, San Paolo, Milan 1995, pp. 216-217).

Having recognized, therefore, the extreme closeness of the place of the Transcendent to the place of time and history, it is necessary to ask in what sense and to what extent the heavenly creatures, Jesus, Mary, the Angels, and the Saints, who belong to Transcendence, are close to man at the moment in which they become visible, and in what way the seer perceives and lives this closeness.

One may think, excluding the descent of the glorious body, which is not necessary given the closeness of the two places, of an attraction of the human person toward a situation that makes him capable of perceiving, in a sensible way, the presence of the Transcendent, which is in any case already close. This situation can be described as an open window, through which the human being, drawn, caught up, or carried away, can see, hear, and touch the transcendent object, and even speak with it.

Paraphrasing Saint Thomas’s statement, and without contradicting the principle of the stasis of glorious bodies, one may say that it is not so much the Transcendent that moves toward man, but the Transcendent that moves man and catches him up, making its closeness visible.

What Kind of Contact

The dilemma of Paul, caught up to the third heaven, (2 Cor 12:1-4), remains mysterious even for the seers: does contact with the Transcendent take place with the body or without the body? The Apostle did not know how to answer. It can, however, be affirmed that, once the threshold of the window onto the reality of the Transcendent has been crossed, it is as if the seer entered another dimension.

His sense of time is altered. At the end of the apparition, he does not realize how long it lasted. His perception of space is reduced to the indispensable minimum. He perceives the presence of objects, the grotto, the tree, the rock, etc., as if they were symbols that help him better to understand the meaning of the apparition and the message it conveys. His body undergoes changes that are not only psychic but also physical, which defy the laws of earthly reality, (Sur Augustinus, Le rivelazioni private nella vita della Chiesa, pp. 134-148). The perception and the control of his own body also come to serve the apparition. Thus, although acting with the utmost freedom, he performs actions as if he were “guided” or “helped” by the Transcendent, (description of the seer’s behavior, according to observations gathered by the author).

The Gospel dilemma of Thomas also remains unresolved: what did he really “touch” of the glorious body of the risen Jesus? Does the seer believe he touches the glorious body, or does he touch it? In touching that body, is it a matter of a psychic-intellective sensitization on the part of the Transcendent, or is there real contact?

The experience of some seers, such as Catherine Labouré and other contemporaries, confirms the thesis of real contact. To draw so “really” near to the Transcendent, (cf. Mt 17:1-8. La Bibbia di Gerusalemme, EDB, Bologna 1971, pp. 2125-2126. Rinaldo Fabris, Matteo. Traduzione e commento, Borla, Rome 1996, p. 381), crossing the threshold of the “open window” spoken of above, makes it possible for the seer to see, hear, and touch the transcendent object serenely, even if in an imperfect way. This happens because he is not totally separated from his own body, which to some extent interferes with the pure and complete acquisition of heavenly reality, although at the same time it sensibly “translates” the data acquired in that experience.

In this contact with the apparition, it is necessary to distinguish between “resistance” and “tactile sensation.” The object the seer touches is something that opposes a contrary movement. He has the impression of being before something that offers resistance to his gesture, as happens in nature in the contact of two solids. At the same time, he finds it difficult to describe, in intelligible terms, what this tactile sensation consists of, that is, to say clearly what he is touching.

The object touched, the foot, the garment, the knees, the hand of the apparition, seems to him something extremely fine, like a veil of soft and delicate weave, like the still surface of water, yet without the sensation of heat, warmth, or cold. In short, the seer, though certain that he is touching something, remains uncertain and hesitant in describing the nature of what he touches.

In conclusion, it can be affirmed that, given the extreme and real closeness between the “place of the apparition” and the “place of the Transcendent,” the seer is made capable of perceiving that “closeness” in a sensible way. The “place of the apparition” is nothing other than the close and privileged point of encounter with the Transcendent, the open window through which the “visibility” of the supernatural is made concrete, the “place” where the fluid and tenuous wall that “separates” two different realities, yet extremely close in God’s eternity, is thinned until it disappears completely. (the grounding of this paragraph rests on a private collection of testimonies and on the author’s personal notes and studies concerning contemporary apparitions).

Conclusion

Reflection on the nature of Marian apparitions demands, above all, conceptual precision and ecclesial discernment. Terms such as “apparition,” “vision,” and “locution” are not equivalent and, when used indiscriminately, can obscure the phenomenon instead of clarifying it. From the theological point of view, the apparition is characterized by the extraordinary presence of a transcendent subject and by the sensible perception of that presence, frequently associated with a communicated word, which confers on the seer a twofold function: to bear witness to the encounter and to transmit the message.

At the same time, the tradition of the Church recalls an indispensable hierarchy: public Revelation, which culminated in Christ, demands the obedience of faith, while private revelations call for a prudent adherence, proportionate to the proofs and always submitted to the critical sense and to pastoral judgment. For this reason, discernment is not a disciplinary detail, but a service to truth and to communion, so as to welcome what builds up and to avoid what disorients.

On this basis, it becomes possible to understand apparitions as a phenomenon situated on the border between natural reality and transcendent reality. Without positing a local “descent” of the glorious body, the experience can be explained as a form of opening, a kind of window in which the seer is made capable of perceiving in a sensible way the closeness of the Transcendent, already actively present in the history of salvation. This perspective also illuminates the typical features of the event: alterations in the perception of time and of space, unusual bodily experiences and, at times, the conviction of real contact, the description of which remains limited by the ordinary categories of human language.

To approach Marian apparitions seriously means uniting theology, anthropology, and spiritual prudence. The safest path is neither uncritical enthusiasm nor automatic skepticism, but a reading ordered by faith and guided by the Church, capable of recognizing the primacy of the Gospel and, at the same time, of assessing the possible value of a charism which, when authentic, calls to conversion, strengthens hope, and leads more faithfully to Christ.

For the criteria of discernment of Marian apparitions and their place in Catholic devotion, see the apostolic exhortation Marialis Cultus: theological criteria for Marian apparitions. Read also: Nature of apparitions and Presence of Mary in the life of the Church.

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See the complete list of Marian apparitions recognized by the Church.