Why Private Revelations?

Why Private Revelations?

Public revelation is the sole foundation of the Catholic faith. As Saint Thomas Aquinas says, “our faith rests on the Revelation made to the Prophets and Apostles, who wrote the canonical books, and not on any revelation that was made to other doctors.” 

Consequently,

(Melchior Cano, De locis theologicis XII,II,12). 

“it is of no concern to the Church whether or not one believes in the apparitions of Bridget and Catherine of Siena, which in no way belong to the faith”

What meaning do private revelations have, or why are they granted by God? 

The Lord wishes to communicate personally and directly with creatures freely chosen by Him, to whom He wishes to give a deeper and clearer knowledge of the mysteries contained in public revelation and the capacity to foresee the future (St. John of the Cross, The Ascent II,25,1), or insight into the secrets of the human heart, or the inspiration to carry out actions useful both to individuals and to groups of people and, at least indirectly, to the whole Church. This does not mean that these illuminations always have a relative and non-canonical character and can never become the norm of faith. 

Their exclusion from the deposit of revealed truths does not mean that the doctrinal character that permeates public revelation is absent from private revelations. It is true that private revelations are characterized rather by a practical and concrete orientation, repetitive of dogmatic truths and aimed at promoting or sustaining growth in the life of asceticism and interiority. But, to obtain this pastoral result, to awaken interest and fervor, private revelations insist on a particular aspect of public revelation, bring it out more clearly, link it to another truth, draw out its power of charity, enliven and personalize it, making the mystery the driving force, often, for a mystical experience or for an apostolic life or even for the Christian regeneration of countless multitudes. These fruits presuppose the existence and action of particular aspects of the doctrine of divine Revelation, operating through the forms, suggestions, and simplifications proposed by private revelations. 

For example, there is an intimate and providential bond between the biblical theology of mercy and the love that God manifested in Christ to mankind, and the modern devotion to the Heart of the Savior, which can be considered a historical expression of this theology. Likewise, there is no one who fails to see the thread that links Mariology with the great apparitions of Lourdes and the intense sacramental practice that can be observed at Marian shrines, down to the very foundations of Christian existence.

The divine-apostolic Tradition, which transmits and perpetuates public revelation in the Church,

(Dei Verbum 8).

“advances in the Church with the assistance of the Holy Spirit. For there is growth in the perception both of the realities and of the words handed down, whether through the contemplation and study of the faithful, who ponder them in their hearts (cf. Lk 2:19, 51), or through the intimate understanding of spiritual things which they experience, or through the preaching of those who, with the episcopal succession, have received the charism of truth. That is, the Church, in the course of the centuries, continually tends toward the fullness of divine truth, until the words of God are fulfilled in her. The sayings of the holy Fathers bear witness to the life-giving presence of this Tradition, whose riches pour into the practice and life of the believing and praying Church”

Therefore, it is lawful to recount private revelations whose content is not opposed to the truths proclaimed by public revelation among the means by which the faithful obtain a deeper understanding of divine realities, and the Church an opportunity to progress in the knowledge of the mystery of Christ. 

It is legitimate to include private revelations, provided their genuineness has been screened and approved by the Hierarchy of the Church, among those special graces and those extraordinary or even simpler and more widely diffused charisms that the Lord grants for the renewal and development of the Church and that

(Lumen Gentium 12).

“are to be received with gratitude and consolation,”

The history of the great and best-known private revelations recalls, and still bears witness to, the spiritual and pastoral fruitfulness of these providential events.

Yves Congar writes:

(Y.M.-J. Congar, Lay People in the Church 417).

“who could deny that the two Saint Teresas (of Ávila and of Jesus), a Saint Margaret Mary, Blessed Mary of the Incarnation, made a great contribution to the Church in terms of the knowledge of God? But their contribution, whatever its resonance and fruitfulness may have been, had no other value than the fulfillment of the apostolic rule of doctrine, even when it surpassed the hierarchical teaching in depth, in subordination and coordination to it. Therefore, the contribution of the faithful visited by the Spirit corroborates the hierarchical teaching. In a certain sense, it adds something, and it can also serve as a guide for its judgment. But this contribution does not by itself constitute a public authority with social value as a criterion for the life of the people of God in the unity of truth. Although it comes from God, it could take on this value only through the approval given by the hierarchical Magisterium, which could recognize in the revelations the development, the deepening, resplendent with the splendor of higher gifts, of what is already contained in the deposit (of faith) that it has already received.”

There is no shortage of theologians according to whom private revelations could be given containing, for the Church, in certain situations, teachings and imperatives of a prophetic nature, especially when such revelations are less bound up with visionary phenomena (cf. K. Rahner, Private Revelation 225) and more with the prophetic and charismatic dimension that has always been present in ecclesial life in multiple forms.  

The theological meaning of private revelations and Mary’s role as messenger are explored in John Paul II’s encyclical Redemptoris Mater, which places Mary at the heart of salvation history as Mediatrix of the grace of Christ.

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