PRIVATE REVELATION

1. PRIVATE REVELATION Role of Private Revelation in the Life of the Church

3. The teaching of the Church distinguishes between ‘public Revelation’ and ‘private revelations’ • The two realities differ not only in degree but also in essence. • This tells us that the difference between public and private revelation is not simply that public revelation is given to or binding on all • Whereas, private revelation is given to or binding on only some (restricted by time, place, or identity). • More than that is involved: Public and private are two different kinds of revelation.

4. Public Revelation • "The term ‘public Revelation’ refers to the revealing action of God directed to humanity as a whole and which finds its literary expression in the two parts of the Bible: the Old and New Testaments," writes Cardinal Ratzinger. • "It is called ‘Revelation’ because in it God gradually made himself known to men, to the point of becoming man himself, in order to draw to himself the whole world and unite it with himself through his Incarnate Son, Jesus Christ. • It is not a matter therefore of [merely] intellectual communication, but of a life-giving process in which God comes to meet man."

5. Private Revelation • Private revelation is different from public revelation in several important respects: "The authority of private revelations is essentially different from that of the definitive public Revelation. • The latter demands faith; in it in fact God himself speaks to us through human words and the mediation of the living community of the Church. • Faith in God and in his word is different from any other human faith, trust, or opinion. • The certainty that it is God who is speaking gives me the assurance that I am in touch with truth itself. It gives me a certitude which is beyond verification by any human way of knowing“.

6. Private Revelation • ‘Private revelation,’ refers to all the visions and revelations which have taken place since the completion of the New Testament“. • When the Church approves private revelations, she declares only that there is nothing in them contrary faith or good morals, and that they may be read without danger or even with profit; no obligation is thereby imposed on the faithful to believe them.

7. Remember: • To disbelieve knowingly and deliberately anything God has revealed in such a way that it requires divine and Catholic faith is to commit mortal sin. • However, since God has not issued private revelations with this degree of certainty, the burden is not imposed. • Thus, such a message can be a genuine help in understanding the Gospel and living it better at a particular moment in time; therefore it should not be disregarded. • Private Revelation is a help which is offered, but which one is not obliged to use.

8. How • A distinction is made between corporeal, imaginative, and intellectual visions. • In corporeal visions and locutions there is a real perception by the external senses; the person who is seen or heard may be really present, or (in corporeal visions) the body which appears may be formed in the air, or a change may be affected at the moment the light-rays impinge on the eye, or (in corporeal locutions) a real acoustical vibration may be produced in the ears. • In imaginative visions and locutions there is no perception by the external senses, but, rather, a Divine action on the imagination or the internal senses... • In intellectual visions and locutions the Divine action directly affects the intellect.

9. Role of Private Revelation in the Life of the Church • Throughout the ages, there have been so-called private revelations, some of which have been recognized by the authority of the Church. • They do not belong, however, to the deposit of faith. • It is not their role to improve or complete Christ's definitive Revelation, but to help live more fully by it in a certain period of history

10. Private revelation as a mission to the Church • A private revelation consists therefore not in its particular material elements but in the imperative marking a shifting of accentuation within the possibilities of Christianity... • Hence the private revelation as a mission to the Church can be conceived as a heavenly imperative interpretation of the particular situation of the Church at a particular time.

11. A Private Revelation answers the question as to what is most urgently to be done here and now in accordance with the general principles of the faith. `

12. Fatima

13. The Church has formally approved the message of Fatima as being worthy of belief. • In her July 13, 1917, message, Our Blessed Mother said: The war (World War I, then raging) is going to end. But if people do not stop offending God, another and worse one will begin in the reign of Pius XI. When you shall see a night illuminated by an unknown light (January 2, 1938), know that this is the great sign that God gives you that He is going to punish the world for its many crimes by means of war, hunger, and persecution of the Church and the Holy Father. •     To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart and the Communion of Reparation on the five first Saturdays. If my requests are granted, Russia will be converted and there will be peace. If not, she will scatter her errors throughout the world, provoking wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, and various nations will be destroyed... •     But in the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph, the Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, Russia will be converted, and a certain period of peace will be granted to the world.

14. Because enough people did not respond to Mary's requests made at Fatima, we did have World War II and all the horrors connected with the rise of Russian dominated Communism. • Again, Fatima is a prime example of the importance the role of private revelation can assume in the life of the Church.

15. Attitudes regarding alleged instances of private revelation which have not yet been the subject of official Church investigation and perhaps never will be • One should always recognize that the final authority regarding private revelations rests with the Holy See of Rome. • One may personally act upon these messages of private revelation if a person observes that they contain nothing contrary to faith and morals and that they help bring one closer to God.

16. In da Pilipins • Si Juan INAPONAN. • Walad sikato so Sto. Nino. • Si Juana INAPONAN. • Sinaniban nen Inan Birhen Maria. Panon irayan talusan?

17. REMEMBER • Incarnational Principle • God uses material, physical and human dimension of life to direct our attention and love to him and to his work. • God works through man’s physical, intellectual and cultural state/condition/situation in freedom. • God would never “take over” man’s free will. He respects this freedom. Charismatic Catholics do not admit of the Holy Spirit possessing an individual. • “Spiritual Possession” is not “Religious Ecstasy” • Religious ecstasy can be distinguished from spirit possession and hypnosis in that: • Ecstasy is not accompanied by a loss of consciousness or will on the part of the subject experiencing it. • Rather, the person experiencing ecstasy notices dramatic changes in his or her physiological responses and psychological perceptions. • We can explain “spiritual possession” on such altered mental state by natural causes, such as stress, mental illness or emotional stress, intoxication, use of drugs, etc..

18. Our Lord has said:...a sound tree produces good fruit but a rotten tree bad fruit. A sound tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor a rotten tree bear good fruit. (Mt 7:17-18).