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Marian apparitions - Is it really the Virgin Mary? |
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We are in a world that is looking for spirituality. It is an essential part of us which for many years has been submerged in materialism. Today spirituality is resurfacing. Previously it was connected with faith and prayer and taking God at His Word, but now it is chiefly sensual. The senses of sight, hearing and smell, along with personal experience are important in spirituality today. The result is that many sincere people are being misled - as in the cases of near death experiences.
The best known of these spiritual experiences are the Marian Apparitions, Wherever they appear in the world, multitudes are fascinated and go out to look. These appearances are not hoaxes; they are real. The current age could be termed the ‘Age of Mary’ Do you notice that this is in line with the female emphasis of the spirits today? The Church of Rome has issued, to date, four Marian Dogmas which are proclaimed as the authoritative teaching of the Roman Catholic church by the Roman magisterium. These are the Motherhood of God, The Immaculate Conception , the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, and the Bodily Assumption of Mary into heaven. (None of these is found in the Bible) A fifth is being petitioned - to define her mediatorial role in heaven, as Co-redemptrix.
Mary is known throughout the world and is held in awe by Moslems as well as Christians. ‘Mary’ has been seen at Lourdes, Medjugorje, and Fatima, plus many other places. In past years, the number |
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of apparitions has increased by vast numbers. Mary has become known as the Queen of our age. Since sightings in Egypt by many thousands, faith in the Virgin Mary has sprung up strongly among Moslem people, with expectations of further revelations. Others have reported that they felt their wet, muddy clothes become dry and uncrushed in her presence. Before she appears, there is often a smell of roses, or butterflies come. Her voice has been heard regularly in messages in different languages.
It is reported by Timothy Kauffmann in Quite Contrary, 1997 p.15 that the Pope John Paul ll regularly received messages personally from the Virgin Mary. |
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| In AD 431 there is a record of the Virgin Mary being worshipped as the mother of God. In AD 600 it is known that prayers were made to Mary as well as other saints, and in 1854 the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was accepted as official doctrine in the Roman Catholic Church. Since that time, there has been a phenomenal increase of interest in Mary, and now there are the apparitions. Why? It could be that Christ’s teachings are seen to divide, as people accept or reject the Gospel, but the underlying aim in religious discussions today is Christian unity. Mary provides a non-threatening focus for unity. There is the gentle appeal of motherhood that reaches to all nations. It is through Mary that hostility between Islam and the Roman church can be broken down. |
All Roads Lead to Rome, 1993, p.54 says ‘…there seems to be a picture emerging that Mary may be the means for uniting all faiths under one umbrella.’ Is not this the same goal as the spiritualist movement? The expected coming of the Christ figure is also a linking factor. It appears that the two groups are working for the same goal.
The important question to be asked about all of this is – from where did Rome receive these Marian insights that are working for the unity of all peoples and faiths? The dogmas that have recently been produced are not found in the Bible, nor interestingly are they found in tradition, |
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