Marian apparitions

Marian apparitions refer to events in which the Virgin Mary is purported to have supernaturally appeared to one or more persons, typically but not always Christians, often Catholics. They are often given names based on the town in which they were reported, or on the soubriquet which was given to Mary on the occasion of the apparition. They have been interpreted as psychological (pareidolia), and as religious phenomena, occasionally as theophanies. Apparitions sometimes recur at the same site over an extended period of time. Marian apparitions sometimes involve statues or images of Mary; of particular note are weeping statues, witnessed as producing tears.

List of Marian apparitions

• the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, Italy (352)
• Appearance to Richeldis of Walsingham, Walsingham, England (1061)
• Appearance to St. Dominic, giving him the Rosary (1214)
• Our Lady of Mount Carmel to St. Simon Stock, instituting the scapular – Aylesford, England (1251)
• The Black Madonna – Czestochowa, Poland (1382)
• Our Lady of Guadalupe – Villa Guadalupe (Gustavo A. Madero), Mexico, to Juan Diego], an indigenous farmer, (1531)
• Our Lady of Good Success – Quito, Ecuador (1634)
• Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, to St. Catherine Labouré, a nun of the Sisters of Charity convent at Rue du Bac, Paris, France (1830)
• Our Lady of La Salette, France, to two cowherder children (1846)
• Lourdes, France, to Bigourdane peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous (1858)
• Pontmain, France (1871)
• Our Lady, Queen of Ireland – Knock, Ireland, to numerous witnesses, along with Saint Joseph and Saint John, (1879)
• Our Lady of Beijing – Beijing, China (1900)
• the weeping statue of Santai, China (1900)
• Our Lady of China – Donglu, China (1900)
• Our Lady of Fatima – Fatima, Portugal, to three shepherd children (1917)
• Beauraing, Belgium, to five schoolchildren (1933)
• Banneux, Belgium, to schoolgirl Mariette Beco (1933)
• Garabandal, Spain, to four country girls (1961–1965)
• Zeitoun, Egypt (1968)
• Sabana Grande, Puerto Rico, to three children (1955)
• Medjugorje, Herzegovina, to five children (1981)
• Hrushiv, Ukraine (1987)
• Litmanová, Slovakia, to two girls (1990–1995)
• Conyers, Georgia, United States (1990 – 1998)
• Sydney, Australia (February 2003) [1] The image is thought to be an optical illusion. [2]
• A highway underpass in Chicago, Illinois, United States (April 2005) [3]

Papal Marian apparitions

It has been claimed that apparitions were experienced by a number of popes, including Pope Leo XIII in 1884, Pope Pius XII at various stages during his papacy, and Pope John Paul II in 1981, while he recovered from an assassination attempt which occurred on the anniversary of the Fatima apparition. John Paul II's particular devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary was indicated in his coat of Arms (image, left), which contains a large letter "M". He also visited many of the most famous alleged apparition sites, notably Fatima, Lourdes, and Knock, and may have had another visitation on his last visit to Lourdes in 2003.

Three secrets of Fatima

Witnesses to the Fatima apparitions claimed that the Blessed Virgin Mary urged humanity to repent from sinful ways and issued predictions as to events that would happen to humanity if repentance did not happen. The most famous such prediction is known as the Third Secret of Fatima, which the Vatican was accused of suppressing, due to the disturbing nature of its contents, which have been claimed to foretell among others a nuclear war, the deposition of the pope, the assassination of a pope, or the replacement of a pope by an imposter.¹

The Vatican released the complete text of the Third Secret in the year 2000, including a scanned copy of the original text in Portuguese. According to this text, the secret was a vision of a man clothed in white who moved through a ruined city full of fallen bodies on his way up a hill towards a cross. Upon reaching the cross, he was shot down by soldiers and apparently died. Pope John Paul II believed that the secret concerns the failed assassination attempt by Mehmet Ali Agca on May 13, 1981 against his person. He is quoted as saying that "a motherly hand guided the bullet's path", saying that he had been spared by the Blessed Virgin. In thanksgiving he had the bullet used in the attempt mounted in the crown of the image of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal. The Vatican insists that the Third Secret refers to none of the apocalyptic theories that circulated before the release. However it has never denied rumours that Pope John XXIII supplied the details of the Third Secret, which unlike the version published by Pope John Paul II included the description of a nuclear war, to Nikita Khrushchev (First Secretary² of the USSR Communist Party), Harold Macmillan (Prime Minister of the United Kingdom) and John F. Kennedy (President of the United States) to influence them during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

One of the Fatima visionaries, Sister Lucia, who as a child stated that she witnessed the first apparition on May 13, 1917 above a holmoak tree in Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal, reported several more visitations later in life. In 1929 in her convent at Pontevedra, Lucia said that the Blessed Mother recommended the First Saturday Devotions. The Rosary and the Brown Scapular are examples of other devotionals or sacramentals which were allegedly endorsed by the Virgin Mary in visitations. The only one of these she is said to have designed herself is the Miraculous Medal.

Further reading

• Josyp Terelya with Michael H. Brown, Witness to Apparitions and Persecution in the USSR: An Autobiography, Faith Publishing, 1991, trade paperback, 324 pages, ISBN 1877678171

See also

• Marian shrine

Footnotes

¹ Some conservative Catholics claim that Pope Paul VI was replaced by an imposter, supposedly an Italian actor, in 1972. Some websites claim a series of apparitions in New York by the Blessed Virgin took place in the 1970s confirming the "switch", with the real Pope Paul kept drugged in the Vatican Palace, thus fulfilling what they claim is the real Third Secret of Fatima. However few give such claims, or the claims about the apparitions, much credence.
² The office was later called General Secretary.