BAYSIDE APPARITIONS, NEW YORK Part I: WHAT EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE MESSAGES 1. Why Apparitions Today? One of the most significant aspects of modern life has been the repeated visitations of Our Lady from Her celestial home to earth. It is perfectly true to say that at no time, during the entire history of the Catholic Church, has Our Blessed Mother revealed Herself so often as during the last one hundred and fifty years. So frequently has She intervened within this period of time to warn man that he is treading the brink of destruction and to point out to him the way to salvation, that these manifestations have become a prominent feature in Catholic life, and the expression Marian Age has rightly been assigned to our times. In view of the importance of these interventions in human affairs, it would seem proper at the very outset to establish the position that these private revelations hold in the Church. As everything necessary for mans salvation is found in the public deposit of faith which is confided to the Church—and public revelation has ceased with the death of the last Apostle,—private revelations are not part of Catholic faith. They are to be interpreted only in accordance with the official teaching of the Church, and the assent given to them is not an act of Catholic faith but of human faith, based on the fact that these revelations are probable, and as such, worthy of credence. An individual is free to reject them, but he is equally free to accept them, always with the implicit understanding that the messages or their expression do not fall foul of the official teaching of the Church. Admittedly there is today a strong and widespread prejudice against apparitions and whatever it stands for. Men of learning and scholars of theology need humility and virtue to step down from their podium of scholarship, and take lessons from an unlettered and insignificant creature who is reported to be Gods messenger. There is, however, a tremendous lesson for everyone to learn, if he is but ready to listen. For God is wont to reveal Himself not to men of learning or outstanding scholars but to the humble, the simple and the most unlearned, whose minds are uncluttered with the theologies and prejudices of the day, or whose outlook on life is not befuddled by the complexities of the great savants knowledge and teaching. God writes His message on a clean slate, and gets it across the world through unhampered channels. It betokens arrogance and pride on the part of man to brush aside Gods condescending approaches to him, because of the meanness and rusticity of the instrument He chooses, or under pretext that he needs no such messages, as he has a sufficiency in the Bible or the official teaching of the Church. Undoubtedly, God can and does manifest to chosen souls things hidden beyond what He teaches through the public ministry of the Church. It will not do to claim that all divine communication takes the ordinary course provided in the public ministry of the Church. Who would want to shorten Gods Hand or limit His power in this way? Or else, St. Paul might as well have been, for instance, one among the thousands who were converted on Pentecost day through the public preaching of the Apostles, but the Lord chose to win him over by revealing Himself to him in a private apparition on the road to Damascus. God inspires not only the head but the whole body of the Church, and His action in a favoured member, whom He enables to overleap the ordinary limits of sense, is one means by which His unchanging revelation adapts itself to the needs of a given time. Thus St. Paul himself saw things he dared not reveal, though he was not slow in writing down his other revelations in the benefit of his ministry for his time. And again, thousands of those who had lost their moorings but were brought back to God through the apparitions of Our Lady at La Salette, Lourdes, Beauraing, Fatima or elsewhere, were under no obligation whatever of giving credence to any of these private apparitions, for they had all that was necessary for their salvation in the Churchs official teaching: nevertheless, is it not true to affirm that those thousands would never have found their way back to salvation, as they themselves have testified, had it not been for the reawakening of their faith in the teachings of the Church through the so-called private revelations and messages? And with the confusion and uncertainty that prevail in many spheres of Catholic life and teaching, may it not be affirmed that the man of today, even more than his predecessor, needs a goad to bolster up his faith or to re-enkindle the dying embers of his flickering faith? Men of faith, with their eyes open to all the immorality and evils flooding the world, are not slow to conclude that these abominations cannot but provoke the indignation of an All-Just and All-Holy God, and call down upon mankind a dreadful and unprecedented punishment. In the pages of salvation history one reads the story of man sinking deep in the cesspool of corruption and wickedness, and God, in His mercy, endeavouring to recall him to repentance through His messenger, before exterminating him from the face of the earth by a deluge of water or a rain of fire. If at the present time, man has lost the sense of sin and sin has become a way of life, is it strange that God should send warnings from Heaven to alert man of an impending chastisement, beckoning him to repentance and amendment of life? Would it not be an evidence of pride to reject a priori messages reported to be from Heaven, without caring to read or study them, even when God surrounds the messages with enough evidence to satisfy all the requirements of a cautious and well-founded belief? Anything that is put forward as private revelation demands the closest possible scrutiny, and the reader of history is witness to the extreme care and caution the Church exercises in pronouncing judgement as to its supernatural character. The story of La Salette, Lourdes, Pontmain, Guadalupe, Banneaux, Beauraing, Knock, Fatima and other known apparitions is a story of the ruthless and rigorous grilling the seers were subject to, the prolonged questionings and humiliating threats they had to endure, the countless summons for interrogations they and their associates had to put up with, the deluge of questions they had to answer under pain of penalty—all this official inquiry being conducted by a board of men outstanding for their erudition and piety, men who were experienced in sizing up witnesses, in assessing evidence and in cross-questioning. Every possible evidence was taken into account, every fact studied with an accurate and impartial eye. The whole matter all along was a subject of prayer and fervently recommended to God. With so extensive a process for investigation, which was often carried on for years, and followed by further consultations, is it surprising that an official decision was long in coming? The approvals given to the apparitions in conclusion, were always a pointer to the opportuneness of the warnings from Heaven given to a sinful world, to save man from his path of destruction. 2. The Seer and the Apparitions Veronica Lueken, wife and mother of five children, is now (1976) in her early fifties, and resides at Bayside in New York. She had never experienced anything of the supernatural in her life, until one day in June 1968 she sensed a strong fragrance of roses while she prayed her daily Rosary besides her bedroom crucifix. She was soon to learn that her celestial visitor was none other than St. Therese of the Child Jesus, who urged her to write down certain messages at her dictation. These messages, which continued for a period of two years, were intended for her nuns in Carmel at Lisieux in France, and were all sent there where they are today preserved.[1] The heavenly visitations of St. Therese and the accompanying prodigies, from the very start, greatly bewildered and frightened Veronica, but peace was restored on her consulting with Father Sullivan of her parish, and with Cardinal Cushing with whom she corresponded at length, and who, on his own, offered Masses on her behalf. The visitations of St. Therese were only a prelude to the apparitions of Our Lady, who first showed Herself to Veronica in her own home, instructing her that from then on She would appear at the sacred grounds of her parish,—in front of the old St. Bellarmines Church where there stood a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was Our Ladys desire that a shrine be erected there and be named: Our Lady of the Roses, Mary Help of Mothers. Right from Her first appearances at the sacred grounds on June 18, 1970, the Mother of God instructed Veronica to have Her messages disseminated throughout the world, and also informed her that She would keep on appearing there on the eves of great Feasts, the dates of which would be specified by Her in advance. Ever since Veronica began receiving the heavenly communications, she observed a profound change coming over her, not of course without her own cooperation with the personal directives she was receiving from Heaven. She was exhorted by Our Lady to live retired from the world, to break off unnecessary contacts with people,—this, even as a protection against her enemies,—and never to leave her home without being armed with her crucifix. In time, she was also instructed to mortify her eating habits, and maintain a rigorous fast with only one meal a day. Moreover, by way of reparation for the immodesty of others, she was directed to have her dress reach up to the ankles, and instructed how to wear the head-gear. She was repeatedly warned by Heaven that she would be rejected, scoffed at and would have to suffer much, for her own purification and her mission demanded this. She was advised not to defend herself in the face of opposition, but to keep on praying for the enemies and her clergy, and her Hierarchy as well. She was particularly disturbed for having mentioned names of certain persons in the course of her messages, but she was repeatedly told not to fear, and to give out the messages exactly as they were given to her, for she was merely a voice-box, repeating the words which Heaven was dictating to her, and was not judging anyone; and the evil had to be exposed. In one of the visions Jesus also admonished her: Do not be affrighted, My child, by the Message given by My Mother. She has directed you as a voice-box. You must give out the message exactly as it was given to you. The truth must come to light.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 23:07:04 +0000