Saturday, October 20, 2007

POPE JOHN XXIII and PRIVATE REVELATIONS

In my first post, titled Second Pentecost, I mentioned that in Bishop Paul Kim's Pastoral Letter of Easter 1999, he spoke of the Second Pentecost (Second Coming). He says that, when Pope John XXIII received a revelation regarding the unhappy state of the Church, that it needed reform, the Pope convoked the Second Vatican Council. When he opened the council, Pope John XXIII prayed that it would be the beginning of a Second Pentecost for the Church. Relative to the private revelation that the Pope received, one of my readers left a comment. He wanted to know two things: “How often do Popes receive private revelations?” And “Do all Popes receive them?”
While I don’t have a precise answer to either question, I do have an opinion about them. First of all I don’t believe that all Popes receive private revelations from God. If every Pope received such revelations, I would think that we would have heard about it. Private revelations, when they are valid, are special charisms which come from God They are intended to build up the Church. As St. Paul says, the Spirit distributes them to each individual at will; and that “to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” (1 Cor. 12:7)

Since they are a free gift from God, it seems to me that the frequency of these private revelations cannot usually be predicted. However, with the modern day visionaries, there are some cases when the Lord Himself or Our Lady, tell a particular visionary when to expect future apparitions. This is occurring right now with the visionary, Dr. Gianna Sullivan of Emmitsburg, MD. There is a prayer service on the first Sunday of each month during which Our Lady of Emmitsburg gives a public message to the world. Gianna does not know how long this will continue. However, Our Lady told her that these private revelations had been “saved for the last”.

If you would like to see a video of one of these apparitions 'click here'. In order to listen to these public messages from Our Lady of Emmitsburg you can call toll free: 1-866-448-0711.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Keep up the good work.