Acceptance and Impact
Some visions predate the Protestant Reformation, yet among Christian denominations, the Catholic Church has made more formal comments on visions of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, and Roman Catholics have, in general, paid more attention to visions.
Author Michael Freze argues that Catholic practices such as Eucharistic adoration, rosary devotions and contemplative meditation with a focus on interior life facilitate visions and apparitions. For instance, the first step in the mysticism of Saint Teresa of Ávila, a Doctor of the Church who reported extensive visions, was "mental prayer", i.e. devout contemplation or concentration, the withdrawal of the soul from without and specially the devout observance of the passion of Christ and penitence (Autobiography 11.20).
Yet, in recent centuries, people reporting visions of Jesus have been of diverse backgrounds: laity and clergy, young and old, Catholics and Protestants, devout or casual believers.
Read more about this topic: Visions Of Jesus And Mary
Famous quotes containing the words acceptance and/or impact:
“Cynicism makes things worse than they are in that it makes permanent the current condition, leaving us with no hope of transcending it. Idealism refuses to confront reality as it is but overlays it with sentimentality. What cynicism and idealism share in common is an acceptance of reality as it is but with a bad conscience.”
—Richard Stivers, U.S. sociologist, educator. The Culture of Cynicism: American Morality in Decline, ch. 1, Blackwell (1994)
“The question confronting the Church today is not any longer whether the man in the street can grasp a religious message, but how to employ the communications media so as to let him have the full impact of the Gospel message.”
—Pope John Paul II (b. 1920)