Living Visionaries
Among recent visions, the reported apparitions of The Virgin Mary to six children in Međugorje in 1981 have received the widest amount of attention. These messages are published and distributed worldwide and often emphasize five key elements: Daily prayer of the Holy Rosary, Fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, Daily reading of the Bible, Monthly Confessions and Holy Communion. The messages of Our Lady of Međugorje have a very strong following among Catholics worldwide. The Holy See has never officially either approved or disapproved of the messages of Međugorje, although both critical and supportive documents about the messages have been published by various Catholic figures.
The visions and conversations with the Virgin Mary reported in 1973 in Japan by Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa as Our Lady of Akita were approved in an unusually rapid form by the Vatican. For several decades, Agnes Sasagawa had encountered many health problems but her health reportedly improved after drinking water from Lourdes. After going totally deaf, she went to live with the nuns in the remote area of Yuzawadai, near the city of Akita. In 1973 she reported messages from the Virgin Mary, as well as stigmata. According to EWTN, in June 1988 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, gave definitive judgement on Our Lady of Akita events and messages as reliable and worthy of belief.
As recently as 1985 other people such as Vassula Ryden have recorded their conversations with Jesus in their books, resulting in interest, discussion and controversy. Ryden’s reported conversations with Jesus are published in a series of books called “True Life in God” and have been translated to over 40 languages by volunteers worldwide. The discussion on Vassula Ryden within the Holy See seems to be oscillating back and forth. Ryden’s notebooks were initially criticized by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in a 1995 Notification. In July 2004 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) wrote a letter that effectively reversed that situation. Yet a new letter written on January 25, 2007, by Cardinal William Levada advised against her prayer groups and stated that the writings of Ryden were neither private revelation, nor of divine origin but only personal reflections of Ryden. Ryden’s supporters and detractors seem to selectively read the Vatican letter that suits them best.
In the book Visions of Jesus Phillip Wiebe chronicled the stories of 30 people from truly diverse backgrounds who claim to have had recent conversations with Jesus. Wiebe analyzed these claims from multiple perspectives, including hallucinations, dreams and real visions.
Read more about this topic: Visions Of Jesus And Mary
Famous quotes containing the words living and/or visionaries:
“In my short experience of human life, the outward obstacles, if there were any such, have not been living men, but the institutions of the dead.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“These marbles, the works of the dreamers and idealists of old, live on, leading and pointing to good. They are the works of visionaries and dreamers, but they are realizations of soul, the representations of the ideal. They are grand, beautiful, and true, and they speak with a voice that echoes through the ages. Governments have changed; empires have fallen; nations have passed away; but these mute marbles remain—the oracles of time, the perfection of art.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)