TV, Radio and Online
Coverage Schedules
Tuesday, May 11
Mass in Lisbon 1 p.m. ET
Wednesday, May 12
Meeting with the world of culture 5 a.m. ET
Arrival in Fatima & Vespers 12:30 p.m. ET
Blessing of the Candles and Rosary 4:30 p.m. ET
Thursday, May 13
Mass in Fatima 5 a.m. ET
Friday, May 14
Mass in Porto 5 a.m. ET
Upcoming Papal Visits
Papal Visit to Cyprus
June 4 - June 6, 2010
Papal Visit to Great Britian
September 16 - September 19, 2010
The Theology of Apparitions
The appearances of God, the angels and the saints to human
beings on the earth fall into two general categories, apparitions
and mysticism.
A mystic is a person who having persevered in the Christian
spiritual life, usually a notable length of time, receives by God's
free choice the infused supernatural grace of contemplative prayer.
Through this grace they are granted a deeper knowledge and
experience of God, beyond that which the ordinary ways of prayer and
Christian life can give. This grace is usually granted after they
have been faithful in avoiding sin, conquered themselves through
mortification, and meditated faithfully on Christ and the truths of
the faith taught by the Church. Passing through a profound trial
known as the Dark Night of the Senses they enter upon the
Illuminative Way, in which they make very notable progress in
sanctity, as well as receive divine communications, whether of
interior words (locutions) or interior (intellectual) or exterior
visions. They may also experience ecstasies, levitations, the
stigmata, and other signs of their growing intimacy with God and the
supernatural. If they persevere on this path they will pass through
another Dark Night, of the Spirit, in which their purification is
completed. Entering upon the Unitive Way, their union with God is
secured by a Mystical Marriage, prefiguring their union with God at
death and the consummation of the union of Christ and His Bride at
the end of time.
An apparition, however, is a charismatic gift granted by God for
some greater purpose of His than the benefit of the one receiving
it. It says nothing necessary about the sanctity of the recipient(s);
although God usually chooses simple and good Christians, often
children, who will readily accept and do His Will. Generally, it can
be understood as an external vision, created by some means of God,
to represent the holy person depicted. It would not necessarily have
to be the person him or herself. Only Christ and Our Lady (possibly
St. Joseph, according to St. Francis de Sales and others who hold
that he was taken to heaven body and soul), could actually appear in
their bodies. All others, and even they, could appear by some
representation accessible to the human senses. In such a way God
appeared by means of angels to Abraham and to Moses. According to
St. Thomas Aquinas, this manner is the ordinary cause of mysticism
and apparitions.
In the case of Fátima it is clear that something more than an
intellectual vision took place, an external apparition accompanied
by indications of the actual presence of Our Lady. This latter
cannot be conclusively determined. However, it reasonably follows
from the descriptions of the events and especially from the sense of
Her Presence continued to be felt there to this day.
As a fruit of the events, and of the fidelity of the three children
to the message of Fátima, Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta grew in
holiness and became mystics in the proper sense. It is for their
heroic virtue in the pursuit of God that the two youngest are being
raised to the honor of the altar, not for being the recipients of an
apparition. This fact, more even than the miracle of the Sun,
authenticates the message of Fátima.
