What Are Apparitions?

Medjugorje, Yugoslavia, a village in Bosnia-Herzegovina, is the place where supposedly the Virgin Mary appeared daily to four visionaries in 1981.  Those who have heard her messages, say she is calling sinners to repentance and prayer.  These visions are called apparitions.

Over 30 million people have visited Medjugorje, and there are even Medjugorjan prayer groups and retreat centers that keep multiplying.  Other appearances have been occurring throughout the world.  In Vienna, over 1,000 people gather together weekly to pray the rosary and meditate on the latest message from Mary received by her visionaries at Medjugorje.

The phenomenon in Medjugorje began 18 years ago when a farmer’s irreligious children caught a glimpse of Mary and heard her speaking.  The children had never heard of the other apparitions of Mary in places like Lourdes, France in 1858, and Fatima, Portugal in 1917.  Thousands have since come and claim to witness strange lights and smelled heavenly perfumes.  Many pilgrims that visit the site claim physical healing, deliverance from addiction, and a renewal of Catholic piety.

The apparition of Mary rejects the word of Jesus that salvation is only through Him.  “Our Lady of Medjugorje” also commends the doctrine of purgatory, ceremonialism, and works as opposed to grace.1  The “Lady of Guadeloupe” and the Fatima apparition have rejected Christ’s sufficiency; even the Denver apparition claims to offer sacrifices for the sins of the world.  If only people would read the Word of God that has already been given (Col. 2:13, 14) they would not fall prey to such false gospels.

The sources of the Marian apparitions are clearly demonic.  The message they give is another Jesus and another gospel.  The current Pope and millions of others declare—“Totus tuus Sum Maria”—Mary, I am totally yours.  The huge Marian movement within Catholicism is based on two documents:  Pope Pius IX’s “Ineffabilis Deus” and Pope Pius XII’s “Munificentissimus Deus.”  Both documents are as anti-biblical as the Marian apparitions are.

The Roman Catholic teaching on Maryology is an utter fraud, which is leading many gullible souls into darkness.  All devotion and worship of Mary is forbidden by Scripture, therefore, if Scripture is violated the doorway to the demonic is to be anticipated.  God clearly states in Exodus 20:3-5 that He is the only God to be worshipped.

Though Mary was a wonderful woman, and Christians honor her as the mother of Jesus, she is dead.  She passed from death into heaven.  No one can talk to her or communicate with her in any way whatsoever (Deut. 18:10-12).

Necromancy is an abomination to God, and no matter how wonderful a person was on this earth, when they are dead it is an abomination to seek contact with him or her.  However, demons will talk back and even say things to tickle the ears of their listeners.

God has spoken to mankind “by His Son” (Heb. 1:1, 2), not Mary.  If the apparitions are not of God, then by logical deduction they are demonic or natural phenomenons.  However, when the apparitions are worshipped and obeyed then they are a tool of Satan to deceive people into faith apart from Jesus Christ and instead to trust in a “lying sign and wonder” (2 Thess. 2:9).

In light of the Marian apparitions, SCP writer, Timothy Kauffman, has penetrating words that Marian devotees need to hear.  “I can say that none of the apparitions of Mary have done any violence to Rome’s lofty view of her.  But the apparitions have done violence to the little we know of Mary from the Scriptures.  They have also done violence to the Gospel of Christ.”2

1 Dave Hunt, A Woman Rides the Beast (Eugene, OR:  Harvest House, 1994), p. 464.

2 Timothy Kauffman, “Kauffman Response to Letters of Criticism Printed in the Last Newsletter, SCP Newsletter 20:1 (1995):  14.