Religious Apparitions have occurred throughout history. Two very good examples or Religious Apparitions that were world-changing were the appearance of Jesus Christ to the Christian-persecuting, Saul of Tarsus, who later began known as the Apostle Paul and the appearance of the Angel Gabriel to Mohammed, who dictated the Koran forming the basis for the Islamic world as we know it today.
In the 19th century, Joseph Smith experienced the Religious Apparitions of the Father and the Son, various holy apostles and an Angel named Moroni, who gave him allegedly the location of golden plates. These alleged Religious Apparitions formed the basis of a Church which claims to be the resurrection of the one and only true Church of Jesus Christ.
Religious Apparitions continue to occur in the modern world, particularly in a replica or image of a crying or weeping Madonna statue or painting, but sometimes they occur in what appears to be the very person of the Religious Apparitions themselves. Marian appearances of this nature are particularly powerful and publicly known with such situations as in Fatima and with the appearance of the Virgin at Medjugorje or the famous appearance by the Virgin at Guadalupe in the 19th Century in Mexico. To show the power and specificity of such Religious Apparitions, we shall examine two of the more modern Marian Religious Apparitions.
Certainly, one of the more staggering Religious Apparitions in the Catholic religion was the appearance of the Virgin Mary to three children in Fatima, Portugal in 1917. According to one of the children, Lucia, Mary, who began to regularly appear to the children on the same hour on the 13th of each month, was “more brilliant than the sun.” The children were enjoined to do penance, tying cords around their waists and refraining from drinking water at time, in addition to doing a daily Rosary.
On October 13th, 1917, an event occurred that was witness by thousands of people and remains inexplicable to this day. After a violent rain storm, the clouds parted, revealing the sun as a disk, spinning in the sky and radiating a rainbow of colors, then falling to the earth in an irregular way. The sun never reached the Earth but returned to its trajectory. People in the crowds now noticed their clothing, drenched from the rainstorm, had suddenly become quite dry. The meaning of this event in light of the Religious Apparitions of Mary have been interpreted variously by orthodox Catholics, psychic and UFO commentators. On June 24th, 1981, six children claimed to have seen the first of many Religious Apparitions of the Blessed Mother, carrying the Infant Jesus, in Medjugorje, Bosnia-Hercegovina. This was the beginning of a series of Religious Apparitions and Divine Messages, calling the world to repentance. The next day, she appeared as a Religious Apparition after a flash of light, this time without the Baby Jesus. Numerous additional Religious Apparitions of Mary appeared to the children. Eventually, they attracted large crowds during these Religious Apparitions, eager to see the Marian Religious Apparitions, which continued for over twenty years.
So Religious Apparitions, whether ancient or modern, whether real, fraudulent or illusionary, can have huge social consequences, forming the basis of new civilizations and cementing the foundations all-encompassing institutions like the Catholic Church, as illustrated by these Marian Religious Apparitions.
