Troubling locutions and private revelations.
A friend sent me a link - or several links - to a Monsignor Esseff, who is an esteemed priest who also happens to be the spiritual director for a soul who receives locutions from Our Lord and Our Lady...
His credentials: Monsignor John Esseff, diocesan priest and exorcist for the diocese of Scranton, PA. ordained in 1953, says Padre Pio was his spiritual director, and later on, he was Mother Teresa's spiritual director.
Evidently Monsignor Esseff will be speaking at the minor seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota this year, and from that, as well as other indications, such as his involvement with the Institute of Priestly Formation, I gather he is highly regarded by bishops, priests and lay people alike. I had never heard of him or the locutions before this.
An initial skim of the documents forwarded to me and a brief look at the content of the messages on the website, noting especially the ties to the Fatima messages and devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, I was left with a favorable impression. However, today I read some of the locutions more closely and I have to admit I can't get into them.
For instance, there are specific messages of the Pope going to Jerusalem and being killed. True - I still think the Third Secret of Fatima has yet to be completed and that a Pope could still be martyred - but I find it troubling to come across so specific a revelation. Likewise there are warnings against Russia and the world allowing it to regain power, and disclosing Russia's hatred of America... those locutions in particular sound as if God has chosen sides and America is on God's side.
I find locutions and purported messages such as these very troubling and unsettling - not in the desired way either - meaning to shake up my conscience and move me to deeper repentance. They seem to me to be a distraction and a means of inciting unhealthy, even morbid curiosity. I know many priests still have devotion to the Marian Movement of Priests and Fr. Gobbi (now deceased), but many of Fr. Gobbi's predictions and locutions were rather suspect to me - not that I believe he was lying, but it seems that a lot may have been the product of his imagination and personal meditation. Is that bad? Not necessarily, since God speaks to us in that manner. Though I can't recall verbatim, some of his millennial predictions never came to pass - and that sort of upsets the whole bundle - for me at least. Locutions have to be discerned on the premise that "whatever is received is received according to the mode of the receiver." There is so much discernment required, it is beyond my capability and interest.
Since Medjugorje and the onset of the Charismatic Movement within the Church, locutions seem to fly all over the place, and they always come off as sounding like former revelations from other mystics in 19th - 20th century literature, and/or pious meditations by the saints or a meditation one comes across in devotional books. Since the words of Monsignor Esseff's mystic speak so directly and without affectation to what is going on in the Middle East, perhaps these locutions are different? I don't know. Yet I have to ask, have any locutions in modern times ever averted disaster or war? Have locutions in modern times changed religious people? We do not even listen to and obey our superiors, the Holy Father and the Teaching Magisterium.
"If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead."
BTW - I don't despise private revelations, I just find them confusing.
Links:
Jesus and Mary on Israel, Jerusalem, and the End Times
Locutions to the World
Institute for Priestly Formation
Posts
Very interesting! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteSomeone earlier this year told me about these locutions. I downloaded them to my Kindle, and like you, it didn't take long for me to get suspicious. At first I was impressed by their references to Fatima. The first alarm for me was that the locutions quote from Medjugorje. I know a lot of people swear by Medjugorje, but two local bishops there have said these apparitions are not of supernatural origin and have completely disallowed spiritual pilgrimages there. And there is an awful lot of scandal associated with Medjugorje.
ReplyDeleteOnce I started reading about Medjugorje, I decided I didn't have much more time for these locutions. There are too many other approved spiritual readings that I need to get to.
Thanks for an important and enlightened post. If you want to read some truly inspiring writings about the end times, listen to St. Therese of Liseux and read the book that she said changed her life: "The End of the Present World" by Fr. Charles Arminjon. This is a truly amazing book that will give you all the details you need to know about the end times, and also has some great reading about heaven, hell and purgatory. You can get it in paperback and ebook. Even though this book was written decades before Fatima, it is amazing how much it follows the messages of Our Lady of Fatima.
BTW, the person who told me about these locutions also just told me that he believes in "Our Lady of the Roses," a condemned apparition in Bayside, Queens. Hmmmmm.
First bishop said he believed – then changed his mind.
ReplyDeleteSecond bishop doesn’t believe in Medjugorje, Fatima or Lourdes.
Spiritual pilgrimages are allowed.
Second bishop makes good money from the pilgrims (all for the right reasons). He collects every Mass stipend paid to the parish and redistributes to poorer parishes. Millions of dollars. Even gives an official receipt. So it is in the interests of his own diocese that pilgrimages are not banned.
This is from EWTN:
DeleteIn April 1991 the following declaration was made by the Bishops' Conference of the former Yugoslavia:
The bishops, from the very beginning, have been following the events of Medjugorje through the Bishop of the diocese [Mostar], the Bishop's Commission and the Commission of the Bishops Conference of Yugoslavia on Medjugorje.
On the basis of the investigations so far it can not be affirmed that one is dealing with supernatural apparitions and revelations.
As far as pilgrimages are concerned:
Finally, as regards pilgrimages to Medjugorje, which are conducted privately, this Congregation points out that they are permitted on condition that they are not regarded as an authentication of events still taking place and which still call for an examination by the Church.
This is the link:
http://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/medjugorje.htm
I attended the Institute of Priestly Formation in Omaha on 2000 and heard Msgr. Esseff's talk but he never mentioned about his alleged locutions or supernatural gift. He talked briefly about exorcism though.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't concern myself about references to other alleged apparitions - followers of such things frequently have some interest in other phenomena - which adds to the problem of discernment.
ReplyDeleteI haven't come across the Monsignor's references to Medjugorje, but there are many priests and bishops who seem to believe the apparitions are authentic.
I awat the decision of the Church.
I don'y want this post to become a Medjugorje discussion.
BTW - the fact I find such things troubling suggest to me - for me - that it is none of my concern. I don't like such things.
ReplyDeleteI prefer not to see - using the words of St. Therese. I want to live by Faith.
That's all.
Fr. Gary - the Institute for priestly Formation strikes me as very good and reputable - as does Monsignor.
ReplyDeleteWe're not bound to private revelation so just fine that you're not so interested in a given revelation.
ReplyDeleteI think it's important to make the distinction that the alleged locutions aren't from the Mgnr himself, but are made by someone under his spiritual direction. So the Mgsr is merely lending his credence to them, which could be wrong. I'm rather dubious about them myself - as Terry says, they are too specific in relation to the pope being martyred in Jerusalem, and are perhaps merely the personal meditations of the alleged locutionist. They appear to be based on the description of the location of the martyrdom of the pontiff in the Third Secret - a city with a hill with a large cross at the top, which conjures images of Golgotha. Yet the "Jerusalem" described as "half in ruins" in the Third Secret should be considered to be the Heavenly Jerusalem which is the Church (cf. Rev 21:9ff), and not the literal location of Jerusalem. As such, the city being presented as "half in ruins" probably describes the present state of the Church - i.e. the various scandals and falling away of the faithful en masse.
ReplyDeleteAs Cardinal Ratzinger pointed out in his theological commentary in "The Message of Fatima" document, even genuine seers have their limitations:
“Interior vision” is not fantasy but, as we have said, a true and valid means of verification. But it also has its limitations. Even in exterior vision the subjective element is always present. We do not see the pure object, but it comes to us through the filter of our senses, which carry out a work of translation. This is still more evident in the case of interior vision, especially when it involves realities which in themselves transcend our horizon. The subject, the visionary, is still more powerfully involved. He sees insofar as he is able, in the modes of representation and consciousness available to him. In the case of interior vision, the process of translation is even more extensive than in exterior vision, for the subject shares in an essential way in the formation of the image of what appears. He can arrive at the image only within the bounds of his capacities and possibilities. Such visions therefore are never simple “photographs” of the other world, but are influenced by the potentialities and limitations of the perceiving subject."
I've only come across any reference to Msgr. on this site, discerning hearts.com. They post fairly frequent conversations with/mediations by Msgr.
ReplyDeleteThe latest I've noticed: http://www.discerninghearts.com/?p=9221
Emmett - Thank you very much for your commentary - that is very helpful.
ReplyDeleteThanks Patrick, Monsignor's promotion of devotion to the Sacred Heart is very important and I'm sorry I didn't high light his good work myself. Thanks for doing so.
ReplyDeleteI hope readers will recognize that I'm not criticizing the Monsignor in my post.
BTW - did anyone notice Mother Teresa looked a bit chilled in the photo?
ReplyDelete