Q. What does it mean if something is a "private revelation"?
A. To love someone, we must first know that person. And since we are humans, the only way we can come to know someone is to learn about them through their words and actions. The person tells us about themselves and shows us who they are by the way they treat us and others.
It is no different for God.
God loves us and desperately wants us to love Him back, so He tells us about Himself and demonstrates His love by His actions, both in the past and the present. This is what is meant by revelation; it is God revealing who He is by His Word and how He has moved throughout salvation history.
Because God wills that all people be saved, he reveals Himself to all of humanity. This is what is meant by public revelation. It is public in that it is God reveling Himself to all the world.
The two types or sources of public revelation are Scripture and Tradition. Christ, who is the fullness of revelation, gave to humanity all that was necessary for salvation and as such there is no further public revelation. “Yet even if Revelation is already complete, it has not been made completely explicit; it remains for Christian faith gradually to grasp its full significance over the course of the centuries.” (CCC 66) The Church continues to reflect on the revelation that has been received and comes to know it more deeply, but there will never be any new revelation.
While God directs public revelation to all of humanity, He directs private revelation to certain individuals throughout the history of the Church, usually through apparitions of saints or the Blessed Mother or Christ Himself. It is for this reason that it is called “private” because it is given to a particular individual, not humanity as a whole.
Those things communicated in private revelation do not rise to the level of doctrine but are meant more as means of encouragement for a particular person or persons. “They [private revelations] do not belong, however, to the deposit of faith. It is not their role to improve or complete Christ’s definitive Revelation, but to help live more fully by it in a certain period of history. Guided by the Magisterium of the Church, the sensus fidelium knows how to discern and welcome in these revelations whatever constitutes an authentic call of Christ or his saints to the Church.” (CCC 67)
When considering private revelation there are a number of elements to keep in mind. Most importantly, authentic private revelation is not new revelation. It does not correct or “improve” on the definitive revelation of God in Scripture and Tradition. If the revelation claims to, it is not authentic. The Church tends to take a skeptical view of all alleged private revelation because, as one of my professors was fond of saying, the Devil will tell 99 truths to get you to believe one lie.
It is for this reason that the Church investigates private revelations, to ensure that there is nothing contrary to the teaching of the Church being presented in the revelation. Even when a private revelation is “approved” it just means that there is nothing contrary to the Faith being presented in the revelation and that it is worthy of belief because it can be helpful in living out one’s faith. Authentic private revelation re-enforces a doctrine of the Church or simply encourages devotional acts or prayers.
Therefore, the Church, usually via the local bishop, may encourage the Faithful to embrace some devotion or message that comes in a private revelation, but Catholics are not bound to believe a private revelation is authentic, even if “approved” by the Church.
It is important for Catholics to not get too consumed by private revelation. The Church, through Scripture and Tradition, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit through the Magisterium, has everything we need for salvation. While we might find some private revelation particularly edifying, we should not treat it like a fifth Gospel, nor should we spend more time studying it or meditating on it than we do on Scripture.
This question was answered by Father Caleb La Rue, chancellor of the Diocese of Lincoln. Write to Ask the Register using our online form, or write to 3700 Sheridan Blvd., Suite 10, Lincoln NE 68506-6100. All questions are subject to editing. Editors decide which questions to publish. Personal questions cannot be answered. People with such questions are urged to take them to their nearest Catholic priest.
