Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Saints' Experiences

I am putting together a little something and I wanted to know if any of you out there can help me. I am looking for any examples in Church history of saints having spiritual experiences/visions but not wanting to talk about them; or perhaps instances of saints only talking about them under obedience from their superiors.

If you know of anything like this, please post it in the comment box. But it needs to be specific: a direct quotation with a source cited. I've already got a few, but I could use some more.

I already know about St. Teresa and Therese, and I also have some stuff from St. John of the Cross, St. Paul, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bernadette and St. Margaret Mary. I'm looking for some more obscure or lesser known ones - but anything you can send my way would be helpful.

Pax.

7 comments:

Nick said...

I'm not sure whether these qualify (or more likely have already been thought of), but I'm pretty sure St Teresa of Avila and St Terese of Lisieux. St Teresa I think even had visions and also out of body experiences.

In the Interior Castle and Story of a Soul, mostly within the first few pages they both openly admit they wanted to keep this quiet but their superiors instructed them to write it down.

Boniface said...

Thanks Nick - got those.

Anonymous said...

Check out Venerable Mary of Agreda... who only described her mystical travels to America under obedience. Check out the sermon at Audio Sancto titled "The Real Flying Nun" to start.

Anonymous said...

St. John Vianney had some apparitions of the Blessed Mother noted in his biography by Trochu.

Anonymous said...

The Conversation of Colum Cille and the Youth at Carn Eolairg

http://thegeekmovement.com/karen/celtic/ccandyouth.html

Enbrethiliel said...

+JMJ+

I found this story in the book A Spiritual Friendship:

From one of [St. Francis'] biographers comes the word that Francis was cautious about revealing what he called "God's secrets." Once he asked his brother friars what he should do, for instance, should he admit freely what he had seen in a vision?

The brothers advised him to be more open and forthcoming. They said that when God reveals His secrets to us, it is not for us alone but meant for others, too.

In other words, the consensus was if he hid something intended for the good of others, then he was burying the talents that God gave him. But Francis thought otherwise. He replied, "It is for me to keep my secret to myself." Then he convinced the other friars that God had revealed some things to Francis he would never tell anyone, as long as he lived.


The authors are anonymous. In case you have trouble finding the book, here is the Amazon.com link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0824517652/qid=1081720222/sr=1-10/ref=sr_1_10_xs_stripbooks_i10_xgl14/104-1799052-0229501?v=glance&s=books

Anonymous said...

Have you tried the Apothegmata Patrum? I know of one Desert Father who completely ignored an appartition of an angel since he was meditating on the verse of Scripture that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. In general, the Christian East has been highly suspicious of any type of apparition or revelation. The old Russian monks called such things "prelest" or spiritual deception.