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When were the first apparitions of Christ? |
Easter morning is dawning on the Sea of Galilee.
The first rays of light travel like a guided laser
over the water and the hillsides, as though searching for a
particular point in eternity to illuminate.
Inside a dark cave only a rumble of shifting rock can
be heard.
Suddenly this rumble reveals itself to be a stone rolling
away from the closure of a tomb.
Just one spark of light finds its way through the
slight jar in the passage.
But it is enough to gently caress a reclining body
that can barely be seen in the darkness.
Suddenly, as if to ignite nuclear fission, the
sunlight, and the "Light of Life" explode into a blinding
radiance. This
is a light that has no direction and casts no shadows.
The "explosion" rolls the stone closure completely
away, light pours out of the tomb even brighter than the
sunlight, and Jeshua emerges.
His body has a growing translucent quality giving
evidence of its transformation into some higher substance.
Wrapped in his stained shroud, Jeshua walks,
almost gliding on air, to the garden shed of the cemetery to
look for garments that might have been left behind by a
gardener. He is
about to leave the cemetery when he sees Mary Magdalene
approaching the tomb.
Sunrise after the Sabbath would have been the first
moment anyone could have attended his body.
She is shocked to see the stone rolled away and the
body missing.
She mistakes Jeshua for the gardener, and asks "Who has
taken my Lord?"
Then she is even more startled to realize that it is Jeshua
wearing the gardener's attire.
She wants to embrace him, but hesitates.
Her caution is confirmed by his words: "You cannot
touch me,” but please, carry the good news to others that I
am alive." She
departs with great joy.
Later that day he appears from "nowhere" to join
two men walking on the road to Emmaus.
He walks with them and visits with them through
dinner, when they finally recognize who he is.
Then he suddenly vanishes into "nowhere."
Within days, Jeshua appears to the other Apostles
and gives evidence that his material solidity has returned
by eating food and allowing Thomas to touch his wounds.
After teaching them the miracle of resurrection and
many other wonderful things, which even the scriptures say
were never written, he transforms his body into heavenly
matter and ascends into the clouds.
But what is heaven for those who witness, is infinite
potential for him.
He continues to visit all the faithful for the next
40 years until the end of the generation to which he was
born. The Book
of Acts has numerous accounts of such appearances.
One was to Ananias, and the most dramatic was as a
blinding light to Saul on the road to Damascus.
This is when Jeshua called Saul (who became Paul)
from his persecution of the Jews.
Later Jeshua came again to warn Paul in Corinth, and
once more in Jerusalem it is written that Jeshua “stood by
him” to sustain his faith.
In an apocryphal account it is written that Jeshua
appeared at the moment of his mother’s death and escorted
her to heaven
The first generation of those who knew Jeshua
seemed to have no problem with paranormal appearances of him
after his resurrection.
Indeed, these mystical moments of reunion stirred
inspiration, often leading to great acts of faith.
Such experiences and beliefs permeated early
Christian mystical literature, although this subject would
become a challenge for later theologians to reconcile.
The first to take on this subject was St. Augustine.
In his
“Literal Meaning of Genesis” he discusses three types of
visions: corporeal, imaginative, and intellectual.
A corporeal vision is when all of the normal senses
recognize a physical presence of Christ.
These occurrences were frequent enough they could not
be dismissed.
St. Augustine defined imaginative and intellectual visions
as being subjective, even though the cause may have been
Divine. |
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What does the Church say about Christ’s apparitions?
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Mystical appearances of Jeshua have been among
the most controversial and often suppressed aspects of the
Christian experience.
Non-believers are simply skeptical, and many
believers have difficulty reconciling reported appearances
with the prophesied “Second Coming.”
Personally, I see no confusion between a promised
return to the whole of humanity and periodic reinstatements
of the resurrection, without which we would have no place in
our consciousness to expect his return.
You may
click here
to read an official letter from
Pope John Paul II about the Apparitions of Christ.
Human beliefs and debates notwithstanding, Jeshua
has continued to visit whomever he chooses - from beggars to
Popes - throughout the ages.
These events transcend all doctrine and exceed all
limitations in the dauntless and vigilant pursuit of the
Holy Spirit to reveal a more sublime relationship with the
Infinite than we could even imagine, much less control.
Extraordinary events lead us to look beyond
limited reality and seek for more of the exceptional.
In the accounts of St. Anthony, who suffered greatly
in the desert from evil spirits, we read that upon his
victory over the torture “Our Lord appeared visible and
joyous.” Then
Anthony asked, “Where were you when I needed you?”
The Lord answered, “I was here just as I am now, but
I wanted the pleasure of seeing how staunch you are.”
This story offers a poignant answer to many who might
ask, if such appearances are real, why does he not appear
and cut short events of suffering or even disaster?
Perhaps these extraordinary visitations were
never intended to solve our problems or to intercept the
patterns of life that we must master for ourselves.
More likely, we are being offered extraordinary
evidence of a boundless universe in which our problems take
on a new perspective.
This most certainly resulted from Jeshua’s
appearances to Saint Francis, Saint Germain, and Archbishop
Cyprian who all entered a higher level of service through
transcendental perception.
Records tell of his appearances through the
centuries to many others, including St. Gregory the Great,
St. Theresa of Avila, and St. Ignatius Loyola, and well into
modern times with such visionaries as John Wesley, Joseph
Smith, Charles G. Finney, and General William Booth.
Many times he came in a blinding light; sometimes
through acts of healing; and often in the faces of those to
whom charity had been shown.
In some cases, these visitations were bestowed as a
confirmation of faith, but not always, as with Saul, who had
no faith at the time he was greeted by the light of Christ.
Often the visions were a compassion gift
unconditionally given to clueless recipients.
Recently, in Orlando, Florida,
an unexplained image in a hospital prayer garden window
moved some people to tears and drew groups of people to a
hallway before vanishing, according to witnesses.
It was photographed by hundreds of people and
featured on CNN news.
To see footage on this,
click here.
Rich or poor, literate or illiterate, healthy or
harmed, troubled or happy, believers or non-believers, there
seems to be no respect of person as to who has received a
vision … and, no reason, except to remind the recipient that
he or she has been touched beyond the limits of structure
and conditioning.
This relentless pursuit of freedom, unity, and love
is what I have found to be most characteristic in all
dimensions of Jeshua’s life. Will there ever be a scientific explanation of this phenomenon? Probably not, although there may be meaningful scientific analogies, once it is understood that faith is inseparable from science, especially in the new frontiers of quantum reality. Mysteries are all around us, and the greatest, most fascinating mysteries of life are to be savored and not resolved. Perhaps the most amazing and humbling discovery of modern science is the fact that 99 per cent of all existence is not only invisible to our senses and instruments, but also without mass or configuration.
Even the 1 per cent that comprises our physical
universe is solid only because of relatively stable
configurations of energy.
Among the greatest scientists - including Niels Bohr,
Max Planck, and Werner Heisenberg - it has been conceded
that there is room in a rational universe for
incomprehensible wonders.
Albert Einstein said: “The most beautiful emotion we
can experience is the mystical. It is the power of true art
and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can
no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead.
To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists,
manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most
radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only
in their most primitive forms - this knowledge, this
feeling, is at the center of true religiousness.”
Our perceptions are focused most of the time upon
the 1 per cent of existence that can be seen, heard, and
touched. And,
then we are surprised when some evidence emerges from the
remaining 99 per cent.
I think it is natural to be cautious about things we
cannot see, feel, or control, yet if we carried that caution
to its fullest degree we would have no place for faith and
no outreach for God.
There are extraordinary forces, and we also are moved
by the endless universe in small ways we take for granted.
Whenever we set aside, or relax, the filter called
“self” and lose ourselves in play, service, conversation,
sharing, imagination, meditation, prayer, study, or sleep we
shift our focus from survival pursuits into larger patterns
of connection with unlimited possibility.
Most often our connection with the infinite is not a
mystical revelation, but a quiet and personal epiphany at
moments when we realize that the miraculous and the mundane
are one and the same.
At such moments we see clearly that everything is
already before our eyes awaiting only a shift of perception.
Marcel Proust said that, “The real act of discovery
consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new
eyes.”
There is no
question that the exploration of human consciousness is the
last great frontier. Well in advance of our scientific
progress, two thousand years ago the life and teachings of
Jesus stimulated an expansion of consciousness that will see
no end. In many ways he ignited this through
demonstrations of what seemed like paranormal events.
Yet the power behind his miracles and the reason for them
was his assurance that they were not paranormal for
him. They were the results of great faith and love and
were, in fact, NORMAL for anyone who shared his higher
understanding. Indeed, he promised that at some point,
“All these things and more YOU shall also do.”
His miracles would have had no lasting value if
they had been performed merely to impress others with
mystical ability beyond the grasp of humanity.
There was no vanity in him.
The value of his life was not in what set him apart
from (or above) humanity, but in what united him with it.
By that same standard, if apparitions are regarded as
something weird and freakish, the sanctity is lost.
I believe there is something within each of us that
yearns for a higher reality and opens to it with uncontrived
wonder.
There are many ways through which God appears to
all of us. It
could be through inspiration, an unexpected blessing, a new
friend, inner guidance, wise counsel, or the Holy
Scriptures, to name only a few possibilities.
Any appearance of God is an extraordinary apparition,
which we usually take for granted.
So close is God to us that we mistake the Holy
Presence for the air we breathe.
Is there any wonder that, at times, a gateway to
enlarged perception is necessary to get our attention? It is
not that any one of us is more exceptional than others, or
singled out to carry a higher light.
It’s just that some are present when such a gate is
opened, or perhaps were used as instruments to open a gate
for others. At
times the immortal spirit of Christ walks through that gate
and we see him.
Life is more fluid than our perceptions normally
suggest. Space
adapts to the requirements of a given purpose, and time is
simply a loom that weaves the threads of destiny, causing
the events of our life to approach and disappear. Daily I
was seeing evidence of the promise he made long ago that, “I
am with you always.”
Perhaps there is another factor in our humanness,
which calls apparitions to us.
Beyond our mortal frame, in dimensions that are not
governed by time and space, we must surely be conscious of
our place in the quantum universe.
It could be no other way, considering that even the
least of particles has within it a quantum potential.
When Jeshua talked about the Kingdom of Heaven he
compared it to the size of a mustard seed.
I seriously doubt that he was equating it with minute
size, but rather he was revealing that even within the
tiniest creations is the pattern of something immense and
grand. This is
what I mean by the quantum nature within each of us.
Perhaps in our hunger to know and see more, to step
outside the ordinary, we occasionally release our mortal
defenses, if only for a moment, and receive the blessings of
a higher vision.
Click
here
for the story of Jeshua’s appearance to Glenda on November
23, 1991
Click
here
to view “The Lamb and the Lion,” the painting which
commemorates Jeshua’s appearance to Glenda
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Apparitions in later times |
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An amazing recent video featured on CNN News |
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Are there any explanations?
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Is there more to the universe than we
thought? |
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What do they mean for us?
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Jeshua’s appearance to Glenda |
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An apparition painted |
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