Posted on 04/03/2004 5:49:07 AM PST by narses
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REMARKABLE, OBSCURE APPARITION CALLED FOR A 'RED SCAPULAR OF THE PASSION'
A remarkable and obscure series of apparitions in the 1800s won approval of a Pope and had a request that is only now coming to the surface -- and with remarkable timing. The apparitions were allegedly of Christ and the Blessed Mother to a nun named Sister Apolline Andriveau and the request was for propagation of a new devotion, the "Red Scapular of the Passion of Our Lord and the Sacred Hearts and Jesus and Mary."
Approved by Pope Pius IX, in a rescript dated June 25, 1847, the scapular had its origin in apparitions that took place at a convent in Troyes, France, from July 26 to September 14 of the previous year -- ending just five days before the Blessed Mother appeared to two shepherds in the famous LaSalette apparitions in another part of the same country. Moreover, it seems to bear a tie with two other sacramentals, the Miraculous Medal -- which occurred in France in 1830, and shares an image with the Red Scapular -- and with the Green Scapular, which also originated in France -- just six years before Sister Apolline's dramatic if hidden revelations.
"One Sunday evening, I was making the Stations of the Cross," said the nun, "when at the Thirteenth Station, it seemed to me that Our Blessed Lady placed the Body of our Divine Lord in my arms, saying as she did so, 'The world is drawing down ruin upon itself because it never thinks of the Passion of Jesus Christ. Do your utmost to bring it to meditate thereon, to bring about its salvation."
On one occasion she testified in letters to her spiritual director that the pallor of Christ's countenance was so startling "that it threw me into a cold sweat. Our Lord's Head was bent forward. I thought that the long thorns that encircled His sacred Brow had induced this painful posture."
A member in a community called the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, Sister Apolline testified that on the eve of the octave of St. Vincent's feast, July 26, 1846, she saw Our Blessed Lord "clad in a long red robe and blue mantle. Oh! Love of Jesus Christ, how You filled my heart at that moment! Oh! How beautiful He was! It was no longer the painful expression, the sorrowful face worn with suffering that I had seen in Pilate's hall a few days before during Mass. It was beauty itself! In his right Hand He held a scapular upon which was a crucifix surrounded by those instruments of the Passion which caused His Sacred Humanity to suffer most. I read around the crucifix: 'Holy Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, protect us.' At the other end of the red woolen braid was a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary, the one surrounded with thorns, the other pierced by a lance, and both surrounded by a cross."
According to the nun, the other panel of the scapular contained in part the same Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary which appear on the back of the Miraculous Medals -- a revelation granted just 16 years before the Red Scapular apparitions.
Above the Hearts was a Cross, and below, two angels.
The apparition was made known to the Pope during a trip to Rome by Sister Apolline's spiritual director, Father J. B. Etienne -- at which time Pius IX granted formal approbation for the new scapular -- which joins the better known brown and green scapulars.
In other literature, Sister Apolline described how she "shuddered" during a vision in which she saw Christ "rudely struck against the wood of the cross."
"Thou shouldst console me in the dolors of My Passion," He allegedly told her -- with language calling to mind the revelations of Anne Catherine Emmerich. "Take to thyself the fragments of My Flesh mangled in the Paetorium; all My Blood poured out on Calvary."
Sister Apolline said that Jesus longed for consideration of His sufferings and that His mother desired the same. "The world is hurrying to its perdition, because it considers not the Passion of Christ," she quoted Mary as saying. "Do all you can to bring and consider His sufferings. Do all you can to save the world!"
The holy Cross, said Sister Apolline, has the power to "convert infidels and enlighten heretics." Wearing the scapular was desired by Christ, she was told, because in doing so one is "clad in the livery" of His Passion. That livery, colored red as if tinged with His Blood, "will prove to us a strong armor against infernal assaults, an impenetrable buckler against the arrows of our spiritual enemies and, according to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all who wear it with faith and piety it will be a pledge of pardon, a source of grace."
She said she was also told that there would be an indulgence gained every Friday for those who wore it. "All those who wear this scapular shall receive every Friday an increase of faith, hope, and charity," she quoted Christ as saying.
According to the Red Scapular revelations -- set out in a series of 51 letters to Father Etienne -- the most cruel aspect of Christ's Passion was His interior sufferings.
"I am convinced that by the consideration of the Passion of Christ we shall obtain the conversion of sinners and strengthen the faith of the just," wrote Sister Apolline. "Who can resist a God dying for love of man! Our Lord has always loaded me with His greatest favors at moments when He filled my heart with the most lively remembrance of His sufferings."
She further quoted Jesus as saying: "Contemplate me on the Cross, and see if I deserve thy love. Thou shalt understand My Love only by my sufferings!"
The scapular is especially remarkable at a time when the world is focused on a movie called The Passion of the Christ -- based in large part on Emmerich, a stigmatic in neighboring Germany that same century. Sister Apolline said that on the Feast of the Blessed Trinity in 1846 she was shown a beautiful river that caused all who plunged in it to shine with extraordinary light, with "sheaves of diamonds and gold" coming from them. Those who turned away from the waters, on the other hand, "were covered with a dark vapor." The river represented Christ's mercy.
The 1847 approval was actually permission for priests to bless and distribute the scapular, while a pontifical "brief" approving of institutions established to carry forth the work bears the date March 14, 1862 and is called "Works Born of the Heart of God." According to the Marian Center at St. Joseph's Provincial House in Emmitsburg, Maryland -- where the scapular is distributed -- investiture of the Passion sacramental is no longer required. It is simply blessed and worn. "The graces depend upon the faith and confidence of the wearer," says a brief pamphlet accompanying it.
Linking it to the Blessed Mother, Sister Apolline noted that "one same sacrifice" immolated both her and Jesus and that Mary had cooperated in the Redemption of mankind. "The Sacred Heart of Our Lord opened with Calvary is the inexhaustible fountain of all graces," said the nun. "The reservoir that receives them, that communicates them to mankind, is the Immaculate Heart of Mary."
[Red Scapulars are available through the Marian Center, Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul, 333 South Seton Avenue, Emmitsburg, Maryland, 21727-9297 (please send self-addressed envelope with $.70 per scapular and $.50 for shipping and handling; e-mail or call 301-447-6033 for information].
[Please help spread the word by passing this flyer out at your parish or function]
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