-1st Papal vision was by Peter described in theActs of the Apostles
-Recent popes receiving the " miracle of the sun "vision equivalent to that described by 70,000 witnesses at Fatima and manythousands at Medjugorje
 

      "...Peter went up to thehousetop to pray, about the sixth hour. And he became hungry and desiredsomething to eat; but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance andsaw the heavens opened..."
Acts of the Apostles 10:9-11

      The apparitions and visions that occassionallyoccur to the successors of Peter are difficult to definitively verify. For avariety of reasons, members of the Vatican's heirarchy do not like to broadcastthe mystical experiences of the head of the Catholic Church. Despite thisreluctance, from time to time details of such incidents do surface, almostalways without attribution. Unfortunately, these episodes are nearly impossibleto independently follow-up and evaluate. Nonetheless, the reality of thesevisions appears to be supported by the multiple sources that report aremarkably similar set of information describing the circumstances of thepurported vision.
 
 

Leo XIII - a Vision of a Looming Crisis...

      On October 13, 1884 Leo XIII hadjust completed a celebration of Mass in one of the Vatican's private chapels.Standing at the foot of the altar, he suddenly turned ashen and collapsed tothe floor, apparently the victim of a stroke or heart attack. However, neithermalady was the cause of his collapse. For he had just been given a vision ofthe future of the Church he loved so much. After a few minutes spent in whatseemed like a coma, he revived and remarked to those around him, "Oh, what ahorrible picture I was permitted to see!"

      What Leo XIII apparently saw, asdescribed later by those who talked to him at the time of his vision, was aperiod of about one hundred years when the power of Satan would reach itszenith. That period was to be the twentieth century. Leo was so shaken by thespectre of the destruction of moral and spiritual values both inside andoutside the Church, that he composed a prayer which was to be said at the endof each Mass celebrated anywhere in the Catholic Church. This prayer to Michaelthe Archangel was said continuously until the Mass was restructured in theSecond Vatican council. The prayer is as follows:

      "Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us inbattle; be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May Godrebuke him, we humbly pray; and do you, O Prince of the heavenly host, by thepower of God, thrust into hell Satan and the other evil spirits who prowl aboutthe world for the ruin of souls. Amen."

      While this prayer may now seem quaint and mildlyembarrassing to the modern reader with its reference to Satan and evil spirits,it should be noted that virtually all measures of social pathology and moraldecline (things like the crime rate, percentage of unwed mothers, abortionrate, divorce rate, etc.) each started to rise sharply as the 1960's ended...afew years after this prayer had ceased being used in Church liturgies.Regardless, while the precise details of Leo's visions are not known, it wouldcertainly appear that his concern about the coming difficulties in his Churchand the world in which it found itself were well founded.
 
 

Pius XII - a Mystical Experience:

      There were occasional rumors of visions and"angelic" phenomena associated with Pius XII during the entire duration of hispapacy (1939 - 1958). He purportedly experienced mystical visions of both Jesusand Mary. After one of these "visions" he reportedly told one of hisassistants, "Mankind must prepare itself for sufferings such as it has neverbefore experienced."

      He expressed dismay at what he saw facinghumanity in the not so distant future, describing those times as "the darkestsince the deluge". He described the times that were unfolding as a period ofgreat spiritual conflict, noting, "The hour has struck - the battle, the mostwidespread, bitter and ferocious the world has ever known, has been joined. Itmust be fought to the finish." He made these comments having communicated withSister Lucia, the surviving visionary of Fatima, a correspondence which heconducted through intermediaries. Apparently as a result of these contacts, heconsecrated the entire Church and the world to Mary's heart in 1942 implicitlyaccepting Sister Lucia's visions at Tuy and Pontevedra in the late 1920's. Inthe late 1940's he learned from Sr. Lucia that, failing a Church-wide collegialconsecration of Russia by the bishops in unison with the Pope, the tribulationsprophesized at Fatima might still be ameliorated if the world could beconsecrated to Mary's Immaculate Heart. If such a consecration could be againbe performed, this time with the bishops of the Church and with a specialmention of Russia in the words of dedication, then the tribulations which hesaw in his visions could be mitigated.

      To reaffirm the trust he exhibited in the Motherof God, he also witnessed the inexplicable solar phenomena of Fatima whilewalking in the Vatican gardens. He wrote to one of his cardinals,
"Having lifted the papers I had in my hand, I was struck by a phenomenon I hadnever seen before. The sun, which was fairly high, looked like a pale yellowopaque globe completely surrounded by a luminous halo, which nevertheless didnot prevent me at all from staring attentively at the sun without the slightestdiscomfort. A very light cloud was before it. The opaque globe began movingoutward, slowly turning over upon itself, and going from left to right andvice-versa. But within the globe very strong movements could be seen in allclarity and without interruption.".

      After nearly 1,500 years as a common belief ofmany of the faithful and after nearly fifty years of intensive theologicalstudy, two days after his experiences in the Vatican garden Pius XII formallydeclared as Catholic Dogma that Mary was Assumed body and soul into Heaven - adoctrine known as the Assumption.
 
 

John Paul II - the Sun Spins in Rome...

      Another intriguing vision occurred only once andonly to one individual - in Rome in August of 1981. On May 13, 1981, during anopen-air papal audience in St. Peter's Square, the Polish Pope who haddedicated his papacy to Mary, bent down to hug a young girl who was wearing asmall likeness of Our Lady of Fatima. At that precise moment, Mehmet Ali Agca,a Turkish assassin, fired two shots at his head at close range. The bulletsmissed the Pope but hit two pilgrims standing nearby. Agca fired again hittingthe Pope in the abdomen. Had he not bent down to hug that little girl wearingthe picture of Mary, those two bullets would have ripped through his skullprobably killing him instantly.

      As it was, it would take him six months to fullyrecover from the wounds. As he convalesced at the Policlinico in Rome, JohnPaul became even more prayerful. He prayed to Our Lady of Fatima since he wasconvinced that it was her direct intercession that saved his life. He rereadthe three Secrets that the Lady of Fatima gave the three children in 1917 andwhich were finally recorded in written form by Sister Lucia in the late '30'sand he instructed Bishop Pavol Hnilica, a Slovak bishop who was secretlyordained while a priest in communist Czechoslovakia, to send all the Church'sdocuments on the events at Fatima for his review. The Pope also dispatchedSister Mary Ludovica to Fatima to meet with its retired Bishop John Venancio.The purpose of this meeting was never disclosed.

      It was while he was in this state of mind at thePoliclinico that John Paul reportedly witnessed the inexplicable phenomenon ofthe sun first seen at Fatima sixty five years earlier. Moreover, he reportedlyreceived a vision of the future related to the third Fatima Secret at the sametime the phenomenon of the sun took place.

      What were the contents of his vision? Only JohnPaul knows. However, Bishop Hnilica reported at the time of the Pope's releasefrom the Policlinico, that the Pope told him: "I have come to understand thatthe only way to save the world from war, to save it from atheism, is theconversion of Russia according to the message of Fatima." It is reasonable tosuspect that, since the time of this vision, he has been acting in accord withwhat he believes are Heaven's wishes.

      John Paul II has dedicated his papacy to Mary,the Mother of Jesus. His personal motto, Totus Tuus (Completely Yours), is aterm illustrating the consecration of his life to the Blessed Virgin, aconsecration that took place while he was still a Polish bishop.

      The assassination attempt and the vision thatfollowed it serve to affirm Mary's unique role for this Pope. He called theassassination attempt a "mysterious coincidence with the anniversary of thefirst apparition at Fatima" in a speech he gave as a pilgrim to Fatima on May13, 1982. During this pilgrimage, John Paul also conducted a service where heconsecrated the world and, indirectly, Russia, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.His actions since his recovery appear to confirm that he is operating on atimetable established by Heaven; he acts as if what he does and how successfulit will be are dependent on conforming to the sequence of events established bythe Lord of history and provided to him by Our Lady of Fatima. A partialconfirmation of this is based on the consecration of Russia and the World tothe Immaculate Heart of Mary that John Paul performed on March 25, 1984. Thisact was an attempt to fulfil Mary's request to Sister Lucia, first in 1917 atFatima, and again at Pontevedra, Spain on December 10, 1929. At Pontevedra,Sister Lucia was again visited by the Blessed Virgin. During this apparition,Our Lady told her that God wanted "the Pope, together with all the bishops ofthe world, to make the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart." In aprevious apparition at Tuy, Spain on December 10, 1925, the Blessed Virgin toldSister Lucia:

      " Look, my daughter, at my Heart encircled bythese thorns with which men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies andingratitude. You, at least, strive to console me, and so I announce: I promiseto assist at the hour of death with the grace necessary for salvation all thosewho, with the intention of making reparation to me, will, on the first Saturdayof five consecutive months, go to confession, receive Holy Communion, say fivedecades of the beads, and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditatingon the fifteen mysteries of the rosary."

      In 1989, Sister Lucia told one of her relativesthat the Consecration conducted by Pope John Paul and the bishops in 1984 wasaccepted by Heaven and Russia would be converted. (She did not say when thiswould occur.) The statement by the Mother of God that she could assure thatsufficient graces would be available to anyone who made reparation to herImmaculate Heart combined with her promise that the dedication of Russia to herImmaculate Heart would lead to the conversion of Russia places Mary squarely atthe heart of the world in which we now find ourselves. Our responses to herrequests will determine the course of history - not in some far away future,but right now in the last half of the last decade of the second millenia afterthe birth of her Son.

      It is astounding then, that in light of this,there has been a dramatic decline in all forms of devotion to Mary during thelast thirty years just at a time when the world desperately needs it. JohnPaul's dedication to the Blessed Virgin, reinvigorated by the vision he had atthe Policlinico, represents a real hope in mitigating against a near-termglobal period of stress.

The following page is from:
http://members.aol.com/bjw1106/marian7a.htm