APPEARANCE. – A supernatural and sensible manifestation by which a spiritual or bodily object makes itself present to the external or internal senses. The a. is correlative to vision (v.), and the two terms are often used interchangeably. St. Augustine (Contra Adimantum, last chapter: PL 42, 171; De Genesi ad Litteram, XII, 6 sq.; PL 34, 458 sq.) distinguishes visions into corporal, imaginative, and intellectual: only the first two categories properly correspond to an a. As a sensible phenomenon, the a. is predominantly a manifestation of a visual order. Touch is also involved in the a., insofar as it serves to verify and reinforce the objectivity of the manifestations reported by sight. And since sight and touch are the two senses that most directly report objective reality, in the a. there arises what moderns call the “feeling of presence.” Whoever has an a., that is, is convinced of being in immediate contact with the object that has manifested itself to him, and not merely of undergoing a more or less distant influence or of finding himself before an image, a reproduction of II. As is reported by the great mystics who have experienced it, for example by St. Teresa (Vita, 28), this feeling of presence is proper even to imaginative a. and constitutes precisely their difference from mere representations of the imagination.
According to the different authority by which they are attested and therefore the different faith they merit, a. are distinguished into biblical and extra-biblical. The former are guaranteed by the authority of God Himself, the principal author of Holy Scripture, and therefore are to be believed with full and certain faith. The latter, instead, rest on ordinary documents or testimonies; and therefore to them is owed that faith which the documents or testimonies merit.
Biblical a. are performed by God (v. JAHWEH; TEOGNIA) or by angels; the angel Raphael appears to Tobias and accompanies him on his journey (Tob. 5, 5-12, 22); Gabriel appears to Zechariah (Lk. 1, 8-22), and to Mary (Lk. 1, 26-38); an angel appears several times to St. Joseph (Mt. 1, 20; 2, 13); the angels announce to the shepherds the birth of Jesus (Lk. 2, 8-15); an angel comforts Jesus in the agony of Gethsemane (Lk. 22, 43); an angel announces to the women the resurrection of Jesus (Mt. 28, 2-5); an angel appears to the centurion Cornelius (Acts 10, 3), etc. Others are performed by the dead, whether risen or not: to Judas Maccabeus appeared Onias and Jeremiah (2 Macc. 15, 11-16); to the apostles on Mount Tabor appeared Moses (Mt. 17, 3); after the resurrection of Jesus, many of the dead came out of their tombs and appeared to many in Jerusalem (Mt. 27, 53); the risen Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene (Mk. 16, 9), then to St. Peter (Lk. 24, 35), to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Lk. 24, 15), to the apostles gathered in the Upper Room (Mk. 16, 14; Mt. 28, 17; Jn. 20, 19), to Saul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9, 3-7), etc.
Biblical a. are mostly narrated as perceived by the external senses; however, there are also a. to the internal or imaginative senses, to which are connected the dreams in which the divine will is revealed (2 Macc. 15, 11; Mt. 1, 20; 2, 13).
After the close of revelation with the end of the apostolic age, the Lord or the Virgin, angels or demons or saints often appeared, as attested by ancient and recent history and hagiography. Well known to all are the a. of Paray-le-Monial, Lourdes, La Salette, and Fatima. The lives of the saints, moreover, for example those of St. Teresa, St. Margaret Mary, St. John Vianney, and St. Gemma Galgani, abundantly report the many a. vouchsafed to these privileged souls. In the Middle Ages there was a whole flourishing of Eucharistic a., set within many other miracles that had the Eucharist as their center (cf. P. Browe, Die eucharistischen Wunder des Mittelalters, Breslau 1938).
The Catholic liturgy has consecrated the memory of some of these a. by the institution of special feasts: thus on Feb. 11 is celebrated the a. of Our Lady of Lourdes; on May 8 that of St. Michael on Mount Gargano. The origin of other feasts is connected with some a., such as the feast of Our Lady of Mercy (Sept. 24) and that of the Sacred Heart, etc. With the recognition accorded by the Church, such a. are particularly imposed on the belief of the faithful: not as articles of faith, but as historical facts whose authenticity, given the extreme prudence of the Church in admitting them, cannot reasonably be doubted.
Regarding a. on which the Church has expressed no judgment, any assessment must be subordinated to certain criteria: a historical criterion (whether, through the study of documents and testimonies, the alleged a. is shown to have actually occurred), a psychological criterion (whether, through examination of the intellectual, moral, and psychic conditions of the subject, hallucination is excluded or not [v.]), and a theological criterion (whether the alleged a. is due to divine intervention or to occult forces of nature or diabolical ones [V. SPIRITISM]).
Whoever has an a. is convinced of being in direct contact with the person who appears to him. But is the reality that manifests itself to the seer the objective truth of the person himself who becomes present in the a., or is it something different, however sensible and therefore real?
The question is, in some respects, a matter of debated dispute among theologians. It is agreed that in theophanies it is not the essence of God that comes into relation with the senses of man; this is impossible because of God’s absolute spirituality, and therefore He manifests Himself through some instrument. Analogously it is thought to be for the a. of angels, and for those of saints or the dead, until such time as they have not yet received back their bodies. The discussion, therefore, is limited to the humanity of Jesus, whether in the a. after the Ascension He manifested Himself in His bodily reality; and to the Blessed Virgin, whose body is already glorified in heaven.
It is agreed that to the Apostle Paul Jesus appeared with His real body (1 Cor. 9, 1), and “corporaliter praesente” and not merely “aliquilter apparent” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., 3, 9, 57, a. 6 ad 3). Otherwise the Apostle could not have proved from such a. the truth of the Resurrection (1 Cor. 15, 4-13).
Regarding the other a., opinions differ. It is commonly admitted by theologians that Jesus can leave heaven to make Himself visible on earth in the reality of His body. Thus the Angelic Doctor writes: “Dignitati mansioni caelestis non derogat si ex aliqua dispensatione Christus quandoque corporaliter ad terram descendat” (ibid.). Beyond this possibility, some theologians, such as Scotus and the Scotists, Suárez and others, starting from the presupposition that the multilocation of bodies (v. BILOCAZIONE) is not repugnant, hold that, while remaining in heaven, the Lord can at the same time be locally present on earth with His body and thus make Himself visible. For St. Thomas and the Thomists, instead, the hypothesis of the multilocation of the body involves intrinsic repugnance: “Ponere quod aliquod corpus sit localiter in hoc loco et tamen sit in alio loco, est ponere contradictoria simul” (Quodlib. 3, a. 2). They therefore explain the a. of the Lord either by the intervention of some physical element that in a sensible and real way represents the body of the Savior, or by an actual modification, produced by divine action, in the visual organ of the seer. Thus, when treating of Eucharistic a., that is, when “apparet miraculose caro vel puer” in the sacrament, the Angelic Doctor does not hesitate to write that in them “non videtur propria species Christi, sed species miraculosa formata vel in oculis intuentium vel etiam in ipsis sacramentis dimensionibus.” And the reason is evident: “Corpus Christi non potest in propria specie videri nisi in uno loco” (Sum. Theol., 3, 9, 76, a. 8, ad 2).
Similarly to those of the Lord, the apparitions of the Virgin are also explained. However, the fact that in the various apparitions the Madonna appears now in one form and now in another seems to confirm that it is not her true body that is manifesting itself, but only a sensible form that represents II.