Revelations of St Bridget on the Life and Passion of Our Lord

The Catholic faith rests upon the revelations made by God to the Apostles and to the Prophets, who have written by inspiration the Holy Scriptures, and who have transmitted to us the dogfoas which constitute ecclesiastical tradition. This is the opinion of St. Thomas Aquinas. All theologians agree with him in this, especially Benedict XIV. “ Our faith,” writes the angelic doctor, “ is founded on the revelation made to the apostles and prophets, who have written the canonical books, not on any revelation (if such exist) which may have been made to other teachers.” The Catholic faith has passed through eighteen hundred years, without receiving any substantial increase. St. Thomas proposes the following question in the second part of his Swnma Theologica: “Whether the articles of faith have increased in accordance with the succession of years.” He answers it in the following words: “We must say that in so much as the substance of articles of faith is concerned, no addition has been made to it; for whatever is believed in those latter years was contained in the faith of the fathers who

preceded us, though it was so in an implicit manner. So far as explicit belief is concerned, the number of the articles have increased, as certain matters are known at the present day explicitly, which were not so in former times.” The Church has always had belonging to it persons who, endowed with the spirit of prophecy, had received divine revelations, not, however, that they should establish a new faith. St Thomas maintains this also when he teaches us, that “ although there have been at different times in the Church those who were endowed with the spirit of prophecy, they obtained this gift, not to teach a new article of faith, but to direct me’n in the path of holiness.”

Benedict XIV. follows those principles in his work on the u Canonization of Saints.” He states that our faith rests, not on the revelation of private persons, but on the public teaching of the prophets and the apostles, and that the succession of ages has not added to the substance of faith.

The only revelation made to the Church is that of the apostles and prophets, which is founded in the divine traditions which the Church preserves and teaches infallibly. No private revelation can ever come from God, if it be opposed to the Holy Scriptures, to divine and apostolic traditions, and to the public definitions of…