Dreams and visions,God’s neglected gifts

Joseph Lee L'Heureux,

“In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all (flesh) people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions’, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my spirit in those days and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below. . . ” (Acts 2:17-19, Jo: 2:28-29) These are the words St. Peter quoted at Pentecost in his original talk, when the gift of the Holy Spirit (third person of the trinity) was given to the church. Dreams and visions are just two of the manifestations of these gifts that can help us with wisdom, knowledge and counsel; they are given to us through the same spirit. (1 Cor. 12:1-11) Jesus was instructed in a vision, with Moses and Elijah, (Mk. 9:4) and again by an angel in (Lk.22:43) St. Peter was guided and directed by the gift of a vision (Acts 10:9-17) when he was asked to go visit a man named Cornelius. Cornelius also had a vision (Acts 10:1-8) to send for Peter that the gentiles might be brought into church. St. Paul, previously known as Saul, was introduced to Ananias in a vision, (Acts 9:10) otherwise, Ananias would not have gone to him, for Saul was known as a persecutor of the church. St. Joseph was instructed in dreams to accept Mary as his wife, (Matt 1:20) and warned in a dream to escape into Egypt for the infant Jesus’ protection. (Matt 2:13) The Magi were also warned in a dream not to return to Herod the King but to go home on a different route. (Matt 2:12) In the Old Testament many of the prophets had visions of Isaiah (1:1) and (6:1-13) his commissioning. The Prophet Ezekiel (Ezek. Chaps: 1 - 3) was also commissioned and sent out and directed through visions. Once after interpreting a dream for a homeless native suffering from his favorite addiction, he said to me, “You’re no white man.” These visions and dreams are for the church and not restricted to any specific race. While beginning a ministry feeding the homeless, my partner, Carla and I were praying the Lord Jesus would buy us the church we were working in, since it would be for sale soon. Carla’s father had said, “If I win the lotto, I will buy you that church.” This was in December 1996, in February 1997, he passed on. Within 50 days he appeared to her in a dream to say; “Carla, we have won the lotto”. By Nov. 97 we owned the Church. It certainly was not from our own finances—we were both picking bottles for gas, soap and toiletries— The Church’s value, close to a million. At this time, knowing very few of us are pure enough to meet our maker we were praying for her father’s redemption. Three and half years later, I was given a dream in which I was sitting at a banquet table in the heavens, when Carla’s father popped up, feet first at the banquet table. Just like the prophetic dream I’d received five years earlier. In that dream, I ascended into the heavens, feet first, landed sitting on a cloud while a pair of hands served, and then watched for two hours, while others appeared feet first, sitting on the cloud and a pair of hands served them. What a beautiful banquet table! The dream has encouraged me ever since. (Lk. 22:30) In the Book of Revelation, which is all visions and dreams we find in chapter (12:1) “A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her Head.” Is it any surprise that the Virgin Mary has appeared daily in Med- jugorje (Croatia) for the past 26 years warning us and calling us home? She also appeared three times in other periods of crisis, over the last four centuries. At Fatima, Portugal in 1917, Lourdes, France in 1858 and in Mexico in 1530. The last three are accepted and approved phenomenon in the church. The Church is cautious in approving these wonders for so many souls could be at risk. We the faithful are encouraged by Mother Mary to spread the good news. The point is our Lord Jesus Christ would love to have us develop a personal relationship with Him, dreams and visions are only a couple of methods He uses. Through Mary’s apparitions to six youth in Medjugorje, in visions, God is inviting us to prayer and faithfulness that we might acknowledge Him, spend time with Him where He can encourage us in our personal lives. God bless and happy dreams.