Very often, almost every year, I lead pilgrims on a 15-day pilgrimage to Marian and Eucharistic shrines. And when we go to Medjugorje, the inevitable question arises: “Will we be there for the apparition? Will the visionaries be there?”

Obviously, people know that nothing will be visible to them, because only the visionaries see. I personally, of course, believe in apparitions. Those at Medjugorje are approved (or at least the associated spiritual experience has received positive Church approval). Some even cherish the hope of experiencing something extraordinary, like in Lourdes 150 years ago, at the Basilica of Guadalupe almost 500 years ago, in Fatima over 100 years ago, or in other more recent places.

Many dream: “We will see something, the sun will move, this or that will happen.” But I have to tell you something very clear: the Virgin Mary appears to me every day. I am also a seer. [Here the Father usually provokes laughter among the listeners.]

Some people take it as a joke or think, “What was the priest smoking?” But no: a person who fervently prays the rosary, meditating on the mysteries, concentrating—whether sitting, walking, or even in the car when there is no other option—is speaking with Her. The Virgin is appearing to them, even if they don’t see Her with their physical eyes, but with the eyes of faith.

Our Lord appears to me every day in my hands during the Eucharist, but I need faith. If I stopped believing, it would all be just a charade. The same is true for everyone who prays the rosary or goes to adoration: they have an apparition every day.

Let’s not look for special apparitions. God has granted those to very few people throughout history. How many Marian apparitions are truly approved and verified? Often, verification comes later, with the passage of time and the fruits of their labor.

Let’s think about Saint Juan Diego: Did he really see the Virgin of Guadalupe? An entire town was converted because of it, something that neither weapons nor punishments had achieved. Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes: a humble girl who didn’t even know what “Immaculate Conception” meant. She couldn’t have made it up. And today Lourdes is an immense sanctuary, with three superimposed temples, pools of miraculous water, and millions of pilgrims every year, even in the cold, with trains carrying the sick and the daily rosary. Did all that come from a lie or hallucination of a 14-year-old girl? Impossible.

The same is true in Fatima: millions of pilgrims, miracles verified by science, and others that I myself have witnessed (like a tumor that disappeared without medical explanation). Did it originate from three shepherd children aged 7, 9, and 10 who invented it? No.

The Virgin Mary doesn’t appear to the world’s magnates, the owners of Amazon or empires. She appears to the humble: Juan Diego (an indigenous man), Bernadette (a poor woman), the shepherd children of Fatima, the girls of Garabandal, La Salette… From there come great fruits: mass conversions, shrines, devotions that last for centuries.

Even in Garabandal, with videos from the 1960s showing three girls walking backwards, looking at the sky, running without falling… How many times must they have rehearsed it? Girls who spoke of the Immaculate Conception, of problems in the Church, of the Council and things that had not yet happened.

Of course, there are real apparitions. But let’s not seek them for ourselves. Our Lord grants them to whomever He wills, whenever He wills, through saints like Margaret Mary Alacoque or Faustina Kowalska, or directly through the Virgin Mary. And they are not usually to end wars or solve world problems at once, but to ask for prayer, sacrifice, penance, charity, kindness, and conversion.

So, the invitation is clear: all of us who pray the rosary fervently, all of us who go to Eucharistic adoration, rest assured that you are in the presence of an apparition that you cannot see with your eyes, but you can see with your soul.

If we could put on some “glasses of faith” —like those from 3D cinema—, we would see Our Lord and the Blessed Virgin there, looking at us, accompanying us.

Do not stop praying the rosary, the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, and practicing adoration. You are in the real presence of God.

Spread the word. Let’s do all the good we can, and may God always bless them.