Among the most widely circulated devotional testimonies of recent decades is "The Holy Mass," attributed to the Bolivian laywoman Catalina Rivas, who claims to have been shown the unseen spiritual reality unfolding at every Eucharistic celebration. Her account has moved many readers to a deeper reverence for the liturgy. Yet her story is also marked by serious controversy, including credible allegations of plagiarism, making it a striking case study in why the Church urges careful discernment of private revelation.
Who Is Catalina Rivas?
Catalina Rivas is a married laywoman from Cochabamba, Bolivia, who reports a profound conversion in October 1993 at the age of forty-seven. Shortly afterward, she says, she began to receive interior locutions attributed to Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary, messages she describes as dictated to her as Christ's "secretary."
She also reports bearing the stigmata — the wounds of Christ — which she says appeared after a 1994 pilgrimage and recur weekly. Her writings were gathered into several books, and her case drew international attention through a 1999 television documentary that examined her claims and the reported phenomena around her.
"The Holy Mass": The Account
The most famous of her works recounts a Mass during which, she says, the Virgin Mary asked her to attend with complete attention so that she might later describe what she saw. According to her testimony, the invisible spiritual realities of the liturgy became visible to her, accompanied by interior explanations from Our Lady.
She describes the offertory, in which she claims to have seen each person's guardian angel rise and process toward the altar, carrying the offerings and petitions of the faithful — some angels bearing rich gifts, others empty-handed, depending on the interior participation of the people. At the consecration she reports seeing the priest fill with light as Christ Himself enveloped his hands, the Host enlarging to reveal the face of Jesus, and the entire assembly mystically drawn to the foot of Calvary.
The Spiritual Message
Whatever one concludes about its origin, the devotional content of "The Holy Mass" reiterates authentic Catholic teaching about the Eucharist. It stresses that the Mass is not a mere commemoration but the re-presentation of Christ's one sacrifice, that it possesses infinite value, and that the faithful are invited to offer themselves — their joys, sorrows, and petitions — in union with that offering.
The account's pastoral thrust is a call to attentive, reverent participation: to arrive on time, to engage every part of the liturgy, and to receive Holy Communion worthily and consciously. In this respect it functions less as new doctrine than as a vivid meditation dramatizing truths the Church already teaches about the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Visions of the Passion
Beyond the Mass, Rivas reports visions and locutions concerning the Passion of Christ, in keeping with her claimed stigmatic experience of suffering with the Lord. These accounts emphasize the cost of redemption and the call to console Christ through reparation and offering.
Such Passion-centered mysticism has a long and venerable history in the Catholic tradition, from medieval visionaries to modern stigmatists. Yet precisely because the territory is so well-trodden, it also demands caution: resemblance to authentic mystical literature is not, by itself, evidence of supernatural origin, and the Church evaluates each case on its own merits.
The Mixed Ecclesiastical Reception
Rivas's writings received an imprimatur from the Archbishop of Cochabamba on April 2, 1998, authorizing their printing. It is crucial to understand what this does and does not mean: an imprimatur certifies only that a text contains nothing contrary to faith and morals. It is not a declaration that the alleged visions are authentic or supernatural in origin.
The reception soured considerably amid serious allegations of plagiarism. Critics documented that passages presented as dictated by Jesus closely paralleled — at points reportedly word-for-word — published works that predated her claimed revelations. Additional doctrinal concerns have been raised about certain expressions attributed to Christ in her texts. These objections have not been universally resolved, and her case carries no approval beyond the local imprimatur on specific writings.
A Note on Discernment
The Catholic Church holds that no private revelation can add to the public revelation given in Christ and the Apostles, and that the faithful are never obliged to believe any alleged vision or locution. An imprimatur attests only that a text is free of doctrinal error; it does not vouch for the genuineness of mystical claims. Under the 2024 Vatican norms governing such phenomena, even formal approvals stop short of declaring an event supernatural. In Rivas's case — given the unresolved plagiarism allegations and doctrinal questions — prudence is warranted. A reader may draw genuine spiritual fruit from the reverence for the Eucharist her account inspires, while withholding firm assent from the visions themselves and deferring always to the judgment of the Church.
Sources & Further Reading
- Hozana — Catalina Rivas
- Vatican.va — 2024 Norms for Discerning Alleged Supernatural Phenomena
- Catholic commentary on the reception and discernment of her writings
