What is the meaning of Marian apparitions?

In his book Multiplication des apparitions de la Vierge aujourd’hui (Multiplication of the Apparitions of the Virgin Today - Rialp, 1991), Monsignor René Laurentin asks the question: "The Virgin has the mission to be a Mother for our world. This mission is supposed to intensify in the last days, Grignion de Montfort said. Doesn’t the increase of apparitions respond to an urgent need? We might not be at the end of the world, but we are at least at a serious turning point, on the threshold of the third millennium."

The author says that he personally carried out several investigations to explain this increase. "I took advantage of some invitations, I did some surveys in various places of apparitions to denounce this proliferation as false, but the results were positive much more often than I expected!

The lasting apparitions in Argentina (San Nicolas), Mexico, Rwanda (Kibeho), Syria (Damascus), Italy (Schio), Korea (Naju), etc., were not delusional in character: They produced good fruit. My investigation did reveal a few illusory apparitions or deviations, but the majority did not deserve to be discarded as something worthless, as people are often quick to do."

Aleteia