Our Lady of Akita

Our Lady of Akita
The wooden image statue enshrined
Location	Yuzawadai, Akita Prefecture, Japan
Date	1973 - 1979
Witness	Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa
Type	Marian apparition

Our Lady of Akita is the Roman Catholic title of the Blessed Virgin Mary associated with a wooden statue venerated by Japanese faithful who hold it to be miraculous. The image is known due to the Marian apparitions reported in 1973 by Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa in the remote area of Yuzawadai, near the city of Akita in Japan. The messages emphasize prayer (especially recitation of the Holy Rosary) and penance in combination to cryptic visions prophesying sacerdotal persecution and heresy within the Catholic Church.

The Marian apparitions were unusual in that the crying of the statue of the Virgin Mary was broadcast on Japanese national television, and gained further notoriety due to the sudden healing of hearing impairment experienced by Sasagawa after the apparitions. The image also became affiliated with the devotion to Our Lady of All Nations venerated in Amsterdam, from which the image shares close similarities.

The local Ordinary-Bishop of Akita, Bishop John Shojiro-Ito gave formal public assent to the Marian apparitions, as promulgated as authoritative under the canonical norms of Pope Paul VI while the Holy See itself has not issued any decree regarding the apparitions. At present, the local Marian cult for venerating the Blessed Virgin Mary under this title is not suppressed within the Catholic church.

Background

For several decades, Agnes Sasagawa had encountered many health problems as a result of a poorly performed appendix operation and was immobile for over a decade. Her health reportedly improved after drinking water from Lourdes. After going totally deaf, she went to live with the nuns in the remoteness of Yuzawadai in Akita Prefecture.

Apparitions

In 1973, Sasagawa reported apparitions of the Virgin Mary, as well as stigmata and a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary which was said to weep on 101 occasions. The nuns at Yuzawadai also reported stigmata on the statue, as well as on the hands of Sister Agnes; the stigmata on the statue supposedly appeared before the tears started, and disappeared after the tears.

Sister Agnes only reported three messages from the Blessed Virgin during 1973, but the statue itself is reported to have continued weeping thereafter. Sister Agnes reported that she first heard the statue calling her, and then the first message began.

Messages

Sister Agnes reported that in the first message the Virgin Mary asked her to recite with her a prayer of reparation, and in 1973 told her that her deafness will be cured. The other reported messages ask for the praying of the rosary and to pray Acts of Reparation.

Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary. I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach."

The second message is said to have included the following:

"Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls who will repair by their suffering and their poverty for the sinners and ingrates."

The third message warned of possible worldwide calamities if men did not repent and emphasized the need to pray the rosary. It stated that it was the final message to Sister Agnes and ended with the statement: "Those who place their confidence in me will be saved."

Purported cures

During Sunday Mass in 1982, Sister Agnes was totally cured from her deafness. It is said that professional medical examinations were performed initially after Sasagawa lost her hearing, verifying that she was 'incurably deaf', and again after she was healed, verifying that her hearing was 'normal'. Some time later, a Korean woman with a terminal brain tumor was miraculously cured after friends and relatives prayed for the intercession of Our Lady of Akita. She received visions of Mary related to the Akita events during her recovery, the first while comatose. Her disease was diagnosed and the subsequent cure verified by medical professionals in South Korea.

Approval

Rev. John Shojiro Ito, then-Bishop of Niigata and an eyewitness to some of the events at Akita, initially approved the apparition in 1984.

In June 1988, Bishop Ito brought his pastoral letter of April 22, 1984 to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who allowed the pastoral letter and its dissemination to the faithful. On April 1990, the Apostolic Nuncio in Japan, Bishop William Aquin Carew in an interview with the Catholic magazine 30 DAYS, noted of Cardinal Ratzinger that: “His Eminence did not give any judgment on the reliability or credibility of the ‘messages of the Virgin’.”

See also

• Acts of Reparation
• Marian apparition
• History of Roman Catholicism in Japan

References

• Yasuda, Teiji, Akita: The Tears and Message of Mary, 1989, ISBN 1-890137-20-0.
• Robin Ruggles, Apparition Shrines, Paulist Press ISBN 0-8198-4799-2
• John Haffert, 1989 The Meaning of Akita ISBN 978-1-890137-05-2

External links

• Sister Agnes Sasagawa recounts the Akita apparitions on YouTube
• Weeping statue of Akita