Our Lady of Akita: 10 facts you should know

On August 15, 2024, the day of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, Agnes Sasagawa, who claimed to have had visions of the Mother of God under the name of Our Lady of Akita, died. Here we tell you 10 facts you should know about these apparitions.

Katsuko Sasagawa was born in 1930 into a Buddhist family. Years later she was baptized and then entered the Institute of the Handmaids of the Holy Eucharist taking the name Agnes. Her spiritual experiences began in 1973, when she had only a short time in the congregation.

1. The beginning of spiritual experiences

On June 12, 1973, the sister saw bright rays coming out of the convent’s tabernacle. The vision was repeated two more days.

2. The bleeding wound

On June 28, a painful cross-shaped wound, bleeding profusely, appeared on Sasagawa’s hand.

3. A voice and a healing

On July 6, the sister heard a voice coming from a wooden image of the Virgin Mary that had been in the convent for a decade. Her voice told him that the problems she had with her ear would be cured, which indeed happened the following year.

The voice also told her that she had to “pray in reparation for the sins of men”; and she taught him one prayer of consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Shortly after, the Marian image developed a wound similar to that of Sasagawa, but on the opposite hand. Sasagawa’s wound eventually disappeared.

4. The first message of Our Lady of Akita

On August 3, 1973, María spoke to her sister again and gave her an “important” message for her superior.

“Many men in this world grieve the Lord. I desire souls that will comfort you to soften the wrath of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, souls that will make reparation with their suffering and poverty for sinners and ungrateful people. So that the world knows his wrath, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great punishment on all humanity,” the Virgin reportedly told Sasagawa.

“Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger. I also wish this from your community… that it loves poverty, that it sanctify itself and pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrage of so many men.”

5. The second message and the link with the Virgin of Fátima

Mary’s next message to Sasagawa came on October 13, 1973, on the anniversary of the miracle of the sun of the Virgin of Fatima.

On October 13, 1917, while thousands of pilgrims were in Fátima (Portugal), this miracle occurred, in which the crowd could see the sun in motion, doing a kind of “dance.”

Our Lady of Akita’s message of October 13, 1973 states: “As I told you, if men do not repent and improve, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the flood, the likes of which has never been seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and eliminate a large part of humanity, both the good and the bad, without exception of priests and faithful. The survivors will be so devastated that they will envy the dead. The only weapons that will remain will be the Rosary and the sign left by my Son. Every day he recites the Rosary prayers. With the Rosary, he prays for the Pope, the bishops and the priests.”

As with the message of the Virgin of Fatima, Our Lady of Akita encourages the prayer of the Rosary and the conversion of all the faithful.

6. Our Lady of Akita’s warning about the devil

In the message of October 13, 1973, the Virgin would have pointed out that “the work of the devil will infiltrate even within the Church in such a way that cardinals will be seen against cardinals, bishops against bishops.”

“Priests who venerate me will be despised and will encounter opposition from their peers… churches and altars looted; The Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the devil will pressure many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord.”

7. The cry of the Virgin

In January 1975, almost two years later, the wooden image of the Virgin Mary began to cry, and continued to do so 101 times over the next seven years.

Apparently, a Japanese television station filmed the crying, known as “tearing.”

8. The approval of the Japanese bishop

The then Bishop of Nigita (Japan), Bishop John Shojiro Ito, who founded the Institute of the Handmaids of the Holy Eucharist, the congregation of Sasagawa and who died in 1993, authorized the faithful of his diocese, on April 22, 1984, to venerate Our Lady of Akita.

After eight years of investigation, the prelate noted that the messages from Our Lady of Akita did not contain “anything contrary to Catholic doctrine or morality.”

In a letter dated April 22, 1984, the bishop recognized “the supernatural character of a series of mysterious events related to the image of the Holy Mother Mary.”

“Consequently, I authorize, throughout the diocese, the veneration of the Holy Mother of Akita, pending the publication of a definitive judgment on this matter by the Holy See.”

9. The sanctuary

In 2002 the Marian shrine was completed in Akita Mother of the Redeemer (Mother of the Redeemer). The wooden image of the Virgin Mary was placed there and, since 2017, the place attracts about 7,000 pilgrims every year.

10. What does the Vatican say about Our Lady of Akita?

The Vatican, which in May of this year published new regulations so that the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith “is always consulted and gives its final approval” on alleged Marian apparitions, has not given a definitive judgment on Our Lady of Akita.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI, allowed in 1988as prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, that the judgment of Mons. John Shojiro Ito be upheld.