Akita, Japan (1973-81)

Summary

Sister Agnes Sasagawa of the Handmaids of the Eucharist received 101 messages emanating from a bleeding wooden statue.

Timeline

1930	Agnes Sasagawa is born.
May 12, 1973	Agnes enters the convent of the Institute of the Handmaids of the Eucharist in Akita, Japan.
June 12, 1973	Sr. Agnes encounters on several occasions a bright light emanating from the tabernacle in the chapel and "spiritual beings" worshipping the Eucharist. She reports these experiences to Bishop John Ito.
June 1973	Sr. Agnes begins to experience the stigmata. On Thursdays she feels initial pain and on Fridays and Saturdays finds a cross of blood on her left hand.
July 6, 1973	Sr. Agnes encounters her guardian angel and subsequently a three-foot high wooden statue of the Virgin ablaze with light. The statue spoke to Agnes and asked her to pray for the reparation of the sins of humanity and to follow her superior. After the apparition, Agnes and the other nuns discover a bleeding wound in the hand of the statue.
July 26, 1973	The angel appears again and promises that the pain in her wound would subside.
Aug 3, 1973	The statue speaks again and warns of a great chastisement.
Sep 29, 1973	The statue stops bleeding but tears start flowing down its cheeks.
Oct 13, 1973	Sr. Agnes receives her last message from the Virgin. She was told that the Father would inflict a terrible punishment on humanity, that fire would fall from the sky and wipe out part of the population, and that the devil would infiltrate the Church.
May 1974	The angel tells Agnes that her hearing will be temporarily restored and then permanently cured later.
Oct 13, 1974	Agnes temporarily regains her hearing.
Jan 1975	The tears, sweat and blood from the statue were sent for laboratory analysis.
Dec 1975	The angel appears again.
Sep 15, 1981	The statue weeps for the 101-st and last time
Sep 28, 1981	Her guardian angel shows her a vision of the Bible and asks her to read Genesis 3:15: "I will place enmity between thee (Satan) and the woman (Mary), between thy seed and hers. She will crush thy head and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel."
Aug 4, 1981	Theresa Chun is cured of a brain tumor after praying to our Lady of Akita.
May 30, 1982	Agnes' hearing is restored permanently in accord with the promise of the angel.

June 1988	In 1988, Bishop Ito brought his letter to Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger -- now Pope Benedict XVI -- who allowed the pastoral letter and its dissemination to the faithful.

Photo Gallery

Description of the Virgin

In the events of Akita, there was no "apparition" of the Virgin. Agnes reported the apperance of her guardian angel but the messages attributed to Mary were said to emanate from a bleeding 3-foot high wooden statue. The wooden statue in the convent at Akita was carved by a Buddhist woodcarver from an identical image of The Lady of All Nations.

Messages

The Virgin delivered messages 3 times in 1973 (July 6, August 3, and October 13). Her guardian angel appeared an additional 4 times.

"As for the content of the messages received, it is no way contrary to Catholic doctrine or to good morals. When one thinks of the actual state of the world, the warning seems to correspond to it in many points. The Congregation of the Doctrine for the Faith has given me directives in this sense that only the bishop of the diocese in question has the power to recognize an event of this kind."

Bishop John Shojiro Ito, the Diocesan Bishop of Niigata

Miracles, Cures, and Signs

The statue wept 101 times. Her guardian angel explained it with the following: "There is a meaning to the figure 101 (the number of times the statue wept). This signifies that sin came into the world by a woman and it is also by a woman that salvation came into the world. The zero between the two signifies the Eternal God who is from all eternity until eternity. The first one represents Eve, and the last, the Virgin Mary."

The actual weeping of the statue was not only witnessed by the local bishop but was shown on national Japanese TV.

Theresa Chun, a Korean woman diagnosed with a brain tumor, placed an image of Our Lady of Akita under her pillow and prayed to her for a miraculous healing. On August 4, 1981, the tumor was found to have disappeared. This healing was well documented by Fr. Joseph Oh of Seoul, S. Korea.

In May 1982, her angel told Agnes that her hearing would be permanently restored that month, and on May 30 the deafness was cured. (Tests performed on Agnes at the Akita Muncipal Hospital in 1975 had confirmed that she was deaf and that her deafness was incurable.)

Approval

The first tests on the samples of blood, tears, and sweat from the statue were performed by Professor Eiji Okuhara, a Catholic physician in the Akita University Department of Biochemistry and a former Rockefeller Foundation fellow. Professor Okuhara, who had witnessed the weeping statue himself, also passed the samples on to a non-Christian forensic specialist, Dr. Kaoru Sagisaka. The scientists confirmed that the samples were of human origin- the blood was found to be type B and the sweat and tears were type AB.

Initially the nun's claims were rejected by an archbishop, then accepted by the bishop of her actual diocese, Most Reverend John Shojiro Ito of Niigata, who on April 22, 1984, after years of extensive investigation, declared the tears to be of supernatural origin and authorized veneration of the Holy Mother of Akita.

"After the inquiries conducted up to the present day, one cannot deny the supernatural character of a series of unexplainable events relative to the statue of the Virgin honored at Akita (Diocese of Niigata). Consequently I authorize that all of the diocese entrusted to me venerate the Holy Mother of Akita."

Bishop John Shoojiroo Ito of Niigata (April 22, 1984)

Bishop Ito was apprehensive over the reaction of the Vatican to his pastoral letter, but when he brought his letter to Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger -- now Pope Benedict XVI -- in 1988, the cardinal, who was initially disinclined toward the revelation, allowed the pastoral letter and its dissemination to the faithful.

Shrines

Our Lady of Akita Shrine
"Redemptoris Mater"
The Chapel of Seitai Hoshikai
Handmaids of the Holy Eucharist
Soegawa Yuzawadai 1
Akita 010-0822 JAPAN
Phone: 018-868-2139
FAX: 018-868-4728

Prayers

Eucharistic Prayer of Akita

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, truly present in the Holy Eucharist,
I consecrate my body and soul to be entirely one with Your Heart,
being sacrificed at every instant on all the altars of the world and giving praise to the Father,
pleading for the coming of His Kingdom.

Please receive this humble offering of myself.
Use me as you will for the glory of the Father and the
salvation of souls.

Most Holy Mother of God, never let me be separated from Your Divine Son.
Please defend and protect me as Your special child.
Amen.