Famous Visionary of Akita Goes to Heaven
The Japanese nun was the recipient of messages from the Virgin and other supernatural phenomena. Sister Agnese Sasagawa, the visionary of Akita, the only Marian visionary attested in Japan, died on the day of the Assumption of Mary, at the age of 93.
Born into a Buddhist family and later converted to Catholicism, Sister Agnese was a novice of the Servants of the Eucharist in 1973 when the first supernatural events manifested themselves to her, a prelude to the three apparitions of the Virgin Mary that occurred between July and October of the same year and were followed by further phenomena (including the tears of a statue already present on site), as well as the healing of Sister Agnese herself, who was deaf. In the Japanese Mariaphany, the extraordinary continuity is surprising – also highlighted by Cardinal Ratzinger with the message of Fatima.
Article by Ermes Dovico – La Nuova Bussola 2 June 2019
In 1973, Our Lady appeared in Japan to Agnes Sasagawa, a novice of the Servants of the Eucharist, communicating to her the need for humanity to do penance. “The only weapons that remain to you are the Rosary and the Sign left by My Son,” said the Heavenly Mother in the apparitions of Akita (recognized by the bishop), leaving a severe warning for the unrepentant and at the same time a firm hope for those who convert, in perfect continuity with the message of 1917 to the three shepherd children.
The message it conveys, with the urgent call to conversion and penance, is entirely similar to that of Fatima. And together with the facts it accompanies, it shows the intimate connection with several other Marian apparitions of our time, already recognized by the Church or not yet, from Civitavecchia to Medjugorje. We are talking about the apparitions of Our Lady of Akita, which is the title with which the Church venerates the Virgin following the visions had between July and October 1973 by the Japanese Agnese Katsuko Sasagawa, then a forty-two-year-old novice in the order of the Servants of the Eucharist.
The prelude to the mariophany of Akita , the scene of supernatural events, had been on June 12 of the same year, when Agnes had seen rays of light coming from the Tabernacle of the chapel of her convent. The phenomenon had repeated itself on the following two days and then again, with an even more intense light, on June 24, the date on which Corpus Domini fell that year. On June 28, Agnes received a cross-shaped wound in the palm of her left hand, from which much blood flowed, and the following day, the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, she saw angels around the altar in the act of singing the Sanctus .
Another week later, the first Marian manifestation in Akita took place . On July 6, 1973, good Agnes, who suffered from deafness, saw a woman appear at about three in the morning: “Do not be afraid, I am the one who is with you and guards you. Follow me.” The novice thought it was her sister who had died some time before, adorned with the grace of Baptism. In reality, that creature, who had appeared to her in female form, was her guardian angel, who would manifest himself to her for six consecutive years and who on that first occasion said to her again: “Do not be afraid, but pray for your sins and not only that, also in reparation for all men. The present world wounds the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus with its ingratitude and its insults. The wound in the hand of the Most Holy Virgin Mary is much deeper than yours.”
Before disappearing, the angel led her to the chapel , where Agnes, after having stopped to adore the Blessed Sacrament, approached the wooden statue of the Madonna, from which she suddenly heard a beautiful, celestial voice. Which among other things said to her: “My daughter, my novice, you have been very consistent in the faith you have shown. The diseased ear is something very painful for you, but it will be healed. Be patient. Sacrifice yourself and atone for the sins of the world. You are an indispensable daughter to me. Make the resolutions of the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament your own, pray for the Pope, the bishops and the Church”. That same day, some nuns saw blood flowing from the right hand of the statue of the Virgin, flowing from a cross-shaped wound, equal to but deeper than that of Agnes.
A significant fact is that the prodigious wooden simulacrum of Japan was created based on the image of the Lady of All Nations , that is, the effigy of the Virgin who appeared in Amsterdam to the humble visionary Ida Peerdeman (1905-1996): in those apparitions, officially recognized by the local bishop on May 31, 2002, the Blessed Virgin Mary had asked humanity to return to the Cross and to be honored with the title of “Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix and Advocate”, asking for the proclamation of a specific dogma in this regard and prophesying that it will be a much-debated one, “the last and greatest”, following which the Church and the entire world will receive extraordinary graces from Heaven (a new, very powerful, outpouring of the Holy Spirit) and a long period of peace.
Among the many messages received by the Dutch visionary , one in particular, dated February 14, 1950, concerned the distant land of Japan: “Japan will convert”.
Returning to Akita , on August 3rd the second apparition took place, in which Our Lady announced that “the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great punishment on all humanity. With my Son I have intervened many times to appease the Father’s wrath. I have prevented the arrival of calamities by offering Him the sufferings of the Son on the Cross, His precious blood and the beloved souls who console Him by forming a host of victim souls”.
On October 13 (56 years after the miracle of the sun at Fatima) the third and final apparition occurred , in which the Blessed Virgin gave terrible details about the punishment that would befall humanity, making it clear, however, that it depends on the freedom of men, who, with their conversion, can avoid it. “[…] As I told you, if men do not repent and do not improve themselves, 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 will wipe out a large part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, without sparing either priests or faithful. The survivors will be so afflicted that they will envy the dead. The only weapons that remain to you are the Rosary and the Sign left by My Son. Recite the prayer of the Rosary every day. With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and the priests.”
As in the messages to the three shepherds, the Virgin therefore insists on the recitation of the Rosary as a decisive weapon to win one’s spiritual battle and cooperate in the plan of salvation. The message of October 13 continued by dwelling on the battle between Good and Evil within the Church as well as on the eternal damnation of those who die unrepentant. “The work of the devil will also insinuate itself into the Church in such a way that we will see cardinals opposing other cardinals, and bishops against bishops. The priests who venerate me will be despised and hindered by their brothers […], churches and altars plundered. The Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the devil will push many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord. The devil will be implacable especially against souls consecrated to God. The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness. If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no forgiveness for them […]. Pray the prayer of the Rosary a lot. Only I can still save you from the calamities that are approaching. Those who trust in me will be saved.”
The heavenly signs continued . On October 13, 1974, a year after the third and final message of the Virgin, Sister Agnese was suddenly cured of her deafness, benefiting from the miracle for six months: the promise of the Madonna, with the definitive recovery of hearing, will be fulfilled in May 1982, on Pentecost Sunday. The Japanese nun also reported that, from January 4, 1975 to September 15, 1981, she witnessed 101 tears from the wooden statue of Mary, which was also the protagonist of perfumed exudations. Hundreds of people witnessed these phenomena, similar to what would happen in the 1990s in Civitavecchia, and even a Japanese television crew was able to film the statue while it was crying. The analyses conducted by the Department of Biochemistry of the University of Akita and – through Dr. Kaoru Sagisaka, a non-Christian – by the Faculty of Forensic Medicine confirmed that the blood and tears were indeed of human nature.
In April 1984, the bishop of Niigata, John Shojiro Ito, officially recognized the apparitions as credible : “After the investigations conducted up to the present day, the supernatural character of a series of inexplicable events at the statue of the Virgin honored in Akita cannot be denied. Consequently, I authorize that throughout the diocese entrusted to me the veneration of the Holy Mother of Akita be made.” Without issuing an official document, in 1988, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, also called the events in Akita credible. And ten years later, Howard Q. Dee, former Philippine ambassador to the Holy See, publicly stated that Ratzinger had told him that the message of Akita is “essentially the same” as that of Fatima.
Even in Akita , alongside the warning to those who refuse God’s Mercy until their last earthly breath, the Virgin, like a mother who continually tries to lead her children to eternal bliss, reveals all the power of her intercession with the Holy Trinity and, in the midst of a darkness that seems inescapable, leaves words of hope, in which one seems to hear the echo of the promise given to Lucia, Giacinta and Francisco: “In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph”.
