By Christian Martini Grimaldi
Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa, a Japanese Catholic nun who claimed to have experienced Marian apparitions, was buried on Aug 17, two days after her death. She was 93.
Father Iino Kotaro of Akita parish in Niigata diocese, where the nun lived, said the funeral was attended by only the members of her religious order, the Institute of the Handmaids of the Holy Eucharist.
Her death marks the end of a remarkable life, which had become synonymous with the reported apparitions of the Virgin Mary, known as Our Lady of Akita. These claims have made her a significant personality among Catholics, not just in Japan but around the world.
Born in 1930 into a Buddhist family in Japan, Sasagawa came to know about Christianity in an unusual manner. A Christian nurse offered her water from Lourdes, a site famed for its claimed miraculous healings.
Sasagawa soon converted to Christianity and was baptized under the Christian name Agnes, which would later become widely recognized in connection with her spiritual visions.
Sister Agnes joined the Handmaids, a religious society founded by Bishop John Shojiro Ito of Niigata. In this community, she began to experience a series of extraordinary events that would define her legacy. These experiences started in 1973, just as she settled into her life as a nun.
On Jun 12, 1973, Agnes claimed to have witnessed a radiant light emanating from the tabernacle at the convent. This vision reportedly repeated itself in the subsequent two days.
Then, on Jun 28, a cross-shaped wound appeared on her left hand, a wound that bled profusely and caused her great pain. This event began a series of mystical occurrences that would captivate the attention of ordinary Catholics and theologians’ attention.
The most significant of these experiences occurred on Jul 6, 1973, when Agnes reportedly heard a voice speaking from a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary located within the convent. This statue, carved from a single block of wood a decade earlier, became the focal point of her visions.
The voice, which she believed to be of Mary, conveyed messages urging the world to pray, repent, and offer sacrifices in reparation for humanity’s sins. The voice also assured Agnes that her hearing, which had been impaired, would be restored, a prophecy that came true in 1974.
In a striking parallel to Agnes’s own experiences, the statue of Mary began to exhibit supernatural phenomena. It developed a wound on its right hand, mirroring the wound on Agnes’s left hand.
On Aug 3, 1973, Agnes received specific messages from Mary that the nun considered urgent. The messages spoke of the need for reparations for mankind’s sins and warned that failing to repent would attract God’s punishment on all on earth.
This message, delivered with an apocalyptic tone, continued to resonate through Agnes’s subsequent visions.
On Oct 13, 1973, exactly 56 years after the famous apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal, Mary delivered another dire warning. Agnes claimed she spoke of a punishment greater than the flood described in the Bible. Agnes warned that it would bring fire from the sky, resulting in widespread devastation. Rosary and true Christian life, she said, were the only weapons for people to save themselves from this fire.
The Church did investigate the events surrounding Our Lady of Akita.
In 1975, Bishop Ito instituted an inquiry commission in consultation with the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. After a year of investigation, the commission concluded it was “not in a position to prove the supernatural events.”
However, in 1984, Ito declared that the events and messages were not contrary to Catholic doctrines. As the local bishop, Ito permitted the veneration of Our Lady of Akita within his diocese.
However, the bishop stressed that these events were considered private revelations, meaning that while they may inspire the Catholics, they are not essential beliefs of the Catholic faith.
One of the most remarkable aspects of the Akita apparitions was the weeping of the statue of Mary. Beginning in January 1975, the statue reportedly wept on 101 occasions over seven years. A Japanese television station even filmed this phenomenon, further fueling interest and devotion to Our Lady of Akita.
A shrine dedicated to Mary under the title “Redemptorist Mater,” was completed in Akita in 2002. Since 2017, it has drawn thousands of pilgrims each year.
Despite the Vatican’s decision to defer an official ruling on the apparitions, some Catholics continue to venerate Our Lady of Akita, finding in her messages a call to more profound prayer and repentance in a world that often seems to have lost its way. – Vatican News
*The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.
