Anecdotes about the Virgin Mary

"The Tears of Akita: The Virgin Mary Who Cried 101 Times in Japan"

Akita (Japan) (1973-1981)

In a small convent of the Servants of the Eucharist, on the outskirts of Akita, in the Diocese of Niigata, lived Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa, a deaf novice. There, a simple wooden statue of the Virgin Mary, inspired by the iconography of Our Lady of All Nations, is preserved. Over several years, events unfolded around it that moved believers and non-believers alike.

On June 12, 1973, Sister Agnes saw rays of light emanating from the tabernacle. On June 28, a painful, bleeding, cross-shaped wound appeared on the palm of her left hand. On July 6, she heard a voice coming from the statue, the first of three messages she would receive that year; that same day, the image began to bleed from its right hand, and from the end of September, it began to "sweat" and exhale a floral fragrance.

What is most moving for many is that Sister Agnes, who suffered from deafness, was cured without medical explanation. And that the tears and the perfume were not only perceived by Catholics: more than five hundred witnesses saw them, including non-Christians and the local Buddhist mayor. On April 22, 1984, the Bishop of Niigata, Monsignor John Shojiro Ito, declared the supernatural origin of the events and authorized the veneration of Our Lady of Akita in his diocese.

It is important to clarify the scope of the approval. There is diocesan approval, at the local level, from the Bishop of Niigata. Several Catholic sources mention a favorable judgment from then-Cardinal Ratzinger in 1988 and describe Akita as a "continuation of Fatima," but other sources, citing the nuncio in Japan, state that the Holy See never gave official approval of the events or the messages. Therefore, there is no record of explicit approval from Rome. The most apocalyptic interpretations of the messages belong to popular devotion, not to a magisterial document.