Japan: the most unlikely land for a Marian miracle

If one had to choose the least-expected country for a global Marian event, Japan would be among the first candidates. A country with more than 125 million inhabitants, where Catholics account for only 0.4 per cent of the population: about 500,000 people in an archipelago of Buddhist and Shintoist tradition. And yet it was in Akita Prefecture, in the north of Honshu Island, where in 1973 one of the most documented and scientifically studied Marian phenomena of the 20th century occurred.

The story begins with a simple and sick woman: Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa, a religious of the Siervas of the Sacred Heart of the Eucharist, who lived in a small convent of Yuzawadai, just outside Akita. Agnes had been suffering from a disease that had caused him the total deafness for years. Before the facts started, I didn't hear anything.

Sor Agnes Katsuko Accomplishment: la vidente

Agnes was born on 22 May 1931 in the prefecture of Niigata. It was baptized in 1969, at 38, after a late conversion marked by years of spiritual search. In 1971 he entered the congregation of the Servants of the Sacred Heart of the Eucharist, founded in Akita. In March 1973 he lost his hearing in the right ear, being completely deaf (he had already had a very low left ear for years before).

It was in this state of total deafness that the extraordinary facts began. Agnes later described that he felt a presence and heard voices that, curiously, were clear despite his deafness: "I did not hear it with the ears of the body, but with something inside," he explained.

La estatua de madera de katsura

In the convent chapel there was a statue of the Virgin Mary about 90 centimeters high, carved in a single block of wood from the katsura tree (Cercidiphyllum japonicum). The statue, of simple and artisan bill, had nothing special in sight. The artist who carved it was a local catechist. No one would have imagined that this wooden image would become the center of one of the Marian phenomena most scrutinized by science.

The three messages (October 1973)

Agnes received three messages from Our Lady, transmitted through her guardian angel and directly from the Virgin, between June and October 1973.

First message (6 July 1973)

«Mi hija, mi novicia, amas al Señor, amas a Nuestra Señora… ¿Estás enferma? Reza mucho la oración de reparación al Padre celestial. Ora por el Papa, los obispos y los sacerdotes. Desde que me hice monja, he rezado mucho por ustedes. ¿Están ustedes rezando por sus hermanas de congregación?»

Second Message (August 28, 1973)

"My daughter, my novice, have you prayed well to the prayer of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit? Pray a lot for the sins of men. Every day more numerous offenses are made to the Father. I want more souls to offer you the prayer of reparation to placate the Father's anger. Pray to relieve the Father and I will do it with you."

Third message (13 October 1973)

It is the most shocking and the one that has generated the most theological debate. It was received on the anniversary of the last apparition of Fatima (October 13, 1917):

«Como te dije, si los hombres no se arrepienten y no mejoran, el Padre infligirá un terrible castigo a toda la humanidad. Será un castigo mayor que el Diluvio, como nunca se vio antes. Caerá fuego del Cielo y exterminará una gran parte de la humanidad, la buena con la mala, sin exceptuar a los sacerdotes ni a los fieles. Los supervivientes se verán tan desolados que envidiarán a los muertos. Las únicas armas que os quedarán serán el Rosario y la señal dejada por Mi Hijo. Recitad cada día las oraciones del Rosario. Con el Rosario, orad por el Papa, los obispos y los sacerdotes. El trabajo del demonio se infiltrará incluso en la Iglesia, de modo que cardenales se opondrán a cardenales y obispos a obispos. Los sacerdotes que me veneren serán menospreciados y atacados por sus cofrades… Las iglesias y altares serán saqueados; la Iglesia estará llena de quienes acepten compromisos y el demonio presionará a muchos sacerdotes y religiosos consagrados para que abandonen el servicio del Señor. El demonio tendrá una furia especial contra las almas consagradas a Dios. La pérdida de las almas santas entristece mi corazón. Con los pecados de los hombres y su ingratitud, el Padre celestial está dispuesto a infligir un castigo sin precedentes sobre toda la humanidad.»

The phenomena of the statue

Akita's most documented facts directly involve the wooden statue of the chapel. The first was discovered on 12 June 1973: a sore, a bleeding wound appeared on the right palm of the statue. Blood analysis by Dr. Kaoru Sagisaka at the University of Akita determined that it was human blood, type B. The religious and the chaplain of the convent, Father Teiji Yasuda, were direct witnesses.

But the phenomenon that Akita would make a unique case in Marian history was the weeping of the statue. For the first time on January 4, 1975, the statue began to shed tears. This phenomenon was repeated in a total of 101 occasions over the course of six years and nine months, until September 15, 1981, the feast of Our Lady of the Dolores.

• 1973, June Agnes Sasagawa, completely deaf, receives the first mystical experiences. A wound appears in the palm of the statue. The test determines that it is human blood type B.
• 1973, July Our Lady's first message. Agnes also receives a stigma in his own left hand that later disappears.
• 1973, October Third and last message, received on October 13, the anniversary of the miracle of the sun of Fatima.
• 1975, January First time the statue cries. A visiting priest and the religious present are direct witnesses.
• 1975 A Japanese television network films the statue's cry and broadcasts it on the national news. The phenomenon has a public impact.
• 1981, September The last cry of the statue takes place on September 15, the feast of Our Lady of the Dolores. The total statistics: 101 wept.
• 1982, June Agnes Sasagawa fully recovers the hearing in a sudden and inexplicable way, in the presence of Bishop Ito.
• 1984 Bishop John Shojiro Ito approves the apparitions and authorizes the public veneration of Our Lady of Akita in the diocese of Niigata.
• 1988 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, ratifies the approval of Bishop Ito.

Scientific analysis of tears

One of the aspects that make Akita a unique case is the rigor with which the phenomena were analyzed. The tears were collected and analyzed by Dr. Kaoru Sagisaka, a forensic at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Akita, a secular public institution with no link to the Church. His conclusions were unequivocal:

The tears were of human nature, with composition identical to the real human tears. The wooden statue, hollow inside, contained no mechanism or cavity that could accommodate liquid. The katsura wood is porous, but the analysis of the internal structure ruled out any natural filtration. Dr. Sagisaka stated that he had no scientific explanation for the phenomenon.

Bishop Ito's approval and Ratzinger's ratification

Bishop John Shojiro Ito, ordinary of the diocese of Niigata - which included Akita - was a personal witness to several of the phenomena. He set up a commission of inquiry that he worked for years. On April 22, 1984, after more than a decade of study, he issued his pastoral letter recognizing the "supernatural character of a series of mysterious events" related to the statue and authorizing public veneration.

Four years later, in 1988, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, responded positively to a consultation of Bishop Ito. In his response, Ratzinger noted that Akita's phenomena could be treated with the same criterion as Fatima's and that the content of the messages was credible. This ratification by the Church's highest doctrinal guardian gave Akita exceptional theological relevance.

The healing of Agnes: the deafness that was healed twice

The life of Agnes Sasagawa is marked by two supernatural cures related to his deafness. The first occurred on October 13, 1974, when he suddenly recovered the hearing. But in 1975 she was completely deaf again. The second and final healing took place on 30 June 1982. Bishop Ito, visiting the convent, was present when Agnes suddenly heard the sound of the bells in the chapel. The doctors who treated her found no explanation for the recovery.

Agnes Sasagawa lived to an advanced age, dying in August 2024, the Feast of the Assumption, at the age of 93. Until the end of his life he maintained an existence of prayer and imprisonment, without seeking publicity. His death in the most important Marian holiday of the year was considered by many as a sign.

Number 101: a symbol that Our Lady explained

The Virgin explained to Agnes the meaning of number 101. In the symbolic numerical system that he communicated, the 1 represents God, unique and perfect. The 0 in the center represents the nothing, the void, the state of man without God. The final 1 represents Mary, the perfect creature that reflects the perfection of God. Thus, number 101 would be an expression of Marian mediation: between God and the empty man, Mary.

This explanation, transmitted by Agnes and collected by Father Yasuda in his book on Akita, has been the subject of theological meditation. Whatever the extent of its meaning, the fact that the weeping of the statue stopped exactly 101 times - not one more, not one less - was one of the elements that Bishop Ito considered in his discernment process.

Akita in the context of the Church in Japan

Our Lady's choice of Japan is, for believers, a sign of the universality of her maternal love. Japan is not an incognite terra for Catholicism: the first Jesuit missionaries, led by Saint Francis Javier, arrived in 1549. The centuries of persecution that followed forged a small but proven Church. The "kakure kirishitan" - the hidden Christians who kept the faith for 250 years of persecution, without priests, transmitting the prayers from generation to generation - are one of the most extraordinary testimonies in Christian history.

In this context of a faithful and suffering minority, Akita resounds in a special way. The Virgin did not appear in the cathedral of Tokyo or in a crowd. He did so before a deaf religious, in a small, poor convent, in a city of provinces. As in Kibeho, as in Lourdes, as in Fatima: the poor and the little first.

The shrine of Akita today

The chapel of the Yuzawadai convent became a pilgrimage place that attracts thousands of faithful from Japan, Korea, the Philippines, the United States and other countries every year. The original statue he cried is still in the same place. The religious continue their life of contemplation there. The worship of Our Lady of Akita has been especially widespread in Asia, where the Marian presence of Akita has contributed to the growth of the Catholic faith in countries such as South Korea and the Philippines.

«Como te he dicho, si los hombres no se arrepienten y no mejoran, el Padre infligirá un terrible castigo… Las únicas armas que os quedarán serán el Rosario y la señal dejada por Mi Hijo.»
- Third message from Our Lady of Akita, October 13, 1973