St. Louis, Missouri, August 17, 2024 / 07:52 a.m.

Sister Agnes Sasagawa, a Japanese nun whose alleged visions of the Virgin Mary entitled “Our Lady of Akita” contained stark warnings to humanity as well as instructions on praying the rosary and repenting of sins, died on August 15 at the age of 93.

A parish priest in Akita, Japan, confirmed to CNA by phone that Sasagawa died on August 15.

The order to which Sasagawa belonged, the Institute of the Handmaids of the Holy Eucharist, announced that Sasagawa, who had been “under medical treatment for some time,” died on the Feast of the Assumption. She was said to have received a series of messages from Mary and to have witnessed other supernatural phenomena for fifty years.

The local bishop of Niigata, John Shojiro Ito, who founded the Sasagawa order and died in 1993, gave the faithful of his diocese permission to venerate Our Lady of Akita in April 1984. He had previously been investigated for eight years and had previously determined that her messages “contain nothing contrary to Catholic doctrine or morals.”

Katsuko Sasagawa was born into a Buddhist family in 1930 and was baptized after the testimony of a Christian nurse who gave her water from Lourdes to drink. She entered the religious life and took the name Agnes.

Sasagawa’s unusual spiritual experiences began in 1973, when she was still new to the religious community.

On June 12, 1973, Sasagawa saw bright rays emanating from the monastery’s tabernacle. The vision was repeated on the following two days. Then, on June 28, a painful, cross-shaped wound appeared on Sasagawa’s hand, which bled profusely.

On July 6, Sasagawa heard a voice coming from a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary in the monastery, which had been carved from a single block of wood ten years earlier. The voice told her that her hearing problems at the time would be cured (which happened in 1974) and that she should “pray for reparation for the sins of the people.” The voice also taught her a prayer of consecration to the Heart of Jesus.

Soon after, the Virgin Mary statue developed a wound similar to Sasagawa’s, but on the other side. Sasagawa’s wound eventually disappeared.

On August 3, 1973, Mary spoke to Sasagawa again and mentioned an “important” message that Sasagawa should convey to her superior.

“Many people in this world are harassing the Lord. I wish for souls who will console him and appease the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish for souls with my Son who will make amends for sinners and ungrateful people through their suffering and poverty. So that the world will know his anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great punishment on all of humanity,” Maria Sasagawa is said to have said.

“With my Son, I have intervened so many times to appease the Father’s anger. I have prevented disasters from occurring by offering him the Son’s sufferings on the Cross, his precious blood and beloved souls who console him and form a host of sacrificial souls. Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can appease the Father’s anger. This is what I wish for your community too… that it loves poverty, that it sanctifies itself and prays for reparation for the ingratitude and crimes of so many people.”

Then Mary reportedly said to Sasagawa: “Recite the prayer of the Servants of the Eucharist and be aware of its meaning; put it into practice; offer in reparation for your sins (whatever God may send you). Let each one strive to dedicate herself entirely to the Lord according to her ability and position.”

Sasagawa’s second message from Mary came on October 13, 1973, the anniversary of Mary’s apparition at Fatima.

“As I told you, if people do not repent and reform, the Father will punish all of humanity terribly. It will be a punishment greater than the Flood, such as has never been seen before. Fire will fall from heaven and wipe out a large part of humanity, the good and the bad, and neither priests nor believers will be spared. The survivors will feel so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only weapons you have left are the Rosary and the sign left by my Son. Pray the Rosary every day. Pray with the Rosary for the Pope, the bishops and priests,” said Mary.

(The story continues below)

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“The work of the devil will penetrate even into the Church, so that cardinals will be pitted against cardinals and bishops against bishops. The priests who venerate me will be despised and fought against by their confreres… Churches and altars will be plundered; the Church will be full of compromisers, and the demon will urge many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord. The demon will be particularly ruthless towards souls consecrated to God. The thought of the loss of so many souls is the reason for my sadness. As the number and gravity of sins increases, there will be no forgiveness for them.”

In January 1975, almost two years later, the statue of the Virgin Mary began to cry – and did so 101 times over the next seven years. A Japanese television station is said to have captured the crying – known as the “river of tears” – on film.

In a letter dated April 22, 1984, Bishop Ito recognized “the supernatural character of a series of mysterious events related to the statue of the Holy Mother Mary.”

“Consequently, I authorize veneration of the Holy Mother of Akita throughout the diocese while I await the Holy See’s final ruling on the matter,” the bishop wrote.

“And I ask you to remember that even if the Holy See later publishes a positive judgment on the events of Akita, it is only a private divine revelation. Christians are obliged to believe only the content of the public divine revelation (which was completed after the death of the last apostle), which contains everything necessary for salvation. Nevertheless, to this day the Church has placed just as much value on private divine revelations, since they strengthen faith.”

A shrine housing the statue and dedicated to Mary under the title “Redemptorist Mater” (Mother of the Redeemer) was completed in Akita in 2002 and has attracted around 7,000 pilgrims annually since 2017.

The Vatican, which earlier this year issued new rules requiring the Vatican’s supreme magisterium to “always be consulted and give final approval” for alleged Marian apparitions, has not yet officially commented on Our Lady of Akita. In 1988, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, as prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, upheld Ito’s ruling that the apparitions and messages were acceptable to the faithful.

Hannah Brockhaus contributed to this report.