The Sat Report: Fire will fall from Heaven
Our Lady, Akita, and the Church
Editors Note: I had this one in the pocket, and had initially planned to publish if/when the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith was going to issue a ruling on the Apparitions in Akita. However, due to the recent death of Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa, the seer of Akita, at the age of 93, on August 15th, 2024, I thought it would be appropriate to post this today. May Sister Agnes, Rest In Peace.
Set on a steep hill, surrounded by tall trees, the Convent of the Institute of the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, Yuzawadai, lies about 8 km outside of the city of Akita, in north-western Honshu, the largest of the Japanese islands. The Chapel of Seitai Hoshikai, built in the traditional Japanese style of irimoya-juso to illustrate that Our Lord is the saviour of all peoples, including the Japanese, stands on place where the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to Agnes Sasagawa.
The story of Akita is fascinating; a sickly woman who converted to Catholicism through the care of Catholic nurse, cured of her deafness by Our Lady, who warned her of grave perils that will afflict the Church, and a wooden statue that bled and cried.
The Early Life of Sister Agnes and her Conversion to Catholicism
Born Katsuko Sasagawa in 1930 to a Buddhist family, she suffered from various ailments as a result of being born premature. After suffering complications from appendicitis at the age of 16, which resulted in paralysis in the hands and legs, for which she would spend the next 16 years in and out of hospital, her life would change forever.
Towards the end of this time, on one such admission she was cared for by a Catholic nurse, Mrs. Watanabe. This nurse tended not only to her physical needs but to her spiritual needs too. She lent Sasagawa some books, including the “Bells of Nagasaki”, a book by the Servant of God, Dr. Takashi Nagai, a Catholic convert, physician, and a survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, who later died in 1951 from leukemia, as a result of radiation exposure from the bombing. This book incidentally is a particularly good read, both as an historical insight into fallout of the bombing of Nagasaki by an eyewitness, as well as being a useful spiritual treatise on dealing with pain and suffering.
Dr. Nagai conversion story is fascinating, sparked by assisting a Solemn Pontifical Mass at Christmas in 1932, saying that in the Traditional Latin Mass he felt the presence of Christ, poetically stating “I felt somebody close to me whom I did not still know". A future Sat Report will focus on Takashi Nagai, he needs to be more widely known. I am sure Dr. Nagai is a saint and will one day be raised to the Altars.
As a direct result of the bombing, Dr. Nagai suffered a head wound, which resulted in him being bedbound for a month, and on the edge of death. Dr. Nagai, moribound, drank holy water taken from Lourdes that was housed in the Monastery of Honkawachi, which had been found by St. Maximillian Kolbe in 1931 on the outskirts of Nagasaki. After this he heard a voice urge him to ask for the intercession of Kolbe who had been martyred in Auschwitz four years earlier. Nagai did this, and recovered from his head injury.
Sasagawa was told this story of Nagai by Watanabe and was cured of her own paralysis by drinking holy water from Lourdes, from the same monastery. It was here that began a life lasting relationship with the Blessed Virgin Mary. Sasagawa would later remark on the Bells of Nagasaki, “When I read this book, I thought Catholicism was wonderful. I was enthralled. I asked Mrs. Watanabe how I too could become a Catholic. I started to take instruction. Later I became a convert.”
After her baptism and confirmation, Sasagawa was attracted to religious life, wanting a place of prayer in which to live out her deepening dedication to God, but was worried about her health, which continued to be fragile. Her local ordinary, John Shojiro Ito, Bishop of Niigata, encouraged her to join the Institute of Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, which he had founded a few years earlier with the aim of fostering dedicated lives of prayer. Members of the Institute make vows of Obedience, Chastity, Poverty, and follow the example set by Jesus Christ and Mary. They offer their lives in service to God and neighbor.
However, before she arrived, she began to lose her hearing, and by the spring of 1973, now a novice with the Institute, and taking the name Agnes, Sasagawa was totally deaf.
The Supernatural Phenomena at Akita
In 1973, while still a novice, Sister Agnes began experiencing unusual spiritual phenomena. These included seeing brilliant rays emanating from the tabernacle and receiving messages from Mary. “The light so overwhelmed me, I threw myself on the floor", Sister Agnes would remark of the light coming from the Tabernacle. On June 28, 1973, while preparing for religious profession, a painful cross-shaped wound appeared on her hand, which bled profusely.
On the first Friday of July 1973, at 3am in the morning, an angel led Sister Agnes to the Chapel, where she found that a wooden statue of Mary, carved in 1963 by a local sculptor, had developed a similar wound to hers. This statue would later be recognized as Our Lady of Akita.
Approaching the statue, Sister Agnes would later remark, “Bewildered, I prostrated myself on the floor. Then I heard the infinitely beautiful voice of Mary.” Sister Agnes was no longer deaf, and said the first words of Our Lady to her were:
“My dear daughter, my novice, you have obeyed my well in leaving everything to follow me, does your deafness worry you? You will be healed of it. Be certain of this - persevere. This will be your final trial. Pray in reparation for the sins of mankind.”
Our Lady would also give grave warnings over the intervening months. Sister Agnes would later remark, “We were mortified, Almighty God was showing his anger to mankind. If man continues to sin, He will punish the world. To soften His anger Holy Mary was interceding for us, by offering Him the suffering of the Son on the cross, by offering Him the sufferings of well-loved victim souls. By these offerings she seeks to console the heavenly Father. Prayer, penance, poverty, and acts of sacrifice. These courageous acts can soften the Father’s anger.” The final message of Our Lady was received on October 13, 1973.
On the morning of January 4, 1975, tears started to flow from the statue. Unusual things continued to happen to the statue. At times it would be bathed in perspiration and sweet perfume would fill the whole Chapel. Many people would witness this phenomena; Christians, Buddhists, dignitaries and politicians. The tears would occur 101 times, ceasing on September 15th, 1981, the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. Every time the statue wept, the sisters would gather and pray the rosary in front of the statue.
The samples of these tears and sweat were collected and analyzed in the forensic labs of Akita University and Gifu University and found to be comprised of bodily fluid. If this was not remarkable enough, a local television station visited the Convent in December 1978 and filmed the statue of Our Lady crying on one these occasions. This was later broadcast on Japanese television, in what I believe to be one of the most remarkable events in the history of broadcast media.
This coupled with numerous deaf pilgrims being cured after visiting the convent caused the fame of Akita to spread. However, it would take a 1990 English documentary filmed in the convent, that interviewed both Sasagawa and Ito, for the stark, and at times terrifying, messages of Akita to reach a global audience.
The Messages of Our Lady
All the messages of occurred in the year 1973, with the sternest being transmitted on October 13, 1973, the anniversary that the Miracle of the Sun occurred in Fatima, Portugal. The messages speak for themselves, and have broader apocalyptic overtones, with the rosary repeatedly being the most secure method of appeasing the wrath of God.
“As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one will never have seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by My Son.”
The messages that concern the Church have been widely disseminated and debated. The most well-known being “cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops.” All this must also be seen in the context of the time, the massive changes, and the loss of a sense of security of the familiar in the immediate post-Vatican II period. The Pope himself had spoken of the smoke of Satan having entered the Church.
The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres…churches and altars sacked; the Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord.
Our Lady is the Mother of God, and our mother too. She cares deeply for us and our salvation. This is always the enduring message from her most famous apparitions, a deep concern for poor sinners, and the ultimate consequence of sin, and just as with the apparitions of Fatima, the Holy Rosary is weapon of choice to fight against all that stands in the way of salvation.
Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls who will repair by their suffering and their poverty for the sinners and ingrates.
Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary. I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach. Those who place their confidence in me will be saved.
Status of Akita in the Church
I am inclined to believe the apparitions of Akita, primarily due to the miraculous healing of Sister Agnes and the others cured of their deafness. Some purported medical miracles from Akita, however, I have more doubts of their miraculous nature, though that is not to so say people with real illness have not been cured, but rather that some of these cures, from a purely objective point of view, can be put down to the medical treatment received. Again, that is not to say prayer does not help, it does, and I am sure that in these cases it provided much needed aid to those suffering. I have always been interested in medical miracles, especially those used for the canonization of saints. (Those of you that have followed me on Twitter for any length of time have seen my comments on some of the most prominent recent ones. I may in some future Sat Report, do a deep dive on one or two of those. If you are interested drop a comment, with the name of a recently canonized saint, and I may even do it before the end of the year.)
The other aspects that of Akita, that makes me believe the veracity of the apparition is the footage of the wooden statue crying as recorded by a television crew, and fact that the tears emanating from the statue had been analyzed by two separate secular laboratories and found by both to be the bodily fluids of a human being.
On the messages, I think we can all make our own minds up. We can see what is happening in the Church, in the world, and the need for prayer and repentance. That message seems more relevant with each passing day. Whether the prophecies of the persecution of priests, the eruption and flouring of heresy within Holy Mother Church, amongst others, have happened, are happening, or will happen, I have no comment. If anything, the prophecies should make our resolve to pray and make sacrifices more urgent.
As to the official status of Akita in the Church, Bishop Ito issued a Pastoral Letter on Easter Sunday, April, 22, 1984, where he stated the following; “I recognize the supernatural character of a series of mysterious events concerning the statue of the Holy Mother Mary which is found in the convent of the Institute of the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist at Yuzawadai, Soegawa, Akita. I do not find in these events any elements which are contrary to Catholic faith and morals,” adding, "Consequently, I authorize, throughout the entire diocese, the veneration of the Holy Mother of Akita, while awaiting that the Holy See publishes definitive judgment on this matter." The letter is well worth being read in full, and can be found here.
Bishop Ito had acted as a spiritual director for Sister Agnes. As mentioned previously it was Bishop Ito who had encouraged Sister Agnes to pursue a vocation with the Institute of the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, and it was he who founded the Institute in his diocese, and it was to him and her Mother Superior that Sister Agnes had confided all that had happened to her. Bishop Ito would later remark, “A bishop has responsibility for his diocese, to carry out investigations into any unusual events. It was a first experience for me. I was not able to judge quickly, so I told Sister Sasagawa that she should not speculate and should remain silent.”
Not all the bishops of the Japan were as convinced. The Archbishop of Tokyo, later Peter Cardinal Shirayanagi, stated in a 1990 interview with the now defunct, yet at one time highly influential in Church circles, Italian periodical 30 Giorni that "the events of Akita are no longer to be taken seriously.”
The Vatican for its part has never made a formal pronouncement on Akita. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the then Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, in a private conversion in June 1988 with a then-retired Bishop Ito, gave verbal approval of Ito’s 1984 letter, whilst at the same time not rendering “judgement about the credibility of the events”. There has been much speculation that the Holy See would finally issue a statement on Akita given the fact that the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith recently issued new norms for proceeding in the discernment of alleged supernatural phenomena, and in light of a flurry of statements from the Vatican’s Doctrinal Office on the alleged apparitions of Madonna of Trevignano, Maria Rosa Mistica of Montichiari, Madonna dello Scoglio of Santa Domenica di Placanica, The Lady of All Nations of Amsterdam, Trinity Mercy of the Shrine of Maccio in Villa Guardia, Elenita in Puerto Rico, Our Lady of Good Health in Vailankanni, India, and just two days ago, on Our Lady of Sorrows of Chandavila in La Codosera, Spain.
Wider Catholic Context
The messages received by Sister Agnes Sasagawa bare striking similarities to those given at Fatima. Both events were preceded and predicted by the apparition of an angel. Both events occurred on October 13, with a strong emphasise on prayer, repentance, and the Holy Rosary. Joseph Pronechen has a nice write up on the connection between Akita and Fatima at the National Catholic Reporter.
The apparitions of Our Lady of Akita, have also been affiliated with the more controversial title of The Lady of All Nations, primarily due to similarities of the wooden statue of Akita to the painting by Heinrich Repke of the disputed apparitions of Our Lady, as described to him by Ida Peerdeman, who claimed to have had visions of Mary from 1945 and 1959 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It is clear in my mind that the sculptor of the statue, Saburo Wakasa, a local from the city of Akita, was inspired by this painting, and that he carved the statue before the Vatican’s officially and publicly declared in 1974, that there was no evidence of the supernatural nature of the apparitions to Ida Peerdeman. The local ordinary had previously stated in 1956 that the alleged apparitions to Peerdeman were not of supernatural nature, but this did not prevent the spread of the movement, which clearly reached Japan.
As far as I can tell this is the only connection between Akita and Peerdeman, which may or may not be the reason behind the silence thus far on Akita from the Vatican.
Conclusion
Sister Agnes, who first encountered the one true faith by being told the story of Lourdes, who herself was healed from deafness through the intercession of Our Lady, to whom the Blessed Virgin appeared and asked to spread the message of praying the rosary, was called to her eternal reward on August 15, 2024, the Solemnity of Our Lady’s Glorious Assumption into Heaven. A blessed day indeed. May we all pray the rosary every day, offer it for the poor souls in purgatory, offering it for poor sinners, for their conversion, and through this most powerful weapon, may we grow in holiness to attain our eternal reward.