In Akita, Japan, in the 20th century, a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary (a replica of the Virgin who appeared in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, known as The Lady of All Nations) has shed tears on 101 different occasions.
Sister Agnes Sasagawa, a Japanese nun and member of the Community of the Handmaids of the Eucharist in Akita, was favored in 1956 with visions of her guardian angel and the Mother of God. Mary gave her messages of extreme seriousness. At the sight of people so estranged from God, our Heavenly Mother expressed her sadness by shedding real tears.
In 1984, just before retiring at a venerable age, the diocesan Bishop of Niigata, Mgr. John Shojiro Ito, in consultation with the Holy See, wrote a pastoral letter in which he recognized the supernatural character of the series of mysterious events that took place from 1973 to 1981 in a convent of his diocese, in Akita.
Cardinal Ratzinger, now Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, approved the apparitions of Akita events as being “reliable and trustworthy” in June 1988. |