Marian Apparitions

Pope Benedict XVI: “Mary Suffers With Those Who Are in Affliction”

Our Lady’s Two Popes Embracing

On February 11, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI offered the following reflection on the profound interconnectedness of Mary, the Immaculate Conception, the Holy Eucharist and salvific suffering. Continuing in the tradition of his predecessor, Blessed Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI underscores the totality of Mary’s “fiat,” or “yes,” to the divine will of the Father concerning her unique participation in the redemption of humanity with her Son, beginning at the annunciation and brought to completion at the foot of the cross. It is precisely for this reason that Holy Mother Church ascribes to Mary the exalted title of “Co-Redemptrix,” standing, as it were, at the foot of each sick child’s cross.

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

1. On 11 February, the memorial of the Blessed Mary Virgin of Lourdes, the World Day of the Sick will be celebrated, a propitious occasion to reflect on the meaning of pain and the Christian duty to take responsibility for it in whatever situation it arises. This year this significant day is connected to two important events for the life of the Church, as one already understands from the theme chosen ‘The Eucharist, Lourdes and Pastoral Care for the Sick’: the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the apparitions of the Immaculate Mary at Lourdes, and the celebration of the International Eucharistic Congress at Quebec in Canada. In this way, a remarkable opportunity to consider the close connection that exists between the Mystery of the Eucharist, the role of Mary in the project of salvation, and the reality of human pain and suffering, is offered to us. (more…)

Our Lady of Borg in-Nadur (Under Investigation)

Although I usually restrict myself to the posting of already approved private revelations, this one of Our Lady of Borg in-Nadur, Malta, currently under official Church investigation, is a marvelous message that ties in beautifully with the devotion of the life-offering. Mary, in this message, speaks of choosing certain souls who will suffer for the sins of mankind. The first two paragraphs have been reproduced below, and should you desire to read the message in its entirety, which I whole-heartedly encourage you to do, you may click on the link below.

“Fr Hayden, I am looking for people who will console me – for the conversion of the world, who would offer suffering for the conversion of sinners. I am selecting these persons that they may atone for all the wrongs of the world. I am holding back the wrath of the Eternal Father and presenting the blood from the Cross of my Son Jesus Christ to lessen, in God the Father, to lessen his wrath for the world. Do not let this wrath increase for your country too.”

“These chosen persons are making a total offering – sacrifice and suffering. Indeed, Fr Hayden, it is necessary that all of you fast, make penance and sacrifices for the Eternal Father’s wrath to subside. Yes, he is very angry at the world and at those who lead it and at your country. At present I am easing his anger in this way – by offering the blood that my Son Jesus shed for you on the Cross.”

To read the remainder of this message, please click here.

The Apparitions and Messages of Kibeho, Rwanda

By Roy Abraham Varghese. Roy Varghese is a prolific author in the areas of religion, science and Mariology.

The Marian apparitions of Kibeho in Rwanda, perhaps the poorest country in Africa (one known also as the “Switzerland of Africa” for its many mountains), were witnessed by seven principal visionaries. The apparitions share many common features with the great apocalyptic visions of the past. As in the nineteenth-century French apparitions and at Fatima and Akita, the Virgin announced impending bloodshed on a horrific scale. Moreover, as in Medjugorje, the apparitions themselves took place in the very region that would shortly become synonymous around the world with genocide and systematic butchery. The warnings issued at Rwanda were not only prophetic but unmistakably accurate and, because they were not heeded, the fate of the nation seemed sealed; the Virgin finally even urged the visionaries to flee their homeland before the onset of the wars ahead.

The apparitions began on November 28, 1981, when Alphonsine Mumureke, a sixteen-year-old student in a Catholic convent, heard a voice calling out “my daughter” to her as she was helping in the dining room. She left the room and saw a beautiful lady in white in the corridor. When Alphonsine asked her who she was, the lady replied, “I am the Mother of the Word,” speaking in Kinyarwanda, the language of the Rwandans. The Virgin asked her which of the religions she liked, to which Alphonsine replied, “I love God and His Mother who have given us Their Son who has saved us.” The Virgin commended her and said that she wished that some of her friends would have more faith since some did not believe enough. She then asked Alphonsine to join a lay evangelization group called the Legion of Mary and said that she wanted to be loved and trusted as a Mother so that she could lead people to her Son Jesus (the Legion of Mary is one of the largest lay Christian organizations in the world; one of the pioneers of the Legion from Ireland, Edel Quinn, had devoted her life to the work of the Legion in the neighboring country of Kenya). The Virgin then gracefully arose until she was out of sight. As she departed, Alphonsine dropped to the ground and was unconscious for about fifteen minutes.

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The Church-Approved Apparitions and Messages of Our Lady of All Nations in Amsterdam

Reprinted from “Circle of prayer – Marian Apparitions”

Introduction to the Messages

On 31 May 2002 Bishop Jozef Marianus Punt of Haarlem, having concluded a period of investigation, declared the apparitions accorded Ida Peerdeman of Amsterdam, Holland, in which the Blessed Virgin Mary asked to be known as Our Lady of All Nations, to be “of a supernatural origin”.

Decree of 31 May 2002 (Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)

The first apparition of Mary as the Lady of All Nations took place in Amsterdam on March 25, 1945, the Feast of the Annunciation. Her coming was an event that occurred in all silence and simplicity, hidden from the eyes of the world.

In that year the Annunciation coincided with Palm Sunday. World War II was still going on in the Netherlands, and Amsterdam was living through a horrible period in its history.

A woman, Ida Peerdman, and her three sisters were at home, seated around a pot-bellied stove. A priest, a friend of the family, stopped by for a visit. While they were engaged in lively conversation, something extraordinary happened. Ida, the youngest of the four sisters, noticed something in the adjoining room. She got up and saw an immense light appearing, and her surroundings seemed to fade away. From the light she saw a female figure come forth, dressed in white, who began to speak to her.

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Our Lady’s Apparitions in Beauraing

By Michael K. Jones

By 1932, the Fatima prophecy was well underway. Communists were in power in Russia. Mussolini was leader of Italy. Hitler was rising in Germany. The world was in depression. Unemployment, bread lines, hunger and riots were wide spread.

In a French speaking part of Belgium, lay a village called Beauraing. Sixty miles southeast of Brussels, Beauraing was mostly a farming community of about 2000 people.

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The Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Akita, Japan, to Sr. Agnes Sasagawa

Source: http://www.ewtn.com

The extraordinary events began on June 12, 1973, when Sr. Agnes saw brilliant mysterious rays emanate suddenly from the tabernacle. The same thing happened on each of the two days that followed.

On June 28, 1973, a cross-shaped wound appeared on the inside left hand of Sr. Agnes. It bled profusely and caused her much pain. On July 6, Sr. Agnes heard a voice coming from the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the chapel where she was praying. The statue was carved from a single block of wood from a Katsura tree and is three feet tall. On the same day, a few of the sisters noticed drops of blood flowing from the statue’s right hand. On four occasions, this act of blood flow repeated itself. The wound in the statue’s hand remained until September 29, when it disappeared. On September 29, the day the wound on the statue disappeared, the sisters noticed the statue had now begun to “sweat”, especially on the forehead and neck. On August 3, Sr. Agnes received a second message. On October 13, she received a final third message.

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Translation of the Third Secret of Fatima as Released by the Holy See

“The third part of the secret revealed at the Cova da Iria-Fatima, on 13 July 1917.

I write in obedience to you, my God, who command me to do so through his Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and through your Most Holy Mother and mine.

After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!’. And we saw in an immense light that is God: ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it’ a Bishop dressed in White ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father’. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.

Tuy-3-1-1944″

Link Between Third Secret of Fatima and Akita, Japan, Prophesy

by Michael H. Brown

Years ago, when Howard Q. Dee, ambassador from the Philippines to the Vatican, was chatting with a high Church official named Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Dee brought up the third secret of Fatima, which at the time was still just that: a secret. He also mentioned a recent revelation from Japan, wherein a great catastrophe was foreseen. This was Akita, where a deaf nun, Sister Agnes Sasagawa, said she “heard” the voice of Mary speak from a statue that wept both tears and blood. Cardinal Ratzinger (now, of course, Benedict XVI) had allowed the local bishop, John Ito, of Niigata, to issue a pastoral letter approving the Akita phenomena, at least in part.

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The Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin to Sr. Agnes of Akita, Japan

Source: http://www.ewtn.com

The extraordinary events began on June 12, 1973, when Sr. Agnes saw brilliant mysterious rays emanate suddenly from the tabernacle. The same thing happened on each of the two days that followed.

Two years later on January 4, 1975, the statue of the Blessed Virgin began to weep. It continued to weep at intervals for the next 6 years and eight months. It wept on 101 occasions. (more…)