Our Lady of Akita is the Catholic title of the Blessed Virgin Mary associated with a wooden image venerated by Japanese believers who consider it miraculous.
The image is known due to Marian apparitions reported in 1973 by Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa in the remote area of Yuzawadai, a periphery of Akita , Japan . The messages emphasize prayer (especially the recitation of the Holy Rosary) and penance in combination with cryptic visions prophesying priestly persecution and heresy within the Catholic Church . The Catholic Church commemorates her feast day on June 12.
The apparitions were unusual in that the statue of the weeping Virgin Mary was broadcast on Japanese national television and gained notice with the sudden healing of Sasagawa’s hearing impairment after the apparitions. 1 The image also became affiliated with the Lady of All Nations movement , with which the message shares some similarities.
The local ordinary of the convent, John Shojiro Ito, Bishop of Niigata, 2 authorized “the veneration of the Holy Mother of Akita” within the Diocese of Niigata in a 1984 pastoral letter, “while awaiting” a “definitive judgment on this matter” from the Holy See . In an interview with the 30 Days Monthly in Italy, Cardinal Peter Shirayanagi, Archbishop of Tokyo, said that “the events in Akita should be taken seriously. We believe that they now have great significance for the Church or Japanese society.” 3