The passing of a major seer continues to resonate across the Marian landscape.
This was Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa, the locutionist and stigmatic from Yuzawadai near Akita in Japan who died on the Feast of the Assumption—timing that has caused great attention.
Extraordinary details continue to be heaped onto accounts of her life and alleged mysticism.
One such fact: Sister Sasagawa, who had been deaf, heard the phone ring on October 13, 1986, anniversary of the great sun miracle at Fátima, and picked it up, only to find Bishop John Shojiro Ito of Niigata calling to inform the nuns of his formal approval for a statue associated with her that wept human tears on 101 occasions. Her deafness vanished.
That joined other miraculous healings associated with Akita, including a sixteen-year-long partial paralysis that had vanished when Sister Sasagawa, in her younger years, drank water from Lourdes.
More recently, in 2018, while in a care home, she and fellow religious went to see a priest they frequently visited for spiritual direction, Confession, and the anointing of the sick. At the time, Sister Sasagawa was having great difficulty swallowing due to a growth in her throat.
Reported a fellow priest chronicling the visit in Mission Magazine, “When Sister Agnes’ turn came, the laypeople and Sister Teresa Masuda [a fellow religious sister of Sister Agnes and her close friend and confidant] put their hands on her while the priest placed his hand on sister’s throat. While the priest was praying with his hand on Sister Agnes’ throat, his hand began to shake violently, and soon his whole body trembled. The priest said twice, ‘Go away, evil spirits of disease!’ Then after praying a few minutes more silently, he said to Sister Agnes, ‘You will soon be comfortable because the two evil spirits that were afflicting you are gone now.’
“No sooner had he said this that sister’s throat was loosened and she said, ‘May I have a drink of water?’ Someone standing near her, handed her a glass of water which she gulped down with ease. Sister Teresa informed Sister Agnes’ doctor, who made an appointment with the ear, nose, and throat department at a local hospital and after undergoing many different tests, it was determined that a tumor the size of a one-yen coin (a little larger than our nickel) had disappeared.”
While exudation of tears (“lachrymation”) from a statue associated with the seer is well known, less recognized is that the statue had also emanated streams of blood (from face and palms).
Sister Sasagawa herself had stigmata in both hands (not just one, as widely reported) and one of the “wounds” was a perfect Cross, so painful that it sent the sister to the hospital on multiple occasions.
That stigmata coincided with the bleeding of the statue of Mary in the chapel, according to another website. And at least one of the statue’s palm wounds was identical to Sister Sasagawa’s.
Moreover, on occasion the statue bled simultaneously with the flow of fluid from Sister Agnes’s stigmata.
After that, the statue emanated what resembled human perspiration, but with the aroma of roses.
The statue began to weep human tears from its eyes, streaming down its face, more than a year later.
“Samples of blood, sweat, and tears from the Akita statue were all scientifically tested by people who weren’t told where the samples came from.,” says Learn Religion (an aforementioned website). “The results: all of the fluids were identified as human. The blood was found to be Type B, the sweat Type AB, and the tears Type AB. Investigators came to the conclusion that a supernatural miracle had somehow caused a non-human object — the statue — to exude human bodily fluids because that would be impossible naturally. However, skeptics pointed out, the source of that supernatural power may not have been good – it may have come from the evil side of the spiritual realm. Believers countered that it was Mary herself who was working the miracle in order to strengthen people’s faith in God.”
Various different types of healing for body, mind, and spirit have been reported by people who have visited the Akita statue to pray. For instance, someone who came on pilgrimage from Korea in 1981 experienced healing from terminal brain cancer.
As for the Akita prophecies, which we have posted on a number of occasions through the years, Sister Sasagawa’s spiritual advisor reportedly added that when she passed, the prophecies would begin to materialize. [see one below]
“Like the first Judas, the last Pope will sell Jesus to the enemy,” he said. “Therefore, the era of the antichrist will soon come.”
It is reported that at sister’s request, her body was donated for medical research (which some find strange), and her funeral Mass was celebrated at a monastery with only the members present. It was a regular morning Mass.
Was Agnes Sasagawa still a religious—in her order, Handmaids of the Eucharist—at the end of her life, when she ended up far away, at one point living in an apartment near Tokyo airport? What happpened, that she moved away?
Wrote Father Mills in 2023, “The situation of Sister Agnes seems to beg a lot of questions. Why is Sister Agnes, a living visionary of an important approved Marian apparition with a very powerful and relevant message for our times, being hidden away in an obscure nursing home? She, a consecrated religious, is not living with her religious community where she can receive the sacraments on a daily basis. This is especially odd, since in Japanese culture, they take great pride in respecting and caring for their elders.
“In 2019, there was a controversial message that was attributed to Sister Agnes about the need to put on sackcloth and ashes and to pray the rosary in reparation for the events taking place in the Church and the world at the time. It appears that some in the Church would like us to forget Sister Agnes and the message of Akita. Is this on purpose? Some believe that Sister is being ‘cancelled’ and isolated by those in the Church who are the object of Our Lady’s severe warnings at Akita about the work of the devil infiltrating the Church leading to ‘Cardinal opposing Cardinal and Bishop against Bishop.’
“Some may think that this is just an over-heated imagination, but back in 2015, a gentleman reached out to Church authorities regarding interviewing Sister Agnes for a video he was producing, he was told that he would be wasting his time as Sister was senile. He was not discouraged and pressed on and was surprised that, when he did meet Sister, she was of sound mind and greatly offended that he was told that she was senile.
“Also, when we visited Akita in 2019, the sisters, none of whom were stationed at Akita during the apparitions in 1973 to 1981, behaved in an unusual way for a Marian Shrine. For example, we asked in 2019 if one of the sisters would be willing to tell our group about the events that took place there and they refused. Also, a display case, containing relics of the miraculous weeping (101 times) and bleeding of the statue, is kept covered by a white cloth and without any signage indicating its importance.
“The only reason I discovered it was because I asked a man who was a frequent visitor to the place, ‘What is this?’ and he pulled back the cover and showed me. Do they act this way at Lourdes and Fatima regarding the miraculous events and significance of their places? Another odd fact is that they publish a book about the convent and its history and after 90 pages they get to the ‘Mysterious Happenings’ in which Sister Agnes Sasagawa is referred to only as ‘Sister S’ throughout the narrative. Why the big secret? Her name is publicly known and at Fátima they do not refer to the children as Child ‘F’ or Sister ‘L,’ or at Lourdes as Sister ‘B. Cardinal Ratzinger, when he was the head of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, stated that the message at Akita was the same as Fátima and provided further insight into the Third Secret.”
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Eucharistic Prayer of Akita
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus,
TRULY present
in the Holy Eucharist,
I consecrate my body and soul
to be entirely one with Your Heart,
being sacrificed at every instant
on all the altars of the world
and giving praise to the Father,
pleading for the coming of His Kingdom.
Please receive this humble offering of myself.
Use me as You will for the glory of the
Father
and the salvation of souls.
Most Holy Mother of God,
never let me be separated
from your Divine Son.
Please defend and protect me
as your special child.
Amen.
[Footnote: (Akita was also featured, in 1992, in The Final Hour]
[Sister Sasagawa was from a Buddhist family, making it all the more compelling a story. Pictures of her, on Google and YouTube are poignant (see especially O Crux Ave Media – Xavier Ayral and a host identified as Monique)]
[Prophecy: October 13, 1973:
“My dear daughter, listen well to what I have to say to you. You will inform your superior.”
After a short silence:
“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 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. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests.”
“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.
“The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God. The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness. If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them.”]