After hearing the statue speak to Sister Sasagawa, her hearing condition improved.
The wooden statue of Our Lady of All Nations at a convent in Akita spoke to Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa on July 6, 1973.
Akita is a prefecture in Honshu's Tohoku region.
Sasagawa was a novice at the time at the Institute of the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.
Sasagawa heard the statue telling her to pray for forgiveness of humanity's sins.
Then she and the other nuns discovered that the three-foot statue's hand had a wound and was bleeding.
From 1973 to 1981, hundreds of visitors saw the statue's eyes shed tears 101 times.
Japan's national television broadcast the statue's tears.
Sasagawa originally hailed from a Buddhist family. Her mother gave birth to her prematurely, and she suffered from various health conditions, including paralysis.
A few months before she joined the congregation in Akita, Sasagawa was already totally deaf.
However, after hearing the statue speak to her, her hearing condition improved.
Sasagawa saw supernatural light and beings in the convent's chapel in her first few days with the congregation. She shared her experiences with Bishop John Shojiro Ito of the Niigata diocese.
The bishop witnessed the miracle with his own eyes and ears.
Sasagawa had already had a vision of Mary while recovering in a hospital in Japan about four years before she joined the convent.
In October 1974, she regained her hearing temporarily. Four months before she regained a temporary hearing, her guardian angel told her that she would. She regained her hearing permanently in 1982.
Bishop Ito recognized the miraculous events and authorized the veneration of the Holy Mother of Akita in a pastoral letter in 1984.
Bishop Ito recognized the miraculous events. He authorized the veneration of the Holy Mother of Akita in a pastoral letter in 1984.
Some, including the religious, claimed the events in Akita were not true.
In 1990, Peter Shirayagani, the Archbishop of Tokyo and the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Japan, stated in an Italian monthly magazine that he no longer took the events of Akita seriously.
However, the Pope had not issued a final resolution on these events. He did not approve or dismiss it.
Since Bishop Ito approved the events and his successors and the Pope had not reversed it, the apparitions in Akita remains approved as per the Canon law.
Sasagawa also heard the statue say that evil would get into the church. Differences would arise among the cardinals and the bishops.
The statue also warned her that those who venerate Mary would face ridicule and condemnation.
Human interventions could not have caused the events in the convent, according to a study from the University of Akita.
Sasagawa was 42 years old when she saw the events of 1973. She survived the COVID-19 pandemic and is now 92.
