Japan. It is one of the richest countries of the world but unfortunately, Christians number less than 10% of the total population. Who can also forget Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where the first atomic bombs were unleashed? In a land which has known the terrors of the atomic bomb, Our Lady gave a grave warning to mankind way back in 1973. Is it still relevant today?
The mysterious events in Akita, Japan began with a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary found in the Institute of the Handmaids of the Eucharist. Blood oozed from the right hand of the statue as it also did from the left hand of one of the handmaids, Sr. Agnes Sasagawa. The statue perspired abundantly and cried human tears; laboratory tests at Akita University confirmed that the liquid oozing from the Virgin's eyes were indeed human tears. About 500 persons were eyewitnesses to the crying of the statue and in several instances the weeping was filmed by television cameras and broadcast several times throughout Japan.
One test of the authenticity of an apparition is in the "fruits." Numerous conversions and cures have been attributed to Our Lady of Akita. A Korean woman, Teresa Chun, recovered miraculously from a brain tumor after praying to Our Lady of Akita. Documentation on this was done in St. Paul's Hospital in Seoul and an entire dossier was sent by the Korean bishops to Rome.
More important than the supernatural occurrences is what Our Lady of Akita, through Sr. Agnes, has been trying to convey. She warns that "if mankind does not repent and become better the Father will inflict a terrible punishment harsher than the Flood something without precedent." By the "Flood," Our Lady of Akita is apparently referring to the Great Deluge in the time of Noah of the Old Testament.
Some may balk at the severity in the tone of the message of Our Lady of Akita. However, close followers of the Blessed Mother's messages immediately recognized in the message of Our Lady of Akita a repetition of the same grave warnings given in Fatima and Amsterdam. In Fatima, the warning was focused on the evils of atheistic Communism which would be spread by Russia. In Amsterdam, the Lady of all Nations warned of the degeneration of nations. Our Lady of Akita emphasizes that "the work of the devil will infiltrate even the Church." While the messages in the three apparitions have a different emphasis in focus, the common theme running through them is that mankind has sinned - and is sinning - gravely and deserves a severe punishment from God.
Thirty one years since the apparition of Our Lady of Akita, several questions may be asked. While there have been many natural calamities and wars, since the 1970s there has been no world war and no worldwide natural calamity in the likes of Noah's flood. Is the threat of a punishment therefore over? Should heaven's warnings already be consigned to the archives? Or are we being given more time to repent?