Catholic Voice

 There are 54 countries in Africa with a total population of one billion people; of these Rwanda is the smallest and ironically most populated with 8 million people. Many of us will remember the genocide of 1994-1995 when the Hutu people turned on their fellow country men, the Tutsi, and killed one million in 100 days. This is one of the poorest countries of Africa and because the language is French and Kinyarwanda which is a type of Bantu language, very few English speaking people have ever heard of it. The Hutu came originally from Cameroon, while the Tutsi came down the Nile from Egypt to Rwanda, source of the Nile, one of the world’s longest rivers. The indigenous people of Rwanda are the pigmy people who live mainly in the bush. Rwanda is found in the heart of Africa, or its exact centre in the great lakes region and Kibeho is found in the southern part some 8,000 feet above sea level, where it is cool and where it rains most in that region.

 

On the 28^th of November (Feast of the Miraculous Medal) in 1981, a series of apparitions of Our Lady, under the title of Our Lady of Sorrows, began to occur, first to one girl and then later on to two more. The contents of the messages have significance not just for Rwanda, or Africa, but for the entire world. It must be said that all public revelation ceased with the death of the last Apostle. However, Our Lady has intervened in the course of human history to admonish and encourage man and to re-direct him toward Jesus, who is the Saviour of the World. Therefore one does not have to believe in these apparitions, but when the Church approves the apparition and the content of what message is said, we should wake up and take note.

 

At about 12.35pm on that day, a young girl called Alphonsine Mumureke (now a Poor Clare Nun in Mali) was serving lunch at table in the school of the Sisters of Mercy in Kibeho. She heard someone call her “my daughter.” The voice seemed to come from the corridor outside. Being unable to resist this call, she went to see who had called her. She tells us later that she found herself in “a rather different place,” bathed in light, and from a golden cloud appeared a mysterious figure having the semblance of a Lady of surpassing beauty, who she could not decide whether She was black or white. She had a seamless white dress and a white veil on her head. The Lady was barefoot and her hands were closed together, pointing upwards, as in prayer. Alphonsine knelt down in prayer and blessed herself and asked “who are you”? The beautiful Lady replied in Kinyarwanda “Ndi Nyina Wa Jambo,” which in English means “I am the Mother of the Word” (Ecce Mater Tua).

 

In the little diary this child kept, she was to write about the first conversation she had with Our Blessed Lady who asked her “what is the most important thing in your life?” to which she answered “I love God, and His Blessed Mother”. Our Lady smiled and asked “Truly”? to which Alphonsine answered “yes truly”. Our Lady then said “if it is so, I have come to assure you of this. I have heard your prayers. I would like your friends to have more faith. Some do not believe strongly enough”

 

Eyewitnesses heard Alphonsine speak in French, English, Kinyarwanda and other languages that they were unfamiliar with. The Sisters and the other students began to think that she was hysterical or the victim of hallucinations, thus she became the laughing stock of the entire school.

 

Alphonsine asked the Lady later, to allow other girls to see her, on account of the situation she found herself in, and her wish was granted.

 

On the evening of January 12^th 1982, Our Lady appeared to Nathalie Mukamazimpaka who was 17 years old at that time and on March 2^nd 1982 to Marie-Claire Mukangango, who was the most sceptical and critical of the entire school, and she began to see Our Lady also, and the apparitions began to be believed. Once Marie-Claire formally admitted to seeing the Virgin, the apparitions began to be taken seriously and were noted and recorded on film. The Virgin always arranged to appear suddenly as though She was always present; all three were to say later during the course of investigations which were to follow. She would appear in the dining room area or in the small dormitory, or in the school playground. Some visits were very brief, yet others would last up to eight hours. Many though were private, but the majority of them were public and took place in front of many people, some of whom filmed the occasions privately, with both motion pictures and with still photography. Healings, conversions, and other inexplicable phenomena began to take place as thousands flocked to the site of the apparitions. The messages handed to the three seers of Kibeho, do not only involve the people of Rwanda as stated by Our Lady when she was asked by Marie-Claire at the behest of the Bishop of Butare “to whom are you speaking to,? is it to me or to His Excellency the Bishop of Butare?” (Kibeho was in the Diocese of Butare at that time, now a new Diocese of Gikongoro has been created). The reply was astonishing! “When I show Myself and talk to someone, I want to turn to the whole world, so I am not just talking to you, or to the Bishop only, or to the Diocese, nor indeed Africa, but I am concerned with, and am turning to the whole world.”

 

The message therefore is for the whole world to hear, and it is an urgent and heartfelt message from a loving Mother, in fact the Mother of all humanity and there is a note of apprehension in it. The Virgin speaks of a “Godless world” in open rebellion against God and His ways, which cannot attain peace because it ignores the spiritual values. She comes to Her children to encourage them along the paths of peace and unity, through conversion, prayer, penitence, and participation in Christ’s Passion, through our own personal sufferings offered up in union with His, because in this way only do they share in the redemptive work of Christ. Thus the Virgin manifests Herself as Our Lady of Sorrows.

 

Bishop Augustin Misago, of this new Diocese of Gikongoro wherein is the Shrine of Our Lady of Sorrows in Kibeho, wrote a declaration of approval on June 29^th 2001 and which the Holy See approved immediately afterwards.( the decree was published by the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano on June 29th 2003). In this approval he summarises the messages given by the Virgin to the three girls;

 

1 An urgent appeal to repentance and conversion of hearts. This appeal has the same resonance as in Fatima, Lourdes, La Salette, and in Laus. “Repent, Repent, Repent, while there is still time to do so,” “Convert while there is still time.”

 

2. An assessment of the moral state of the world today, the Virgin says “The world conducts itself very badly, it is hastening to its ruin, it will fall into an abyss.” In other words it will be plunged into innumerable and unrelenting disasters. “The world is in open rebellion against God, it commits too many sins, it has neither love nor peace” and “if you do not repent and do not convert your hearts, you will fall into the abyss.”

 

3. The deep sorrow of the Mother of God. All three girls stated that they saw the Virgin cry (as in La Salette) but this time it was on August 15^th 1982 (Feast of the Assumption). Our Lady was very sad because of people’s unbelief and lack of repentance. She complained about the bad way of life in the world today which is characterized by the lazy way we keep our customs of prayer, how we like evil and accept it as normal and the continuous disobedience to God’s commandments.

 

4. “Faith and unbelief will come unseen.” With these words to Alphonsine, the Virgin tells us of the so called “great silent apostasy,” whereby whole hoards of people will abandon their faith, for no apparent reason. Our Lady asked her to repeat this message on several occasions. This apostasy is still unnoticed and has come about suddenly as people have just stopped believing.

 

5. The suffering that saves: “No one will reach heaven without suffering”. This was the message of the Virgin to Natalie Mukamazimpaka on May 15^th 1982. To accept the Cross (“Ave Crux, Spes Unica,” Hail Cross our only hope) has been the way and constant cry of the saints, who have offered up their sufferings as a means of compensating for the sins of the world, and which they offered them up in faith and love, participated in the sufferings of Jesus and Mary for the salvation of the world. The role of the Cross in the Christian life is still imperative as we mortify ourselves and deny ourselves for the sake of the conversion of the world. It seems that people nowadays no longer want to carry a Cross; many kill themselves rather than suffer, or have others kill them. They call this a “right” as in right to die. There is no such right. Human life is Sacred from the moment of conception until natural death and anyone who takes a life is a murderer, even those who abort and those so called doctors of death who carry out this most awful of murders are guilty of breaking the 5^th commandment and as such break all the commandments.

 

Pope John Paul II, the Great, tells us that human suffering is salvific. Yet despite that message, we tend to reject it in favour of drugs, alcohol, massive medications and a continual running around looking for healings of every sort, albeit new age stuff, flower power, and the like, but we won’t accept the Cross!

We have seen in the past many victim souls who have suffered, Saints like Saint Pio, Marthe Robin, who founded the Foyer de Charite , Blessed Alexandrina da Costa, Saint Gemma Galgani, Sister Josefa Menendez and others. Their sufferings were for the Church and for the salvation of souls, not just for themselves. With these sufferings, these great loving people endured pain, isolation, victimisation and all the afflictions known to man, not for themselves but so that others would benefit and receive the graces necessary for their conversion back to the Church. Their sufferings were offered up in the right way, in union with the sufferings of Christ.

 

6. The sixth message consists in an exhortation to pray. “Pray always and single-heartedly and without hypocrisy.” Put another way, not just with empty words, but real prayer, focused and with the right intention. From this message we can say that people are just not praying, and those who are, are not praying as they should. The Virgin of Kibeho asks the seers to pray in abundance for the whole world, and to teach others to pray and to further pray for those who do not or cannot pray for themselves. Our Lady asks us to pray with greater zeal and purity of heart and with due reverence to prayer and especially to the celebration of Holy Mass.

 

7. Our Lady asked that Marian devotion be expressed through sincere praying of the Holy rosary and in other ways with sincerity.

 

(I wish to be slightly technical here by stating that the Veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary should not be confused with Adoration of God, which is reserved to Him alone. Rather the technical terminology for this Veneration is called “Hyperdulia,” reserved to Our Lady alone, whilst “Dulia” is the honour paid to the Saints in Heaven, whom we invoke as our intercessors before the August and Most Holy Majesty of God, the Blessed Trinity. Likewise when we ask Our Blessed Lady to intercede for us with Her Son, the Lord Jesus, we are offering Her that Veneration that is due and right, hence this strange word “hyperdulia”. Adoration of God is called “Latria,” So in Kibeho, Our Lady asks rightly for us to foster devotion to Her, that She might then, through our prayers, lead us to God).

 

8. Our Lady goes on to ask for a special devotion to the “Seven Sorrows of the Mother of God.” She asks Marie –Claire especially stating that “this rosary pleases me, it was once well known, but now it is forgotten.” She desires that it be renewed and spread in the Church, but that it should not replace the rosary, but can be said in addition to it, especially on Tuesdays and Fridays, the traditional days of the Sorrowful Mysteries. (The Rosary of the Seven Sorrows consists in seven contemplations or mysteries, each with one Our Father and seven Hail Mary’s. We contemplate 1. The Prophecy of Simeon, 2. The Flight into Egypt. 3. The Loss of the Infant Jesus in the Temple for three days. 4. Mary meets Jesus on His way to be crucified. 5. Mary stands at the foot of the Cross. 6. Mary receives the dead body of Jesus in Her Arms (The Pieta) 7. Jesus is placed in the Tomb.

 

9. Our Lady asks that a “Chapel” be built for Her as a sign of remembrance of Her revelations in Kibeho. This “Chapel” is now built and was consecrated by Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, who was the Cardinal Prefect of the Holy Father for the Evangelisation of Peoples, ( now Cardinal Archbishop of Napoli), along with the Bishops of Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and the Congo.

 

10. She asks us to pray always for the Church of which She is Mother (Mater Ecclesia). (A new title given to Our Lady by the Second Vatican Council)

 

What I have thus far written about the messages is really nothing new, but in reality a reminder with full clarity what we have all forgotten. Our Lady comes to waken us up from apathy, and to tell us of our full responsibilities as children of God, to lead us on to the right path and to motivate us to correct our lives, to stop us being “dysfunctional.” In short She came for the sake of our spiritual renewal and to help us on the road to salvation.

 

The three seers were also shown an apparition whereby on the 15^th of August 1981, in front of 20,000 people, they saw something that terrified them. They stated later that Our Lady appeared very sad and She showed us in an apparition that lasted eight hours, “a river of blood, people killing each other, abandoned corpses and no one to bury them, bodies without heads, trees burning, Churches burning”. Although the girls saw this and let it be known, no one wanted to believe it as people lived in such harmony, Tutsi and Hutu alike. However 13 years later, The Hutu turned on the Tutsi, killing over one million in one hundred days, with machetes, cutting off their heads and burning them alive inside Churches. All the Bishops save one were killed along with hundreds of priests, nuns and religious. What they saw in the vision came true in exacting detail, but no one wanted to believe in the message, not did they want to convert and turn back to God. So here in a tangible way we can see the effect of the destruction caused by the sin of man. 11% of Rwanda’s population were wiped out in 100 days, and another 2 million displaced. Today the country is full of orphans; there are very few old people left. The average life span is 37 years for those who are strong, but there is new hope with this Shrine of Our Lady of Sorrows in Kibeho, and many are turning to Her intercession.

 

Marie-Claire Mukangango was killed during the genocide of 1994. Alphonsine is a Poor Clare nun in Mali and Nathalie Mukamazimpaka is sacristan at the Shrine of Our Lady of Sorrows in Kibeho, but one can meet her with permission from the Bishop. She lives in abject poverty, lives vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and will not accept any offerings from well wishers.

 

It is possible to visit the Shrine today, and to spend time in Rwanda, which is known as the country of 1,000 hills, but with it 1,000 problems; however with prayer there will be 1,000 solutions  The Shrine of Our Lady of Sorrows in Kibeho is the only authentic, Marian Shrine in all of Africa, where Our Lady has appeared, and which is fully approved by the Catholic Church. This Shrine needs a lot of help, financially, through volunteers who are skilled in almost every range of services from water to medical to building, to teaching. This Shrine is fast becoming known as the “Lourdes of Africa” because of all the miracles, cures and graces bestowed on those who go there as pilgrims.

 

Nearest airport, Kigali via Nairobi (Kenya Airlines). Someone from the Shrine could come to pick you up at Kigali, and you will stay overnight in Kigali with the Pallotine Fathers, before leaving for Kibeho with the priests of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception, who have a retreat centre in Kibeho. (www.kibeho.org) Feast day of Our Lady of Sorrows in Kibeho is on November 28^th. Fr. Zbigniew Pawlowski SAC is the Rector of the Shrine and he can be contacted at sanct.kibeho@ifrance.com for all your prayer intentions.

 

This feature is categorised under Marian Shrines