Friday, January 9, 2009

Our Lady of Kibeho X


During his 1990 visit to Rwanda, John Paul II exhorted the faithful to turn to the Virgin as a simple and sure guide, and to pray for greater commitment against local divisions, both political and ethnic.
One of the key reasons that brought the competent ecclesiastical authorities to recognize the Apparition of Kibeho as authentic was the anticipated vision of the Rwanda genocide that occurred 12 years later, in 1994. On August 19, 1982, the seers saw “a river of blood, people who were killing each other, abandoned corpses with no one to bury them, a tree all in flames, bodies without their heads.” This prophecy seemed at first incredible, but about a decade later, in the spring of 1994, a horrifying civil war erupted in Rwanda, and, in just three months, an estimated 500,000 to one million were killed, many beheaded by machetes and dumped into the Kagea River (“river of blood”).
The Blessed Virgin had warned us at Kibeho that sexual promiscuity would lead to disaster. That was before the world knew about AIDS, but by 1994, Africa has seventy percent of the world's AIDS cases – and entire villages were turned into ghost towns! So far, 25 million Africans have contracted AIDS.
But the warnings of the Blessed Virgin Mary were not just for Africa. "When I tell you this, I am not addressing myself strictly to you, child, but I am making this appeal to the world," the Virgin told the seer Marie-Clare Mukangango – who was later killed in the war. She said the Virgin described the world as in revolt against God, the world “is on the edge of catastrophe.”
To avoid war and chastisements, the Mother of the Word invited the young seers and the whole world to pray, to fast, and to make penance.
Following the terrible events that took place in the United States, and that are foreshadowing a bloodier and more devastative war, we ask our readers to put into practice the request of Pope John Paul: Pray to avoid war!
And, above all, let us heed the requests of Our Lady: let us convert by going to confession, by confessing our sins with deep sorrow; let us go to Mass every Sunday; let us pray the Rosary by meditating on the mysteries that recall the main events of the life of Our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, related in the Gospel; let us recite the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows that reminds us that Mary took a close part in our Redemption, that She suffered along with Her Son Jesus to save us.
Our Lady appeared in Rwanda as Our Lady of Kibeho before the genocide there in 1994, in apparitions which were later accepted by the Pope himself. She showed the young visionaries with horrifying precision images of what would happen if the country did not repent of the evil they held in their hearts. So too today, Our Lady continues to appear, but we continue to ignore her. And like she did in Africa prior to the slaughter, she weeps, and weeps, and weeps.

"Mother, please! Why don’t you answer me? I can’t bear to see you so upset… please don’t cry! Oh, Mother, I can’t even reach up to console you or dry your eyes. What has happened that makes you so sad? You won’t let me sing to you and you refuse to talk to me. Please, Mother, I have never seen you cry before, and it terrifies me!" —visionary Alphonsine on the Feast of the Assumption, Aug. 15th, 1982; Our Lady of Kibeho, by ImmaculĂ©e Ilibagiza, pg. 146-147

Our Lady responded, asking the visionary, Alphonsine, to indeed sing: "Naviriye ubusa mu Ijuru" (I Came From Heaven for Nothing):

People are not grateful
They don’t love me
I came from heaven for nothing
I left all the good things there for nothing.
My heart is full of sadness
My child, show me the love
You love me
Come closer to my heart.

1 comment:

Paul Anthony Melanson said...

I love you Dear Mother. With all my heart, and soul and strength. Immaculata, pray for us.