Suffering With Joy

Our Lady of Kibeho

July 29, 2010

Our Lady of Kibeho

This week a friend sent me the book, Our Lady of Kibeho: Mary Speaks to the World from the Heart of Africa.  As a little girl I was entranced by the apparitions of Fatima and Lourdes and the reminders the Blessed Virgin gave to all men to repent and do penance so that many souls would be saved.  In recent years I learned that Jesus sent His mother to Akita, Japan with similar messages in the 1970s, but only in the last few years did I hear of Our Lady of Kibeho.

What makes Kibeho so appealing is that Our Lady came to one of the poorest countries in the heart of Africa to open hearts to Jesus. As in Fatima and Lourdes, she chose young people to convey urgent messages to the people, to government officials, and to the bishops – messages urging Rwandans to end the ethnic hatred in their country, to repent of their sins, and to make Jesus the center of their lives.  These messages were meant not only for Rwanda but for the whole world.  Jesus and Mary told the visionaries that they came to Rwanda to let all the people know that even the poorest of the poor in the world were in their hearts.

Eight of the visionaries have been declared by the Church to be authentic, but during the years between 1982 and 1994 many people in remote villages throughout the country claimed to have seen both Jesus and Our Lady.  It is likely that these appearances were authentic in many cases.  The bishops just did not have the manpower to examine all of them and so stopped with the eight visionaries.  Not all the people who saw them were Catholic or even Christian.  One illiterate young man (one of the eight authenticated) was pagan and so were his parents.  Yet Jesus came to him personally and taught him the complete Bible and infused deep theological knowledge in his heart, sending him throughout all Rwanda to spread the Gospel.

One striking fact reported by the visionaries was that Our Lady’s skin glowed with such a light they could not tell if it was white or black.  Some of them were taken to see both heaven and hell.  And, as at Fatima and Lourdes, Our Lady asked for daily praying of the rosary, the prayers that bring the Gospel alive in our minds every time we meditate on the mysteries.  She also taught one of the visionaries the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows, an old devotion in the Church but unknown in Africa and asked that she spread this devotion to everyone.  The Blessed Virgin also asked that a basilica in her honor be built in Kibeho, and the people also built a small chapel of the Seven Sorrows there.

Even as Our Lady warned the people that Rwanda would become a “river of blood” if the hatred of the people was not quickly stopped, miracle after miracle occurred in Kibeho amongst the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who flocked to this remote village.  Sadly, neither the government officials nor the people repented of the hatred, and the prophetic warnings came true during 100 horrifying days of mass murder and genocide.  Rwanda in 1994 was awash in blood amongst unspeakable suffering.

Nineteen-eighty-two was not that long ago, nor was 1994.  Is there less hatred in the world today or more?  How can man be so stubborn that even in the face of major miracles and stark evidence of God’s love in this day and time, that he will not excise evil from his heart?  What horrors will be visited upon this world as we continue to lie, cheat, steal and murder one another?  It was not a lack of grace from heaven to change hearts that brought about the slaughter in Rwanda.  It was man’s hardening against the grace and stubborn refusal to accept the grace available to everyone.  Let Kibeho speak to us today and let us heed the messages by daily conversion of heart.

Our Lady of Kibeho was written by Immaculée Ilibagiza who survived the Rwandan genocide and lived in hiding for several years afterwards.  She is well acquainted with the apparitions and several of the visionaries. I have put this book in my Custom Shop, or you can click on the links in this post to purchase it from Amazon.

Tags: Blessed Virgin, conversion

1 Comment to Our Lady of Kibeho

1. 

   Barb,
   I’ve read three of Immaculee’s books including this one and each one touched me. Until I read her books I didn’t really understand the full horror of the Rwandan holocaust and how much the people suffered. Frightening in that neighbor turned against neighbor. The friends they shared meals with one day were the very same friends that killed them later. Mother Mary tried to warn them but people have free will and their hearts were closed. Heartbreaking.
Mary Nicewarner on July 29th, 2010

Leave a comment

Name (required) Mail (will not be published) (required) Website Message

CAPTCHA Code