The Story of the Nigeria Igbo Catholic Community Ottawa-Gatineau (NICCO)
In the late summer of 2008, a group of young Igbo Catholic Carleton University students including Adaku Ojiaku (daughter of Mrs. Bernadette Ojiaku) attended the Igbo Catholic Church in Toronto. The event left a huge impression on the students that upon her return to Ottawa, Adaku asked her mother why there was no Igbo Church in Ottawa.
While serving in the school dining
room Alphonsine heard a voice calling to her: “My daughter.” When she turned to
the voice, she was enveloped in the vision of a woman she describes this way:
“She had a seamless white dress and also a white veil on her head. Her hands
were clasped together on her breast, and her fingers pointed to the sky... I
could not determine the color of her skin, but she was of incomparable beauty.”
Alphonsine asked her, “Who are you?” and the woman replied: “I am the Mother of
the Word … I have come to calm you because I have heard your prayers. I would
like your friends to have faith, because they do not believe strongly enough.”
By March 2nd 1982, two other students
from the school - Nathalie Mukamazim- paka and Marie Claire Mukangango (who was
initially a great skeptic and opponent of the first two visionaries) were also
having apparitions of Mary. Signs and wonders abounded, and Our Lady brought
messages from heaven that would have momentous consequences for Rwanda and the whole
world!
On June 29th, 2001 the local Bishop,
Augustin Misago of Ginkongoro, presented his declaration on the authenticity of
the apparitions. A few days later he announced his declaration publically,
saying, “Yes, the Virgin Mary did appear in Kibeho on Nov.28, 1981,” and then
over “the course of the following six months.” On July 2nd of the same year,
the Holy See officially released this declaration, thereby approving the
apparitions as worthy of belief. To my knowledge, the visions in Kibeho are the
latest Marian apparitions to receive official recognition by the Church.
Other children in Kibeho had also
claimed apparitions of Jesus and Mary, but the bishop’s theological commission
determined that the essential message of the apparitions was given to the first
three visionaries. Therefore, the approval extended only to the apparitions of
Alphonsine, Nathalie, and Marie-Claire. Investigations into the other
visionaries may be taken up sometime in the future.
Many people who have heard of these apparitions are
aware that Our Lady warned of great dangers to the people of Rwanda. Many have
heard that Our Lady described with startling accuracy the events of the ethnic
genocide that engulfed that country some 13 years later. But what many people do
not know is that Our Lady also made an urgent appeal to the whole world! She brought
messages of maternal love and warning that speak directly to each of us in our
own countries and our own lives. It is these messages that we would do well to
consider closely.
The diocese of Ginkongoro, where the
apparitions occurred, has summarized the essential message in ten points. With
a few added explanatory notes, a few grammatical corrections, and a bit of
necessary editing - this is the list of the essential elements of the message
of the Mother of the Word at Kibeho
1.An
urgent call to repentance and to the conversion of hearts: “Repent, repent,
repent!” “Convert your heart while there is still time.”
2.A
diagnosis of the moral state of the world: “The world is very unwell.” “The
world races to its loss, it risks falling into the abyss, which means it will
be immersed in innumerable and unceasing tragedies. The world is in rebellion
against God. Too many sins are committed in it. There is neither love nor
peace.” “If you don’t repent and don’t convert your hearts, you will all fall
into the abyss.”
3. The Virgin’s deep sadness: The seers were
really surprised to see her weeping on August 15th, 1982 (the apparition
wherein she predicted the genocide and showed the visionaries what it would
look like). The Mother of the Word is strongly afflicted because of the
incredulity and the impenitence of human beings. She complains about our bad
behaviour characterized by dissolution of morality, dissensions, complaisance
in evil and continual disobedience to the commandments of God.
4.“Faith
and unbelief will come unexpectedly.” This is one of the so-called mysterious
words said by the Virgin to Alphonsine at the beginning of the apparitions,
with a request to repeat it to humankind.
5.Redemptive
suffering: This theme is one of the most important in the apparitions of
Kibeho, especially for Nathalie Mukamazimpaka. For a Christian, suffering,
otherwise unavoidable in this life on earth, is an obliged path to reach heavenly
glory. The Virgin said to her seers, notably to Nathalie on May 15th, 1982: “No
one gets to heaven without suffering.” Or “Mary’s child doesn’t separate with
the cross” But suffering is also a means of expiating the sin of the world and
to participate in the sufferings of Jesus and Mary for the salvation of the
world. The seers have been invited to live this message in a concrete way, to
accept suffering with faith and joy, to mortify themselves, and to renounce
pleasures for the conversion of the world. Thus, Kibeho reminds us of the place
of the cross in the life of the Christian and of the Church.
6.Pray
unceasingly and without hypocrisy: Human beings don’t pray, and even among
those who do pray many don’t pray properly. The Virgin asks us (through the
seers) to pray a lot for the world, to teach others to pray, and to pray in the
place of those who don’t pray. The Virgin asks us to put more goodwill into
praying and to pray without hypocrisy.
7.Devotion
to Mary is notably concretized by a regular and sincere recitationof the rosary.
8.The
rosary of the Sorrows of the Virgin Mary: The Seer Marie Claire Mukangango
received revelations on this topic. The Virgin likes this rosary a great deal.
Known in the past, it had fallen into oblivion. Our Lady of Kibeho wants it to
be put in honor and spread in the Church. But this “rosary of sorrows” doesn’t
replace the regular Holy Rosary.
9. The Virgin wants a chapel built in memory of
her apparitions in Kibeho. This theme carries up from Alphonsine’s apparition
on January 16th, 1982 and comes back repeatedly during that year especially by
Nathalie, with new developments. (This chapel has been completed).
10. Pray unceasingly for the Church, because
strong tribulations are waiting it in the coming time: So said the Virgin to
Alphonsine, on August 15th, 1983, and on November 28th, 1983.
Our Lady of Kibeho is a matter of
‘private revelation’. As such they do not belong to the deposit of faith. The
purpose of private revelations is not to improve or complete Christ’s
definitive revelation but to help us live more fully by it in our time. And
even though they have been recognized by the authority of the Church no one is
required to believe them; just as no one is required to believe in the approved
apparitions of Fatima or Lourdes. But guided by the Magisterium of the Church
we are all called to discern carefully and welcome in these revelations
whatever constitutes an authentic call of Christ to the Church! (See CCC #67)
As we meditate on these extraordinary
messages, I pray that all hearts will be moved to a more fervent following of
Jesus, a deeper love and devotion to the Mother of the Word, and a more
courageous embracing of the Cross for the protection of the Church and the
salvation of the world!
The solar eclipse on Monday, 8 April 2024, is expected to draw millions to good viewing spots in the “path of totality,” stretching from Mazatlán to Montreal. Preemptive closures have been announced to deal with the logistical challenges.
The moon rarely blocks the sun entirely, but every year the lunar cycle determines the date of Easter, and much else depends on that. So the Feast of the Annunciation is also on the move this year, transferred from its usual spot on 25 March – which fell during Holy Week – to 8 April, the first day after Holy Week and the Easter Octave, to no longer impede it.
The coincidence of an eclipse with the Annunciation suggests that the meandering of the moon might be a matter for spiritual meditation. Mary is the woman with the moon at her feet and clothed with the sun. (Revelation 12:1)
The moon is an apt Christian symbol for the Blessed Mother, as the moon has no light of its own, but only reflects the light of the sun; Mary reflects the light of her Son upon the face of the earth. But the moon is not purely ancillary much less merely decorative; its gravitational pull keeps the earth in balance, as it were.
An intermediary between the sun and earth, the moon watches over the earth with its face turned always to the sun. The moon is not a star, like the sun, a fearsome source of light and warmth. It remains the more approachable light. It is not possible to look directly into the sun – face to face, as it were (Exodus 33:20) – much less to stand upon it. The moon can be contemplated easily, a friendly companion, a gentle reminder that the sun, though not seen, is working still and will return.
If the sun is the glory of the Lord coming before the Ancient of Days (Daniel 7:13), then the moon is the kindly light that guides us “o’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent/ till the night is gone.” The light of Newman’s poem is Christ, the light, but if it serves as a guide during the night, then it is the light reflected by the moon, rather than the direct light of the sun. The source of light is the same in either case.
An eclipse is a symbolic challenge. What to make of the moon when it obscures the sun, rather than reflects its light? Is that not the objection to Marian devotion, that it puts someone between us and the Son? Perhaps it even obscures the greater light with a lesser light, or that which is not even light at all? Does not the natural rarity of the eclipse teach us that the proper supernatural order of things is to prefer our sunlight directly? Why put so much stock in a moon which, for most of its cycle, only partially reflects the sun – and often enough – blocks it?
All such objections are good reminders that Mary is never to obscure Jesus, and the cult of the saints is not to diminish, but enhance, the worship of God. There exist pious souls who ignore the Blessed Sacrament in a church while pouring out their hearts before a statue of Our Lady or an image of the Little Flower or Padre Pio. God likely looks kindly on misguided piety, but it remains misguided.
The Annunciation gives a proper spiritual interpretation of a solar eclipse. For that singular moment in Nazareth, the moon determined whether the sunlight – the Son’s light – would reach the world. This is how St. Bernard of Clairvaux puts it in a sermon excerpted in the Divine Office for 20 December:
The angel awaits an answer; it is time for him to return to God who sent him. We too are waiting, O Lady. . . .The price of our salvation is offered to you. We shall be set free at once if you consent. In the eternal Word of God we all came to be, and behold, we die. In your brief response we are to be remade in order to be recalled to life. Tearful Adam with his sorrowing family begs this of you, O loving Virgin, in their exile from Paradise. Abraham begs it, David begs it. All the other holy patriarchs, your ancestors, ask it of you, as they dwell in the country of the shadow of death. This is what the whole earth waits for.
Just as celestial movements offer those rare moments when the reach of the sun’s light depends – fleetingly – on the moon, there was a singular moment in Nazareth. God sent his Son into the world, but dependent upon the free consent of the Virgin of Nazareth. To be sure, she was filled with grace and preserved from sin. Grace enhances freedom and sin erodes it; thus the sinless Mary, full of grace, was more free, not less. And the Incarnation depended upon her freedom, by God’s own choice. The light coming into the world (John 1:9) depended upon Mary to enter it. The sun depended, for that moment, upon the moon.
Analogies are not exact. Mary never eclipses Jesus. But one can imagine Abraham and David and the tearful children of Adam looking up and praying that the moon give permission for the sunlight to breakthrough again. The shadow of an eclipse is a memory of the beginning, when “darkness was upon the face of the deep.” (Genesis 1:2)
In the beginning God said fiat lux. And so it was.
Mary replies today, fiat mihi. And so He came to be among us.
Ed Jozsa died in a terrible car crash — and has lived to see the afterlife. A head-on collision, an uncertain hospital stay, and a vision of the afterlife have all given Jozsa a second chance. Jozsa now lives to tell his story about death — the greatest and final experience of us all. In fact, Jozsa alleges to have already experienced his “particular judgment” when God judges the righteousness of a person’s soul. Like other visionaries of heaven and hell, Jozsa gained a shocking glimpse of an afterlife without God — eternity without Christ. Jozsa is now on a mission to use the miracle of his survival as a rallying call to the world: live for God or suffer in hell. John-Henry Westen takes the pro-life movement to the limit, discussing the important responsibilities we all play that will ultimately bring us to account at the moment of death.
