"Why are you so beautiful?" – “I am beautiful because I love” said Mary in Kibeho. But then there was Mary's sobs and sadness. And one of the seers had a vision of a river of blood and a burning country.
“I believe that Mary came to Rwanda to remind us that her love brings us closer to Jesus. She came because perhaps the devil came here earlier . Our Lady of Kibeho from Rwanda Immaculée Ilibagiza.
"Nyina wa Jambo" means "Mother of the Word"
Kibeho is a small village in African Rwanda, located in the province of Kibungo. Before the apparitions, the region had a bad reputation among Christians. The forested province was a center of pagan cults for years. The villagers repeated the news that voodoo and black magic were practiced in Kibungo , and Satanists lived deep in the jungle.
When, in November 1981, a 16-year-old high school student, Alphonsine Mumureke, said she had seen a lady of extraordinary beauty who introduced herself as "Nyina wa Jambo", or "Mother of the Word", there was a great stir in the country. The apparitions were reported not only in Rwanda but also in neighboring Burgundy, Tanzania, Congo and Uganda.
The peasants from the vicinity of Kibeho stopped working in the fields and came to the school where Alphonsine studied. Some, like the eleven-year-old Immaculée Ilibagiza, believed right away. Others, such as priests and nuns from the school the seer attended, considered her a liar and a fraud .
Tired of poverty and the difficult economic situation, the people of Rwanda longed for a miracle. But is the woman in the vision of the disciple Alphonsine really Mary?
Mary speaks to Alphonsine
“I love you, my child,” said Mary on November 29, the first Sunday of Advent. "Never fear me. Be with me like a small child is with his mother, I love to cuddle my children.
In testimony about the apparitions that repeated every Saturday, Alphonsine said that she felt Mary's tender love, a love that was so great that it could lift everyone to heaven at once. And that what she cares most about is that everyone loves her the way children love their mother .
She also said that Mary asks for the daily recitation of the rosary , which is a way to purify the heart.
"Liar"
Even though Alphonsine's name means "leave her alone, she's telling the truth" in the Kinyarwanda language, almost no one believed the girl. The school administration and local priests believed that she was a fraud and a discredit to both the school and the parish .
Friends who thought that she wanted to draw attention to herself - because the Mother of God cannot come to a poor, not very talented girl brought up only by her mother - subjected her to elaborate tortures. For example , during ecstasies, they burned her arm with fire or threw rosaries around her neck, like a lasso. A school priest pricked a girl with a long needle. Finally, at his instigation, Marie-Claire, who was popular in the school community, was to organize a group of friends to inflict suffering on Alphonsine during visits.
"Mary," the girl asks, " show yourself to my friends , otherwise no one will believe me..."
Mary speaks to Anathalie
He does not have to wait long, Mary reacts almost immediately. Already on January 12, 1982, another student, Anathalie Mukamazimpaka, praying and involved in religious life, enjoying a good reputation at school, experienced a supernatural vision that changed her life forever.
First she felt fear. She began to pray the rosary, but then complete darkness enveloped her. Later she realized that she was no longer sitting on a bed in a dormitory room, but was in an endless meadow.
In horror, she began to cry, and then she heard a voice full of sadness: " My child, I am sad because I gave you my message, but no one would listen to my words ."
Mary appeared to Anathalieuntil December 3, 1983. Her messages concerned humility, readiness to do God's will, self-sacrifice, love, deepening prayer, conversion, the meaning of suffering for those who live in sin.
Mary often warned against the consequences of evil, asked for conversion, lamented like a mother whose children reject love and a helping hand.
Mary is talking to Marie-Claire
The news that there are already two seers in Kibeho divided the community. There were those who believed and defended the girls, they asked for a blessing. There were also those who saw a satanic conspiracy in the preaching of the revelations . This group included the headmistress and leader among students, Marie-Claire Mukangango - a girl who was brave, daring, sometimes disobedient, but praying.
Convinced that both visionaries were pretending - and thus insulting Mary - she even went to the local bishop with a complaint. But Mary did not let things run their course. On March 2, Marie-Claire heard a voice that changed her life forever.
" Repent of your sins! Repent of your sins! Repent of your sins! I am not speaking only to you, but to everyone. Modern people no longer feel the evil they do. When someone commits a sin, they do not admit that they have done wrong,” said Mary.
Why did Mary come?
Before the apparitions of Our Lady in Kibeho began, there was an organized attack on Mary in Rwanda for a whole year. Pictures were destroyed, figures were smashed to smithereens. The perpetrators were never caught, and the attacks on images sacred to Catholics were suspected first by Protestants, and then by Satan worshipers.
There was also a rumor that the priests were hiding gold in the statues and that the attacks were robberies. However , the apparitions of Mary from November 28, 1981 to November 28, 1989 - on which day Alphonsine had her last public vision - and the words that Mary addressed to three disciples clearly show that the mother of Jesus came to a poor country in Africa with a warning and with care, with sadness and tears, as in La Salette .
“The world is doing very badly. The world is working to its own destruction, it will soon fall into the abyss, that is, it will plunge into innumerable and unceasing miseries. The world is rebelling against God, committing too many sins; there is no love or peace,” she said.
An announcement of the triumph of hatred
Sometimes earthly mothers stand at the threshold of an adult child's home and say: This is not how I raised you . Don't drink - you're ruining your life; find a job – because your children need security. Do not hurt your wife, husband, do not cheat - because you break their heart. Save the marriage, save the priesthood, save yourself, because you are drowning; take a different road, because this is the way of evil...
"The world is very bad, the world is working to its own detriment, it will soon fall into the abyss, it commits too many sins, there is no love or peace" - Mary repeated in Kibeho, and on August 15, 1982, during a public prayer, Alphonsine saw her sadness, tears and sobs .
She was given a vision of a river of blood, a burning country, people chopped to pieces, brutally tortured, women raped, and a dying world. The people gathered in prayer heard the visionary's words and many fled in a hurry.
Mary lifted the veil of secrecy from the near future , explaining that all this can happen when the hatred carried in human hearts comes to the fore. And hate always breeds death.
understand this war
Mary's warning was remembered in Rwanda a year later. On October 1, 1990, a civil war began between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes, which had been in conflict for many years. Crime researchers emphasize that the birth of the conflict was caused first by the Germans, and then by the Belgians, who , exercising colonial power here, sowed ethnic hatred between the tribes.
Conflict was a way for the colonizers to exercise power, but it sowed hatred in the local population, which until the arrival of the Europeans, had been able to live side by side, which they could not control. The war officially ended with the Arusha Agreement signed on August 4, 1993, under which power was shared in the government. However, this was only the appearance of an agreement. The headquarters of the leaders and architects of the conflict were seething. Nine months later, on April 6, 1994, the plane carrying the Rwandan president was shot down . And although it was never established who was behind the coup, it was a signal to fight for Hutu leaders.
Genocide unpunished
The Hutu militias started roundups, everyone from the Tutsi tribe, including children, was killed. In one hundred days , a million people out of more than seven people living in the country were murdered . Ten thousand people died a day, four hundred and seventeen an hour, seven people were killed in one minute...
The world was silent. The UN refused to reinforce international troops and obliged the command to remain neutral, Russia, China and France recognized the murders as an internal problem for the Rwandans. Foreign observers were evacuated from Kigali, embassies closed.
The "architects" of the genocidal action against the Tutsi included, among others, former Prime Minister, Minister of National Defense and Minister of Family Affairs and the Promotion of Women Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, lawyer. It was she who came up with the idea of forming brigades of rapists suffering from AIDS, which attacked women from the Tutsi tribe.
It is estimated that approximately 250,000 women were raped, 70 percent of the victims were infected with HIV. After a hundred days, Rwanda was a blood-soaked ash. Marie-Claire and her husband were also killed in the slaughter.
Did it have to happen?
Reading the apocalyptic warning of the revelation from Kibeho, we know that it is man who chooses - either love or hate. The revelations were to stop people from choosing evil.
This is why Mary, like a tender mother concerned about the fate of her children, stood on African soil. But the children knew "better." On August 5, 1982, Mary complained to Anathalie:
“I am talking to you, but you are not listening. I want to lift you up, and you still won't get up. I call you, and you pretend to be deaf. When will you start doing what I ask of you? You are indifferent to all my calls. When will you start to be interested in what I want to tell you? I give you many signs and you still do not believe. How long will you remain deaf to My calls?”
Our Lady also said: “I did not come to Kibeho only for the local parishioners. When I speak to one person, I am speaking to all of God's children, wherever they are. When I speak to you, I speak to the whole world. So to me and to you too.
I used the books:
I. Ilibagiza, Our Lady of Kibeho ,
B. Bruneteau, The Age of Genocide ,
R. Rurangwa, "Survivor. Genocide in Rwanda" .