In 1981 Our Lady first appeared in Kibeho Africa to 17-year-old Alphonsine Mumreke with the words, “I am Mother of the Word. I have heard your prayers. I would like you and your companions to have more faith. Some do not believe enough.” Alphonsine said that, “The Virgin was not white as She is usually seen in holy pictures. I could not determine the color of Her skin, but She was of incomparable beauty. She was barefoot and 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. Later, I was told that I was in the dining room. My classmates told me that I was speaking in several languages: French, English, Kinyarwanda, etc. “When the Blessed Virgin was about to leave, I said three ‘Hail Marys’ and the prayer, ‘Come, Holy Spirit’. When She left, I saw Her rise to Heaven like Jesus.”
Mary appeared again to Alphonsine the next day and every Saturday for the next month. During this time she was treated with skepticism and prejudice. During her visions classmates would poke her with needles and burn her with matches to test the authenticity of the apparitions. One day Alphonsine brought her classmate’s rosaries before Mary to have them bless. To her surprise some of the rosaries became too heavy for her to lift up to be blessed. She later found out that those rosaries belonged to the students who didn’t believe in her visions.
In 1982 Mary appeared to Anathalie Mukamazimpaka and Marie Claire Mukangango, two other students at Alphonsine’s school. Marie Claire was one of the most outspoken about her disbelief in Alphonsine’s visions of Mary, but after her own apparition she was saying that, “One must meditate on the Passion of Jesus, and on the deep sorrows of His Mother. One must recite the Rosary every day, and also the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows of Mary, to obtain the favor of repentance.”
These three seers received Blessed Holy Water, visions of Heaven Purgatory and Hell, Instructions in Prayer, and Prophesies. Mary told Marie Claire to pray the Rosary of Seven Sorrows. “What I ask of you is repentance. If you recite this chaplet, while meditating on it, you will then have the strength to repent. Today, many people do not know any more how to ask forgiveness. They nail again the Son of God on the Cross. So I wanted to come and recall it to you, especially here in Rwanda, for here I have still found humble people, who are not attached to wealth nor money”. The Prophesies that eventually lead to The Apparitions approval in 2001 involved the genocide that occurred in 1994. During that civil war between 500,000 and 1,000,000 were beheaded and dumped into the Kagea River, creating a river of blood. Mary foretold “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.” She also prophesied that sexual immorality would lead to tragedy just before the AIDS epidemic.
To avoid war and judgment Mary pleads that we pray fast and repent. In the words of John Paul II, “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.”
Mary’s warnings and blessings are not localized to Rwanda, she explains to Marie Claire, “When I tell you this, I am not addressing myself strictly to you, child, but I am making this appeal to the world,”