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marian
anniversaries november
 November 28
Nyrina wa Jambo, Kibeho, Nyaruguru, South Province,
Rwanda
On November 28, 1981, as Alphonsine
Mumureke, 16, was helping in her convent school's dining hall, she
heard someone call, "My daughter." Going out into the corridor she saw a
woman in white, who, in the native Kinyarwandan language, identified herself
as the Mother of the Word (Nyrina wa Jambo), asked
about the student's faith, and urged her to join the Legion of Mary.
Alphonsine continued to experience apparitions through December, usually
followed by several minutes of unconciousness, but most of her schoolmates
disbelieved her until January 12, 1982, when the Mother of the Word began
appearing to another 16-year-old student, Anathalie Mukamazimpaka.
Eventually there were seven visionaries, including a seven-year-old pagan boy and a
24-year-old Moslem woman, joined in prayer by crowds of pilgrims. In an
eight-hour ecstasy on August 15, 1982, they saw the bloody future of their land.
The Mother gave songs as well as exhortations to believe, pray, and repent.
After an investigation, on August 15, 1988 the bishop approved worship at
the site. Alphonsine continued seeing the Mother of the Word until
November 28,
1989, by which time apparitions to the other seers had ceased. She lost her
whole family in the 1991-5 civil war, in which at least
two of the other visionaries died. In July 2002, the Vatican verified
the apparitions. In 2003, Cardinal Sepe, head of the Vatican's missionary
arm, consecrated the shrine of Our Lady of
Sorrows at the site.
(Information from Roy Abraham Varghese,
2000, at motherofallpeoples.com, © 2004 and
allafrica.com/stories/200611140814.html. Picture
from the shrine's site, www.kibeho.org.)
Also commemorated this date:
 | Mother of God, Kupyatich, Pinsk, Minsk, Russia (icon's
feast day Nov. 15 in old calendar, Nov. 28 in new) |
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