Today the carver told me of the extraordinary effect the Statue is having on visitors to his gallery. A small group of locals have been closely following its progress. Whenever anyone visits they gravitate towards it and stay there sometimes talking, sometimes silent but all have the urge to touch her hands and to feel the fabric of the wood. A group of about 6 Australian women gathered round Her this week on their visit absolutely captivated by Her. Kevin the carver, who is not religious says he has felt so privileged to be involved in this creation which he sees as having a 'life' that he cannot explain. Yesterday a husband and wife stood in front of Her and the wife began to quietly weep. This I believe is a manifestation of the One in whose image it is created. I am sure this does not happen in most art galleries. Two down two to go. I commissioned number 3 today. After this one, 4 continents will have this strong symbol of Her love and authority. "I alone am able to still save you from the calamities which approach." I believe this is her mission and God has given Her the power to accomplish it. As Fr Andreu said on being given a preview of The Great Miracle of Garabandal, "How fortunate we are to have a mother like her in heaven."
Thanks Padraig I just worked out how to resize but you beat me to it. Thanks. It's not so clear in this shot but Spain is right between Her feet. I am sure they will spot this in Garabandal.
Back in the mid- 80's when I first learned of our Lady of Akita, I found out that our opus dei super numerary of our group, who was an ophthalmologist teacher/surgeon at the University of Iowa was going to Japan for a seminar. I told him about our Lady of Akita and encouraged him to visit Akita if he had time. Well he did and he said it was quite a long train ride up into the hills near Akita, but found a treasure there. He met and visited with Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagaw and brought me back an 8x10 picture of our Lady of Akita. A powerful story Akita is for our moment in history.
thanks for that Fatima. My latest info is that Sister Agnes us alive and well. It may be that she has continued to have mystical experiences over tge years but that has never been confirmed. All sorts of rumours were spread about her being shut away and shut down but the Japanese bishop who leads the annual pilgrimage there says she is fine and free. Others comment that the messages she was given are suppressed in tge shrine where they originated. That was not my experience but it was the beauty and holiness of Mary that impressed me in her presence there rather than the warning she conveyed. The next carving will be going to America and I am awaiting information as to a suitable recipient in Africa. Then there will be one on each continent and so The Lady of All Nations/Mother of All Peoples in whose image She was created, will in truth be made known and present to All Nations, All Peoples just as She asked.
Well it's been a long journey but it's on the final straight. Charlie Johnston has suggested how important it's going to be for all Christians to pull together as we weather the Storm. He includes our Jewish brethren in this endurance. Yesterday John T posted on the Garabandal thread the beautiful and moving story of his father's very recent death. I am away from my home in Morrinsville this week and am in our biggest city Auckland. John's story moved me to walk today to St Patrick's Cathedral and go through the Doors of Mercy for his father. This morning my friend Beckita from TRNS sent me an awesome utube video (Typed all this on my phone) She did not realise that the video was of the Anglican Church of The Good Shepherd on the shores of Lake Tekapo here in New Zealand. Having sent me the link Beckita went on to do her duty as a Eucharistic Minister and while distributing Communion the very same hymn was sung. Stay with me..... The celebrant at mass today in Auckland cathedral was a former parish priest of mine Fr Don, who I believe was converted from Anglicanism after a vision of the Child Jesus. After mass I explained to him that despite my best efforts to place the final carving of Our Lady of Akita in Africa, not one Catholic Institution or Order there, had even bothered to acknowledge my offer. He suggested a very good Anglican priest friend of his, Michael Lapsley, whose hands were blown off and whose sight was lost as a result of his fight against apartheid. He continued his fight against social injustice across the world and started in 1998 (the year I arrived in New Zealand) the international Institute for the Healing of Memories. He was also honoured in Cuba. Both those countries had great need for healing of their memories. I suggest you watch this short utube video, The Michael Lapsley story. (Sorry the link did not work) edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?y=tef2AwclZsw Fr Michael comes from New Zealand. He has lived in South Africa most of his life. Fr Don particularly asked me to send him his love which I did. I phoned Michael tonight and offered him the statue after explaining its provenance. The one for Africa is carved out of Totora, a tree sacred to the Maori people. The wood came from a tree felled in the great Tarawera eruption of 1886. There are still a couple of little burn marks on the statue from the volcano. So here we have a beautiful piece of New Zealand timber going to keep a New Zealand missionary priest company in Africa. Recently an old patient of mine came to me in a dream (although it seemed more real than that) and let it be known, as far as he was able, that he would like me to walk him through the Doors of Mercy that his time in purgatory be cut short. As old Viv lay dying in hospital I prayed the divine mercy Chaplet at the foot of his bed. Viv was a very senior and much respected member of the Masonic Lodge but I was asked to do the eulogy at his funeral. Generations ago his family who were very poor Catholics had been evicted from Catholic property because they could not pay the rent. From that day on they all left the church and became Anglicans. Viv came from the Tarawera area. He was raised by his grandfather who was a blacksmith. His smithie was buried in the volcanic dust and debris from the same eruption that felled the tree from which our statue was carved. Here indeed is a memory that needed to be healed and in some mysterious way that has been accomplished in the work of Fr Michael (even though he never knew Viv) and in his acceptance of the the gift of Our Lady of Akita, the Lady of All Nations, Mother of All peoples. Fr Michael told me it was an honour to accept Her statue. Finally I am reminded of the words of Our Blessed Mother in Garabandal when Conchita was not sure how to deal with a Protestant pilgrim. Mary smiled and said "He too is my Son." Edit. My edit was just an attempt to add the utube link to Fr Michaels story but it does not work. You can still find it on utube.
I too have been looking for a replica, with no luck aside from the convent's gift shop itself. In May of 2017 I went to the Seitai Hoshikai in Akita and not only was the experience of being in the same room with the statue deeply moving and unforgettable, the new chapel itself is quietly beautiful. Saburo Wakasa, the sculptor of the original statue, later completed a matching statue of St. Joseph, which, like Our Lady of All Nations, is located at the head of a side corridor to the main chapel - opposite the corridor with the statue of Our Lady. Taking photographs anywhere inside the chapel is not allowed, particularly of the statue of Our Lady of All Nations. In the small gift shop at the front, there are replicas on sale that are carved either by Ichiro Urano, the Japanese temple carpenter who built the new chapel building in the 1990s, or Saburo Tabata, his chief carpenter of the chapel's furnishings (the nun running the gift shop only mentioned they were carved by "the carpenter of the chapel" but didn't say which.) Each is a different size - one just over a foot tall and the other maybe two feet. They were prohibitively expensive (at least for me,) so buying them was not an option. The larger one is about as much as the air fare to fly there from the US, the smaller one about 3/4 that. To my eye both were disappointingly crude compared to the original, and of a much lighter shade of wood. Mr. McCardell's replica above is much better IMO.) If the carpenter's replicas were better likenesses of Wakasa-san's original I would consider saving the money to going back to buy the smaller of the two, but even that is a bit bigger than what I'd like. And they're just not that good. What I wish is that the Handmaids of the Holy Eucharist themselves would commission a company like Design Toscano to do a one-time casting - or maybe a 3D laser scan, which would be far less risk of damaging the original - and produce scaled-down replicas in a number of different materials, from inexpensive "designer resin," to different woods, metals, porcelains, etc. As for visiting the Seitai Hoshikai, I can't recommend it highly enough. The experience and the place itself are difficult to put into words. We were there during the week rather than the weekend, but there is daily Mass weekdays at 3pm, which we caught on two consecutive days. It's the Vatican II/Novus Ordo version of the Catholic Mass, but in no way as repulsive as the Novus Ordo circuses one typically witnesses in the US. The gentle but precise cadence of the nuns' recitation of the Mass was as beautiful as music, and the sense of profound respect for the house of God and for the Eucharist itself permeate the people and the place alike. There are missals with Romanized English versions of the Japanese, along with translations in English and Tagalog. We stayed at a large Japanese hot springs spa hotel named Akita Onsen Satomi, which is located within walking distance up Route 15 from the convent. If you zoom out the area map at the bottom of the Seitai Hoshikai page you can see it: [ http://www.seitaihoshikai.com/us/ ] Rooms there were a couple hundred a night so not cheap, but a large buffet breakfast is included, along with full use of the onsen baths. Very little English is spoken at that particular hotel, so knowing some basic Japanese is helpful - but even with my limited Japanese, it wasn't a big problem as long as you understand the rules of Japanese etiquette. Alternately, there are a number of hotels in the center of Akita itself that run from well below $100 a night to double the price of the Satomi onsen, so plenty to choose from. But being able to walk out of the lobby and up the highway a bit and find yourself right there at Yuzawadai, was priceless. If you stay at a downtown hotel there is a bus route that goes up route 15 and has a couple of stops - Yuzawa and Yomogida - right where the turnoffs to the convent are. But you need to be comfortable finding your way around Japanese bus terminals and routes, and we weren't. Beware too that the taxis from the Akita airport into town are incredibly expensive - ours ran up a bill of $75 one way, and it's only an 11-mile trip. The driver may have multiplied the fare by the number in our party, but still a bit of a shock. Anyways, what I would like to find is a much smaller version - maybe 8 or 10 inches tall at the most - but as accurate a replica of Wakasa's original as possible.
Joe, would you be able to send me a high res photo of the entire finished statue from the frontal view? I would love to have a detailed view of this statue to show some people. Please let me know. Thanks and God bless.
