Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa

Our Lady of Akita
carved wood statue at Our Lady of Akita Shrine
Location	Yuzawadai, Akita Prefecture, Japan
Date	1973 - 1979
Witness	Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa
Type	Marian apparition
Shrine	Our Lady of Akita Shrine Redemptoris Mater at the convent of the Seitai Hoshikai Handmaids of the Holy Eucharist at Yuzawadai

Coordinates: 39°45′35″N 140°08′59″E / 39.7596°N 140.1497°E / 39.7596; 140.1497

Our Lady of Akita is the Roman Catholic title of the Blessed Virgin Mary associated with a wooden statue venerated by Japanese faithful who hold it to be miraculous. The image is known due to the Marian apparitions reported in 1973 by Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa in the remote area of Yuzawadai, an outskirt of Akita, Japan. The messages emphasize prayer (especially recitation of the Holy Rosary) and penance in combination with cryptic visions prophesying sacerdotal persecution and heresy within the Catholic Church.

The apparitions were unusual in that the weeping statue of the Virgin Mary was broadcast on Japanese national television, and gained further notoriety with the sudden healing of hearing impairment experienced by Sasagawa after the apparitions. The image also became affiliated with the devotion to Our Lady of All Nations venerated in Amsterdam, from which the image shares close similarities.

The local ordinary of the convent, John Shojiro Ito, bishop of Niigata, authorized "the veneration of the Holy Mother of Akita," within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Niigata in a 1984 pastoral letter, "while awaiting" a "definitive judgment on this matter" pronounced by the Holy See.