Marian devotions & apparitions
A small library of writeups on Marian devotions throughout the world — Our Lady of Kibeho in Rwanda, Our Lady of Africa in Algiers, and Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico. More will be added over time.
- Where
- Kibeho, Rwanda
- Feast
- November 28
Our Lady of Kibeho
On November 28, 1981, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared at the Kibeho College for Girls in southern Rwanda. The first visionary, Alphonsine Mumureke, was joined in the following months by Nathalie Mukamazimpaka and Marie Claire Mukangango. To these three young women — and through them, to the whole world — Our Lady identified herself in Kinyarwanda as Nyina wa Jambo, the Mother of the Word.
She called the people of Rwanda, and through them all of us, to conversion of heart, to deep and sincere prayer, to fasting, to repentance for sin, and especially to a renewed love of the Holy Rosary and the Seven Sorrows of Mary. She warned, with sorrow, of a great calamity to come if hearts did not turn back to God — words that many would later remember in the bitter aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
On June 29, 2001, the local bishop, with the approval of the Holy See, formally recognized the apparitions of Our Lady to the three principal visionaries as authentic. To this day, Kibeho is the only Marian apparition site on the African continent officially recognized by the Catholic Church.
Our Lady of Kibeho, Mother of the Word — pray for us.
- Where
- Algiers, Algeria
- Feast
- April 30
Our Lady of Africa
On a hilltop overlooking the Bay of Algiers stands the Basilica of Notre-Dame d’Afrique — Our Lady of Africa. Its foundation was laid in 1858, and the basilica was consecrated in 1872, the work of Cardinal Charles Lavigerie and the missionary congregation he founded, the Society of the Missionaries of Africa (the “White Fathers”).
Inside, a quiet bronze statue of Our Lady has received the prayers of pilgrims for over a century and a half. Above the altar is one of the most beautiful inscriptions in Catholic devotion: “Notre Dame d’Afrique, priez pour nous et pour les musulmans” — “Our Lady of Africa, pray for us and for the Muslims.” A mother does not divide her children.
The title and the shrine together hold up a particular intention: that the Mother of God would gather all the peoples of Africa, Christian and Muslim alike, under her mantle, and lead each one to her Son.
Our Lady of Africa, pray for us and for all who live on this continent.
- Where
- Tepeyac Hill, Mexico City
- Feast
- December 12
Our Lady of Guadalupe
Between December 9 and 12, 1531, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared four times to a humble Nahua convert, Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, on the hill of Tepeyac just north of Mexico City. Speaking to him in his native Nahuatl, she called herself the perfect ever-Virgin Holy Mary, Mother of the true God by whom we live, and asked that a church be built on that hill where she could show her love, compassion, and protection to all who would come to her.
When the bishop asked for a sign, Our Lady sent Juan Diego up the hill in the cold of December and there he found Castilian roses blooming where only cactus and rock should grow. He gathered them into his tilma — a rough cactus-fiber cloak — and carried them down. When he opened the tilma before the bishop, the roses fell to the floor and on the cloth itself was a miraculous image of Our Lady: a young, dark-skinned, expectant mother, clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, her hands joined in prayer.
In the years that followed, some nine million indigenous people across Mexico were baptized into the Catholic faith. The tilma, which should have crumbled to dust within twenty years, has now hung for nearly five centuries in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City. In 1945, Pope Pius XII proclaimed her Patroness of the Americas, and in 1999 Saint John Paul II named her Mother and Star of the New Evangelization.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother of the Americas — pray for us.