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On Sunday, August 17, the Central Association of the Miraculous Medal (CAMM) will dedicate the first official Shrine to Our Lady of Kibeho in the United States. Visitors can visit this Shrine to Mary at the Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Philadelphia.
Between 1981 and 1989, Mary appeared to three Rwandan girls, introducing herself as “Mother of the Word” and calling for conversion and repentance. In her apparitions, she touched on suffering as a way to holiness and warned against divisions among their people.
The girls had what many see as prophetic visions of the genocide that would cause so much devastation in Rwanda in 1994.
Mary is said to have told them, “The world is in rebellion against GOD. Many sins are being committed. There is no love and no peace. If you do not repent and convert your hearts, you will all fall into an abyss."
So far, the apparitions of Our Lady of Kibeho are the only Vatican-approved apparitions in Africa. Kibeho itself is now a pilgrimage site for people from Rwanda, across Africa, and beyond.
Our Lady of Kibeho told one of the visionaries, “When I show myself to someone and talk to them, I want to turn to the whole world. If I am turning to a parish of Kibeho, it does not mean that I am concerned only for Kibeho or for the Diocese of Butare or for Rwanda, or for the whole of Africa. I am concerned with and turning to the whole world.”
How fitting, then, that devotion to Our Lady of Kibeho is spreading across the ocean to the United States.
Our Lady of Kibeho in Philadelphia
“The shrine was a collaboration among the Central Association of the Miraculous Medal, the Martin de Porres Foundation, and designer Martin Rambusch,” CAMM CEO Mary Jo Timlin-Hoag explains.
“Our Lady of Kibeho is a mosaic. The shape of Mary and the position of her hands are taken directly from descriptions of the Kibeho apparition. We also included the flowers. The face of Our Lady of Kibeho in our mosaic was designed by the Martin de Porres Foundation and Martin Rambusch.”
CAMM shared that the Shrine was funded by Willa Stokes, a local Black Catholic. “The Foundation wanted to use the funds in a way that would celebrate and honor the importance of Black Catholic spirituality in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and the universality of the Catholic Church in a permanent and visible way,” they said.
Basilica Shrine Rector Fr. John Kettelberger, CM, said the shrine is a place to "see Our Blessed Mother as they see themselves."
"Our Lady feels the pain of all who come to her, and she invites us into her loving arms, so that we do not suffer alone," he reflected.
This new shrine invites those in the United States to join with brothers and sisters in Africa in devotion to Our Lady of Kibeho.
Here is an official prayer on the Kibeho Sanctuary in Rwanda,
You are a sure path, which leads us to Jesus the Saviour.
We bless you for all the good things that you continue to give us,
especially, because you consented to appear in a miraculous way at Kibeho
at the time when our world needed you so much.
