At the small convent of the Handmaids of the Eucharist in Akita, in northern Japan, the deaf sister Agnes Sasagawa received three messages from a wooden statue of Our Lady carved by a Buddhist artist between June and October 1973. The first message was a call to prayer and reparation; the second to fasting; the third a warning of impending divine chastisement upon the world for sin.
Between January 4, 1975 and September 15, 1981, the same statue wept human tears on 101 separate occasions, witnessed by hundreds of pilgrims of every faith and recorded by Japanese television. The tears, blood, and sweat that issued from the statue were sampled and tested by Professor Sagisaka of the University of Akita Forensic Medicine Department, and the substances were found to be of human origin — including blood of types AB, B, and O on different occasions. Sister Agnes herself was cured of her deafness suddenly in 1982. Bishop John Shojiro Ito of Niigata, after seven years of investigation, formally recognised the events on April 22, 1984. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (the future Benedict XVI) as Prefect of the CDF affirmed the bishop's authority to make the judgement.