Mother of the Word
- Lo Palm
- Aug 30
- 6 min read
Today we are going to be talking about Mary, Mother of the Word. Our Lady appeared many times over the course of 8 years beginning in 1981 in Kibeho Rwanda, because of this, she is sometimes also referred to as Our Lady of Kibeho.
The blessed Mother appeared to three high school aged children: Alphonsine Mumureke, Nathalie Mukamazimpaka, and Marie Claire Mukangango.
The apparitions were approved by Bishop Augustine Misago of Gikongoro in 2001.
During her apparitions Our Lady called herself Mother of the Word.
A unique aspect of this set of apparitions is that they actually did not occur to all three of the children at the same time. Our Lady appeared to each of these three kids separately over the course of the 8 years. In fact nearly 30 people in Kibeho claim to have been visited by our Blessed Mother, but it is only these 3 that were Vatican approved because of their accurate foretelling of the Rwandan genocide which would happen years later. The 3 are all kind of lumped together though because our Lady appeared to each of them in such a close span of time in the same area and announcing herself under the same title, Mother of the Word.
So Alphonsine was the first to experience an apparition and very few believed her because she was just a poor average school girl. She got made fun of quite a bit and asked our lady to show herself to others too so that she would be believed. Then sure enough, another child, Nathalie saw an apparition and people were like, “hmmm maybe this is legit.” Visionary Marie Claire however was not convinced- she actually set out to prove that these kids were making it all up, until March 1982 when Our Lady appeared to her!
Alphonsine’s apparitions occurred during school hours at school so she would go into this state of ecstasy- so the other students and teachers would do things to her to see if she was being sincere, and of course she never had any knowledge of these things nor were any marks left on her body.
When describing her, Alphonsine said, she had a voice “soft as air and sweeter than music”. She was a beautiful woman – neither white nor black – floating above the floor in a flowing seamless dress, with a veil that covered her hair. She wore no shoes.
The main theme of her messages is that there is not much time left before the second coming and the final judgment and that all must repent and convert while there is still time left.
In one of her messages our Lady says, “There isn't much time left for preparing for the Last Judgment. [You] must change your lives, renounce sin. Pray and prepare for death and for the end of the world. We must prepare while there is still time.”
She also reiterates a general theme of her messages at Fatima about not wasting any time. She says, “Do not lose time in doing good and praying. There is not much time and Jesus will come."
One of the things Our Lady expressed to the children was that whenever she appears to a certain place or to a certain person, she is speaking not only to them, but to the whole world, and that the revelations of apparitions are to be applied to the entire community of the faithful. Her messages are for the whole world and even people of future times.
At the time of her appearances, Kibeho was a peaceful town. The visitations took place 13 years before the brutal genocide of over one million people in Rwanda. The messages from Our Lady to the three young visionaries included a foretelling of the impending tragedy and even a vision of one of the sites of one of the massacres to Alphonsine. Our Lady urged the visionaries to relay their messages to government officials. Which I find so interesting, that Our Lady wanted the government officials to be approached by school aged children with messages of national importance. What a beautiful reminder of the childlike disposition we are all called to have in the Kingdom of the Lord.
Our Mother of the Word, has brought about many conversions and surviving Rwandans also claim to have received protection from Our Lady during the genocide. One survivor, Immaculée Ilibagiza, clung to the rosary in her bathroom as her entire family was murdered outside. She has now dedicated her life to spreading the messages of our Lady of Kibeho to the whole world. In one of her talks, Imaccule says, “Anyone who goes through this world goes through suffering. But it’s not that God wants us to suffer. It’s not that Our Lady wants us to suffer. What she came to tell us is … ‘let me help you, let me give you a hand to lead you through this suffering. Let me give you a prayer to hold on to so that you can work through the suffering of this world.’”
Immaculee said that she spent every day praying the rosary, eventually finding the strength to forgive even before she left the bathroom. After the genocide, she extended that forgiveness in person to the leader of the gang that killed her family.
Another request Our Lady makes during the apparitions is for all to pray the rosary daily. She also asks for a renewal of the Seven Sorrows Devotion. She promised that the recitation of this rosary in conjunction with (not in place of) the traditional rosary would result in forgiveness of our sins as well as the understanding of why we commit such sins, so we can avoid the snares of the devil and fill our hearts with the love of God. What’s neat is that this devotion is a centuries old devotion that very few knew about and Our Lady taught it to Marie Claire during one of her apparitions. Marie Claire had never heard of it before but when she explained it, it was an exact description of the original devotion.
The feast day of our Mother of the Word is November 28th and the whole month of November is now National Black Catholic History Month.
There is now a shrine in Kibeho to Our Lady of Kibeho, Mother of the Word and Our Lady of Sorrows, due to the importance of this devotion in the apparitions. The shrine, like all shrines, is a place of pilgrimage for many and is also a rallying point for those who were dispersed by the genocide.
Marie Claire was killed in the Rwandan genocide and Nathalie and Alphonsine were forced to flee the country.
Alphonsine is now a nun in the order of Saint Claire in Abidjan.
Nathalie has since returned to Kibeho and now works for the shrine, spending all of her time welcoming, meeting, and praying with pilgrims, assisting them on their pilgrimages.
The reason behind the apparitions of Kibeho could be summed up in these words of Alphonsine, “The world is reaching its end. Jesus’ return is very near. The Queen of Angels comes to counsel us as to how we are to prepare for her Son’s arrival. We must suffer with Jesus, pray, and be apostles in order to prepare ourselves for His coming.”
Prayer to Our Lady of Kibeho
Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Word, Mother of all those who believe in Him and who welcome Him into their lives, we are here before you to contemplate you. We believe that you are amongst us, like a mother in the midst of her children, even though we do not see you with our bodily eyes.
We bless you, the sure way that leads us to Jesus the Savior, for all the favors which you endlessly pour out upon us, especially that, in your meekness, you were gracious enough to appear miraculously in Kibeho, just when our world needed it most. Grant us always the light and strength necessary to accept, will all seriousness, your call to us to be converted, to repent, and to live according to your Son’s Gospel. Teach us how to pray with sincerity, and to love one another as He loved us, so that, just as you have requested, we may always be beautiful flowers diffusing their pleasant fragrance everywhere and upon everyone. Holy Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows, teach us to understand the value of the cross in our lives, so that whatever is still lacking to the sufferings of Christ we may fill up in our own bodies for His mystical Body, which is the Church. And, when our pilgrimage on this earth comes to an end, may we live eternally with you in the kingdom of Heaven. Amen.
Watch in video form here:
Pray the Seven Sorrows Devotion here:
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