Our Lady
Our Lady of Kibeho (Mother of the Word)
Title of the Blessed Virgin Mary · Feast November 28 · Rwanda
Mary venerated at Kibeho in Rwanda under the name Nyina wa Jambo, Mother of the Word, at the only Marian apparition site in Africa whose events have been recognised by the local bishop.
Origin
Between 1981 and 1983 several young people at Kibeho, in the south of Rwanda, reported that the Blessed Virgin appeared to them, calling herself Nyina wa Jambo, Mother of the Word, and calling for prayer, penance and conversion. The Bishop of Gikongoro authorised public devotion at the site in 1988 and on 29 June 2001 declared that the apparitions to three of the visionaries — Alphonsine Mumureke, Nathalie Mukamazimpaka and Marie Claire Mukangango — could be held as authentic. That judgement concerns those three alone, and not every claim ever made at Kibeho. The shrine is dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows, and 28 November, the anniversary of the first reported apparition, is kept there.
Why it matters
The name given at Kibeho is doctrinal: Mother of the Word says the same thing as Theotokos, that the child she bore is the eternal Word made flesh. Its message — prayer, penance, conversion of heart, sorrow over the wounds of the world — adds nothing to the deposit of faith and is not required to be believed, since even approved private revelation, as the Church teaches, only helps the faithful live the public revelation given once for all in Christ.
Feast day
November 28
Region
Rwanda
Iconography notes
The shrine statue shows the Virgin standing with hands open and lowered, in blue and white, without the crown and sceptre of European royal imagery. The Rosary of the Seven Sorrows, long prayed in Rwanda and closely associated with the shrine, supplies the devotional setting for the title Mother of the Word.
Aliases
- Nyina wa Jambo
- Mother of the Word
- Our Lady of Sorrows of Kibeho
Content subtype
devotional_title
Associated prayers
hail-mary
sub-tuum-praesidium
litany-of-the-blessed-virgin-mary