This morning I was praying and looked at my icon of the Blessed Mother, Our Lady of Kibeho. As you may know, I have developed a devotion to this apparition of Our Lady, and was reminded of the date. I checked my calendar, and the 30th anniversary of her first appearance to the visionaries of Kibeho, Rwanda is on November 28, 2021, which is also the First Sunday of Advent. When she appeared to the visionaries, she called herself Nyina Wa Jambo, or Mother of the Word.
I urge all of you and your families and friends to join me starting today in doing a Novena to Our Lady of Kibeho. I could not find an existing novena but I did find this prayer on the Kibeho Shrine’s website by Bishop Augustin Misago, who investigated and approved of the apparitions, which I will be using:
“Prayer to our Lady of Kibeho (N° 2)
Lord our God,
we thank you for the good things which you always give,
and your infinite goodness in sending us the Blessed Virgin Mary,
mother of the Word so that she may come to bring us back to the good path
that Jesus Christ your Son showed us.
She asked us to repent,
to confess our sins and to pray without hypocrisy.
However we have disobeyed,
hardened our hearts, and this has been the source of our misfortune.
Thus, Lord our God, we beseech you through Jesus Christ your Son,
to have mercy on us and forgive us.
Lord, have mercy on us (3 times while striking the chest)
And you our mother,
Virgin Marie mother of the Word,
we thank you for having accomplished the mission of God,
for your patience toward us in suffering
by shedding lots of tears
when you saw that we refused to receive the message that you brought.
But, from this time, we commit ourselves
to be faithful children by doing all that the Lord tells us,
by following the advice that you gave us here at Kibeho,
and by fortifying the love to transform ourselves
into beautiful flowers whose scent is pleasant everywhere for everyone.
Virgin Mary, Mother of the Word, pray for us!”
In addition to the Novena prayer, I am going to say a Rosary as well as the Seven Sorrows Rosary, which Our Lady instructed the visionaries to pray, each day.
If you want to know more about Our Lady of Kibeho, I urge you to check out this link to the Marian Fathers who have a mission near the Shrine, or watch this documentary.