Fr. Richard Heilman confirms the Akita story's source

On October 27th, when WQPH posted the story about the new message from Sr. Agnes Sasagawa of Our Lady of Akita, many Catholic commentors offered interpretations of the message, including Fr. Richard Heilman of RomanCatholicMan.com, who co-hosts Grace Force with Doug Barry.

WQPH raised questions to our source about the message but we were not able to obtain clarifications for the meaning of the message “put on ashes and pray for a repentant rosary every day.”

On November 3rd, Fr. Heilman commented:

I believe the first part, “Put on ashes,” is not meant that we are, literally, to walk around with ashes on. But, is meant to place ourselves in the same penitential mode we do as we begin Lent every year. In other words, a state of mortification and humility.

The second part, “pray for a repentant rosary every day,” is best translated as pray a rosary for repentance and reparation every day. Many of us prayed in this way shortly after the sex abuse crisis broke in the Church, in August of 2018.

Father Richard Heilman / The Roman Catholic Man

Fr. Heilman went on to offer his personal plans in response to the new message:

I am planning to add very strict fasting to my daily rosary that will be prayed in reparation for all of the sins against the will of God in our times. Like Nineveh, I will do this for 40 days.

True to Father’s instincts, and noticed by other commenters online, in fact the readings for Friday, November 15th, 40 days after Sr. Agnes received the new message on October 6th, were those were Luke 17:26-37, in which Christ refers to the days of Noah:

Friday, Nov. 15, 2019 — Gospel reading… pic.twitter.com/G1t4ZaPlu4

— Catholic Bellator (@t_o_m_m_m_y) November 15, 2019

After Fr. Heilman’s commentary, he relayed on episode 14 of Grace Force that he was contacted by our source, or someone of a similar position, who confirmed to him that his interpretation of the message was a good one.

He also relayed another 40 day marker, which is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe (December 12th), following November 3rd, when the story went viral and Father Heilman decided to go with the story.

Please find the video episode linked below, along with WQPH’s rush transcript of the Akita commentary made for your convenience…

New Warnings from Heaven: Grace Force Episode 14

WQPH’s rush transcript of Grace Force episode 14’s Akita commentary (starting around 7:50)

Father Heilman: …I think all along, as we’re watching just this pure evil going on in the culture right now, I mean, people are like dear in the headlights, like, “what’s going on?”

Every day there seems to be a new depth of pure evil going on in the world right now, so I think a lot of people are shocked.

And I’ve noticed to through all of this that a lot of people were refering to that message in 1973 and wondering if maybe now is the time, and here in the middle of that when people are looking even more intently at the 1973 message word gets out that sister Agnes has this message given to her now, 40 years later.

So I think it just rings true with a lot of people. They find it very credible, very believable and sold.

I think that’s why people are leaning into this right now and wondering, OK, what what what’s going on? What are we supposed to do with you? And in her message itself was, she said, “Pray for a repentance Rosary.”

Then I think the other one was to do acts of penance as well, but pray for repentant Rosary.

What does that mean? Here’s the full message.

Put on ashes and pray for a repentant rosary every day.

I said, I don’t think we’re supposed to actually put on ashes that when we go in the morning and walk around with ashes all day long. I said, that’s more akin to when we start lent. We put on ashes to begin that season that that that that time of repentance during Lent and I think that’s what what sister is asking.

And then what about “pray for a repentant Rosary.”

Well, you know, there’s a lot of reports were coming in that the translation from the Japanese was a little broken in that.

And I said, you know what I really think that means is that pray a rosary for repentance or for reparation

Well lo and behold, I get a call couple days ago from a lovely woman, and she says, “Father, I just feel like the Lord’s telling me to reach out to you.” And then she She told me what her position is. And she actually happens to be very good friends with those that care for Sister Agnes, and they’re in almost daily contact with each other, and they wanted to let me know she’s told me some other things, but they wanted to let me know that my interpretation was correct.

That it’s, it’s to pray a rosary for reparation.

So we started doing that right away when this message started to become more viral and people started to hear more about it, which I actually mark is right around November 3rd.

That’s when I put a call out to everyone. I said, you know, let’s do this.

And then I counted the days forward from November 3rd, and going with that whole 40 days thing, I said this is our Nineveh moment. We have to do the Nineveh thing.

And remember, that was when Jonah went to Nineveh, and God had sent him to warn them to repent or He’ll bring His punishment.

And what did they do? They put on ashes, and they became very humble, and they mortified themselves. They went into prayers of reparation.

And so that’s what that’s what um, I believe is happening right now is that this is our Nineveh moment. We’re doing the Nineveh thing right now.

And and so if you count 40 days out from November 3rd, lo and behold, it lands on Our Lady of Guadalupe.

And so we added that prayer. We are praying this rosary for reparation were asking people to do a greater fasts.

I’ve been doing very strict fasts since we got this, I’m taking this very seriously, and we’re trying to do our best to call out to God as the people of Nineveh did, because, you know, it could be that our time is short and her message from 1973 might be more imminent.

Doug Barry: And also father, we need to make mention, too, that the day that she reportedly received this from the Angel to put on ashes and to pray for a repentant rosary every day, she does mention to do it every day, was on October 6th, which is the first day of the now famous or infamous Amazon Synod.

End of partial transcript

[Note: WQPH received the story at the close of the Amazon Synod with the urgent request to get the message out. We did not hold on the story.]