According to the tradition, in a Marian apparition to Lady Richeldis, the Blessed Virgin Mary fetched Richeldis’ soul from England to Nazareth during a religious ecstasy to show the house where the Holy Family once lived and in which the Annunciation of Archangel Gabriel occurred.
Richeldis was given the task of building a replica house in her village, in England. The building came to be known as the "Holy House", and later became both a shrine and a focus of pilgrimage to Walsingham.

According to tradition, Mary appeared to Juan Diego, who was an Aztec convert to Christianity, on December 9 and again on December 12, 1531.
During her first apparition she requested that a shrine to her be built on the spot where she appeared, Tepeyac Hill (now in a suburb of Mexico City). The bishop demanded a sign before he would approve construction of a church, however.
Mary then appeared a second time to Juan Diego and ordered him to collect roses. In a second audience with the bishop, Juan Diego opened his cloak, letting dozens of roses fall to the floor and revealing the image of Mary imprinted on the inside of the cloak—the image that is now venerated in the Basilica of Guadalupe.
Our Lady appeared 4 times to Juan Diego and 1 time to his uncle whom she healed.

In May of 1664 Our Lady appeared to a 17-year-old shepherdess called Benedicta in the small village of Saint-Etienne-le-Laus.
The Lady came back every day for four months. The Blessed Mother continued these appearances for 54 years. For those who criticize the continuing apparitions at Medjugorje, this might give them pause. These apparitions appear not to have drawn much attention over the years until around the 20th century when word of them began to spread outside of France.
A small chapel was built near where Mary appeared. Mary revealed herself in Laus as “the Reconciler and Refuge of Sinners”, and therefore she offered signs to convince the of the need to repent. She told Benedicta that the oil from the sanctuary lamp would work miracles with the infirm if they received the anointing with faith in her intercession.
Benedicta encouraged people to pray for sinners and to receive the sacrament of Penance frequently. Mary asked Benedicta to admonish women and girls about living lives of scandal, especially those who commit abortion, the unjust wealthy and the perverse.
She also encouraged priests and religious to be faithful to their vows.”Between 1669 and 1679, Benedicta received five visions of the suffering Christ. On a Friday in July of 1673, the suffering Jesus told her: “My daughter, I show myself in this state so that you can participate in my Passion.”
Benedicta received Communion on Christmas Day 1718. Three days later she made a confession, received the last rites and around 8:00 p.m. said goodbye to those around her. Benedicta then kissed a crucifix and passed away peacefully.
The local Bishop approved these apparitions the following year, but it was not until May 4, 2008 that Laus was officially given Shrine status.
On that date, Bishop Jean-Michel de Falco of Gap officially approved the apparitions in the presence of Cardinals and representatives of the Vatican: “I recognize the supernatural origin of the apparitions and the events and words experienced and narrated by Benedicta Rencurel. I encourage all of the faithful to come and pray and seek spiritual renewal at this shrine.”

In 1830, Saint Catherine Labouré, a Daughter of Charity nun, was woken in the night by a beautiful child bringing this message: “Sister Labouré, come to the chapel; the Blessed Virgin is waiting for you.” The nun arrived at the chapel and found it ablaze with lights.
Kneeling at the communion rail, she heard rustling silk and looked up to see the Blessed V irgin Mary sitting in a chair. Catherine approached the figure, knelt, and rested her hands in the Virgin’s lap. Mary spoke to Catherine about the mission God was charging her with and promised that “Graces will be shed on all, great and little, especially upon those who seek them.”
Four months later, Catherine received another vision. Here are Catherine’s words describing the account: “I perceived the Blessed Virgin standing near St. Joseph's picture. Her height was medium and Her countenance, indescribably beautiful…Her feet rested upon a globe, or rather one half of a globe, for that was all that could be seen. Her hands which were on a level with Her waist, held in an easy manner another globe, a figure of the world. Her eyes were raised to Heaven, and Her countenance beamed with light as She offered the globe to Our Lord.
"As I was busy contemplating Her, the Blessed Virgin fixed Her eyes upon me, and a voice said in the depths of my heart: ' This globe which you see represents the whole world, especially France, and each person in particular.'
"There now formed around the Blessed Virgin a frame rather oval in shape on which were written in letters of gold these words: ' O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee.'
Then a voice said to me: ' Have a medal struck upon this model. All those who wear it, when it is blessed, will receive great graces especially if they wear it round the neck. Those who repeat this prayer with devotion will be in a special manner under the protection of the Mother of God. Graces will be abundantly bestowed upon those who have confidence.'
The medal is now called the Miraculous Medal because of the large number of miracles, conversions, cures, and acts of protection attributed to Our Lady's intercession for those who wore it.

La Salette, a French town located in the Alps, was the place at which a Marian apparition occurred in the nineteenth century. On September 19, 1846, Maximin Giraud (eleven years old) and Melanie Calvat (fourteen years old) experienced an encounter with what they called a "Beautiful Lady."
The two children were grazing sheep at La Salette, when they saw that this woman was seated and was crying. Upon seeing them, the "Lady" stood up and while crying, spoke in French and in the local dialect. After that, the woman walked up a steep path and vanished into a bright light.
According to the children, the light emanated from a crucifix on the woman's chest. Soon after this event, word spread, and pilgrims crowded the rough paths leading up to the site where the apparition occurred.
There soon arose, a basilica and the first units for lodging. In 1851, the local bishop Bruillard of Grenoble affirmed the supernatural character of the apparition of La Salette.
He based his decision upon a thorough inquiry of the event, complete with interviews of witnesses, and an examination of the apparition's message to the seers. Bishop Bruillard wished to encourage the faith expression (prayer and devotion) practiced by pilgrims to La Salette.
The message of the visionaries of La Salette focuses on the conversion of all humanity to Christ. The "Beautiful Lady" of La Salette implores all people who would listen to "be reconciled to God."
This conversion requires daily prayer and frequent reception of the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist. The woman (the Virgin Mary) was in tears because she recognized the tremendous responsibility that free will places upon each person to lead a moral life and follow God's will.
The message of La Salette traces the "narrow road that leads to life" (Matthew 7:14), like the steep and narrow path the "Beautiful Lady" climbed before melting away in the light.

Between February 11 and July 16, 1858, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared eighteen times to fourteen-year-old Bernadette Soubirous in that small town located in the foothills of the Pyrenee mountains of southern France.
Bernadette was born on January 7, 1844, the eldest of six children of Francis Soubirous and Louise Caserot. She was a delicate girl who suffered from asthma and cholera. She could neither read nor write and spoke only the Occitan dialect of her area. Her family was sinking into poverty, and the day the first apparition took place she went to gather firewood along the bank of the River Gave to help her mother.
Her attention was drawn to the noise of rustling bushes near the Grotto of Massabielle, from the French vieille masse meaning ancient mass. Then Bernadette saw a beautiful young girl of sixteen or seventeen. She described this girl as "dressed in a white robe, girded at the waist with a blue ribbon. She wore upon her head a white veil which gave just a glimpse of hair. Her feet were bare but covered by the last folds of her robe and a yellow rose was upon each of them. She held on her right arm a rosary of white beads with a chain of gold shining like the two roses on her feet."
Bernadette knelt and began to pray the rosary. At the end of the five decades the woman smiled and disappeared. The young visionary returned and on February 18 Our Lady began her message telling young Bernadette, "I do not promise to make you happy in this life but in the next."
On February 24, Mary asked for penance and prayer for the conversion of sinners and the following day, she instructed Bernadette to dig the ground near the grotto. From that a spring came forth which to this day is used for the bath by pilgrims to Lourdes.
At the apparition of March 2, Bernadette was instructed by Our Lady to "tell the priests that people should come here in procession and that a chapel should be built on the site."
On the Feast of the Annunciation, March 25, the Blessed Virgin told Bernadette in the dialect of Lourdes, " I am the Immaculate Conception." This dogma had been defined by Pope Pius IX just a few years earlier on December 8, 1854.

Our Lady appeared there in the period of June 27 to September 16, 1877 to two children, Justina Schaffrinski and Barbara Samulowski. Mary's message stressed the importance of the rosary.
Pilgrimages ensued bringing together up to two thousand people thrice a day, on Sundays up to ten thousand pilgrims, even fifty thousand on the last day of the apparitions (September 16, when a statue of Mary was blessed and put in the small chapel).
Mary presented herself as the Immaculate Conception. The recognition of this apparition, which yielded a number of conversions and healings, was not granted until 1977. This happened in the presence of the future pope, John Paul II. The Church was designated as a Basilica Minor by Pope Paul VI in 1970.

On the evening of the 21st of August 1879, a heavenly Apparition occurred at the gable wall of the Parish Church when Our Lady appeared, in the company of St. Joseph and St. John the Evangelist.
Unique to the Knock Apparition was appearance of a Lamb standing before a Cross on a plain altar and surrounded by angels. The Apparition lasted for about two hours and 15 official witnesses gave their testimonies to a Commission of Enquiry in October of that year.

Commission of Enquiry
On 8 October 1879, Archbishop Mac Hale of Tuam set up an ecclesiastical Commission of Enquiry to investigate the Apparition.
It consisted of Canon Ulick Burke, PP Claremorris, Canon James Waldron of Ballyhaunis, Archdeacon Cavanagh, PP, Knock and 6 local curates. The testimonies of all 15 official witnesses to the Apparition were found to be trustworthy and satisfactory.

May 13 marks the anniversary of the first of six apparitions of the Virgin Mary to three shepherd children of Fátima, Portugal.
Lucia dos Santos (aged 9) and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto (aged 8 and 6, respectively) were tending sheep in central Portugal in 1917 when they had a vision of a woman surrounded by light who identified herself as the Lady of the Rosary. She exhorted them to pray the rosary for world peace and, over the course of her six apparitions, gave the children three "secrets."
She promised a miracle in October, and on the 13th of that month a crowd of perhaps 70,000 people witnessed a "miraculous solar phenomenon," in which the Sun appeared to fall toward Earth.
After initially questioning the authenticity of the children's visions, the Vatican accepted them as appearances of the Virgin Mary (Our Lady of the Holy Rosary of Fátima), and Fátima became the location of one of the greatest Marian shrines in the world, visited by thousands of pilgrims each year.

The young people who claimed to have seen the apparitions were Fernande (15), Gilberte (13), and Albert (11), children of Hector and Marie-Louise Perpète Voisin. Hector Voisin was a railway clerk. With them were Andrée (14) and Gilberte (9) Degeimbre, daughters of Degeimbre, a farmer's widow.
On the evening of 29 November 1932, four of the children walked to a school conducted by the Sisters of Christian Doctrine to meet Gilberte Voisin and walk home with her.
When they reached the school, Albert pointed out a lady dressed in a long white robe, near a railroad viaduct just past the school. The other children reported seeing her as well.
Over the next several weeks, they saw the lady thirty-two more times, generally in the garden of the convent-school. The final apparition was on 3 January 1933 The children reported that the lady requested that a chapel be built at the site and stated that "I am the Immaculate Virgin".
She also desired for pilgrims to come to the site and asked the children (and everyone) to "pray, pray, pray" and, in one of the last visions, revealed her "Golden Heart".
In the final vision, the Lady reportedly asked one of the children, Fernande, "Do you love My Son?" and she replied, "Yes". She then asked her "Do you love Me?" and Fernande again answered, "Yes". The Lady then stated, "Then sacrifice yourself for me" and bade them farewell before the child could reply.
In 1935, Bishop Thomas-Louis Heylan of the Belgian regional diocese of Namur formed a commission to investigate the apparitions.
Eight years later, in 1943, his successor, Bishop André-Marie Charue, authorized public devotion to the title “Our Lady of Beauraing,” and the apparition received recognition as authentic in 1949.
Every year on Nov. 29, Mary is celebrated under the title “Our Lady of Beauraing,” also known as the “Virgin with the Golden Heart.”

In the winter of 1933, a young girl named Mariette reported that the Virgin Mary appeared to her on eight separate occasions. Mariette was 11 years old and came from a poor, lapsed-Catholic family. The Virgin spoke only briefly during her apparitions, but encouraged the girl to pray and led her to a spring with healing powers.
Mariette first saw Our Lady of Banneux through her kitchen window before supper on Sunday, January 15, 1933. She saw a glowing figure standing motionless near the vegetable garden, dressed in white with a bright blue sash. The figure held a rosary and was smiling at Mariette. The young girl asked to go outside, but her mother feared the girl's vision might be a ghost and refused to allow it. When Mariette returned to the window, the lady had vanished.
Three days later, on January 18, Mariette knelt on the frozen ground where she had seen the figure and began praying the rosary. A figure appeared in the distant sky, then came closer and closer until she was only a few feet away. The lady led Mariette to a spring, then spoke for the first time, saying: "Plunge your hands into the water. This spring is reserved for me." Then she withdrew, promising to return.
On January 19, the lady appeared for a third time. Mariette asked her who she was, and she replied, "I am the Virgin of the Poor." The Virgin again led Mariette to the spring, and said, "This is reserved for all nations, for the sick."
During the fourth apparition, on January 20, Mariette asked, "What do you want, beautiful Lady?" The Virgin replied she would like a little chapel built and made the sign of the cross.
At the fifth apparition (February 11), the Virgin took Mariette to the spring and said, "I come to alleviate suffering."
The sixth time she appeared (February 15), the Virgin said, "Believe in me, I will believe in you," and the seventh time (February 20) she said, "Pray hard."
The eighth and final apparition occurred on Thursday, March 2, 1933. The Virgin said, "I am the mother of the Savior, Mother of God" and repeated, "Pray hard."
After the apparitions, many healing miracles associated with the spring at Banneux were reported. The site of the apparitions at Banneux was officially approved by the Catholic Church in 1949.

On June 12, 1973, Sr. Agnes Sasagawa of the Handmaids of the Eucharist began receiving heavenly visions in a convent located in Akita, Japan.
At first she saw angelic beings worshiping the Eucharist, but then on July 6, 1973, Sasagawa saw a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary speak to her, relaying a powerful message similar to what the three shepherd children received in Fatima, Portugal.
The statue soon after began to bleed and tears started to flow down her cheeks. Around 2,000 people witnessed the tears coming from the statue and the liquid was gathered and sent to a laboratory for testing. A professor from the Akita University Department of Biochemistry studied the liquid, as well as a non-Christian forensic specialist, Dr. Kaoru Sagisaka. The blood was confirmed to be of human origin, as were the tears.
After a lengthy investigation, the local bishop, John Shoojiroo Ito of Niigata, approved the apparition to be of supernatural origin and “worthy of belief.” The Vatican has not made an official statement, leaving it up to the local bishop’s discretion.
The primary message of Our Lady, given to Sr. Agnes Sasagawa, was similar in content to the apparitions at Fatima. The messages focused on praying the Rosary and doing penance for the sins of humanity in order to secure peace for the world. The Rosary was seen as the key to prevent any future calamities from happening.
She also revealed a troubling message similar to Our Lady of Fatima, explaining a period of trial that the Church would endure.
The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres … churches and altars sacked; the Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord … Pray very much the prayers of the Rosary. I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach. Those who place their confidence in me will be saved.
Our Lady of Akita, as at Fatima, warns the world of a life divorced from God and what harm that can do even in the Church. Yet, even through a great crisis of faith, it is prayer, penance and trust that will save humanity.
While these revelations are technically “private revelations” and we are not bound to believe in them, the message is not much different than any other prophetic message throughout history. God desires that we turn back to him and is ready to receive us.
However, we must make the effort to turn away from our lives of sin, run towards God and bring with us as many people as possible.

There is only one Vatican-approved Marian apparition that took place on the African continent: Our Lady of Kibeho.
Our Lady first appeared in Kibeho on Nov. 28, 1981.
The apparitions at Kibeho were officially recognized by the church through the local bishop on June 29, 2001, following twenty years of investigation by two commissions, one theological and the other medical. Only the apparitions, which were reported between 1981 and 1989, to three people were recognized: Alphonsine Mumureke, Nathalie Mukamazimpaka and Marie Claire Mukangango.
Mary presented herself to them as Nyina wa Jambo, or Mother of the Word. Among the apparitions reported were visions in 1982 of sights of rivers of blood, which some later saw as an ominous foreshadowing of the Rwandan genocide. Kibeho was the site of an estimated twenty-five thousand people killed in April 1994 during the Rwandan genocide.
Some were murdered in the same school where the apparitions had occurred. Genocide took place between April 6 and mid-July 1994. According to estimates from February 2008, the death toll was over 1,074,000. Other sources put the number at between 500,000 and 1,000,000 dead.
The last apparition to the visionary Alphonsina was on November 28, 1989.