The Five First Saturdays devotion is one of the principal points of the Fatima message. It centers on the urgent need for mankind to offer reparation and expiate for the many injuries that the Immaculate Heart of Mary suffers from the hands of both impious and indifferent men.
On the First Saturday during 5 Consecutive Months, the Devotion consists of:
1. Going to Confession,
2. Receiving the Sacrament of Holy Communion,
3. Saying five decades of the Rosary,
4. Meditating for 15 minutes on the mysteries of the Rosary.
2. Receiving the Sacrament of Holy Communion,
3. Saying five decades of the Rosary,
4. Meditating for 15 minutes on the mysteries of the Rosary.
All this offered in REPARATION for the sins of blasphemy and ingratitude committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
History
During the third apparition on July 13, 1917, Our Lady revealed that she would come to ask for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart and for the Communion of Reparation of the Five First Saturdays. Consequently, she asked for the devotion in 1925 and the consecration in 1929.
While staying at the House of the Dorothean Sister in Pontevedra, Portugal, Sister Lucia received a vision on December 10, 1925 where the Blessed Mother appeared alongside a Boy who stood over a luminous cloud. Our Lady rested one hand on the Boy’s shoulder while she held on the other hand a heart pierced with thorns around it.
Sister Lucia heard the Boy say, "Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother which is covered with thorns with which ingrate men pierce it at every moment with no one to make an act of reparation to pull them out."
Our Lady expressed her request in the following words,
"See, my daughter, My Heart surrounded with thorns with which ingrates pierce me at every moment with blasphemies and ingratitude. You, at least, make sure to console me and announce that all those who for five months, on the first Saturdays, go to confession, receive Communion, say five decades of the Rosary and keep me company for 15 minutes meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the purpose of making reparation to Me, I promise to assist them at the hour of death with all the graces necessary for the salvation of their souls."
A few days afterward, Sister Lucia detailed this vision in a letter addressed to Monsignor Manuel Pereira Lopes, her confessor when she resided in the Asylum of Vilar in the city of Oporto, Portugal.
Why Five Saturdays?
Sister Lucia’s confessor questioned her about the reason for the five Saturdays asking why not seven or nine. She answered him in a letter dated June 12, 1930. In it she related about a vision she had of Our Lord while staying in the convent chapel part of the night of the twenty-ninth to the thirtieth of the month of May, 1930. The reasons Our Lord gave were as follows:
The five first Saturdays correspond to the five kinds of offenses and blasphemies committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary. They are:
a. Blasphemies against the Immaculate Conception
b. Blasphemies against her virginity
c. Blasphemies against her divine maternity, at the same time the refusal to accept her as the Mother of all men
d. Instilling , indifference, scorn and even hatred towards this Immaculate Mother in the hearts of children
e. Direct insults against Her sacred images
Let us keep the above reasons firmly in our minds. Devotions have intentions attached to them and knowing them adds merit and weight to the practice.
Modifications to the Five First Saturdays Devotion to facilitate its observation
The original request of Our Lady asks one to confess and receive Communion on five consecutive first Saturdays; to say five decades of the Rosary; to meditate during 15 minutes on the mysteries of the Rosary for the purpose of making reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in reparation for the sins of men.
In subsequent private visions and apparitions however, Sister Lucia presented to Our Lord the difficulties that devotees encountered in fulfilling some conditions. With loving condescension and solicitude, Our Lord deigned to relax the rules to make this devotion easy to observe:
- Confession may be done on other days other than the First Saturdays so long as one receives Our Lord worthily and has the intention of making reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
- Even if one forgets to make the intention, it may be done on the next confession, taking advantage of the first occasion to go to confession.
- Sister Lucia also clarified that it is not necessary to meditate on ALL mysteries of the Rosary on each First Saturdays. One or several suffice.
This devotion is so necessary in our days
The culture of vice and sin remains unabated even as one reads this. Abortion, blasphemy, drug abuse, pornography, divorce and bad marriages, religious indifference, the advances of the homosexual agenda and others are just some of society’s many plagues that cut deeply into the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
We must console Our Lady amidst all these insults and injuries to her and her Divine Son. She asks for reparation, she pleads for our prayers, she hopes for our amendment of life. Let us listen to her maternal pleas and atone for the ingratitude of men.
The First Five Saturdays devotion stimulates the spirit of reparation; it instills a tender love for the Holy Sacraments of Confession and the Blessed Eucharist. It nurtures a holy affection for the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Rosary. Above all, it is an excellent means to maintain one in the state of grace while immersed in the daily spiritual battles and prosaic existence in the neo-pagan world that we live in.
Let us not delay in observing this devotion for it too gives us hope for eternal salvation.
REFERENCE:
Solimeo, Luiz Sergio, Fatima, A Message More Urgent than Ever
(Spring Grove, PA: The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property-TFP, 2008.)
Also Read:
“O
most beautiful Cross that was glorified by carrying the Body of Christ!
Glorious Cross, sweetly desired, ardently loved, always sought, and
finally prepared for my heart that has so long awaited you. Take me, O
Cross! Embrace me. Release me from my life among men. Bring me quickly
and diligently to the Master. Through you He will receive me, He, Who
through you has saved me.”
The
Apostle continued by saying that he had “ardently awaited” the cross.
Today men flee far from any kind of suffering, any kind of fight against
their own passions, any kind of renunciation. For them to live is to
enjoy a good life. Andrew, however, ardently awaited his own cross
because he understood that what counts in life is not the pleasure he
has, but the sacrifice he makes. This is what gives meaning to life.
Therefore, the truly supernatural man is a friend of the cross, as St.
Louis Marie de Montfort said so well.
The
last pagan king of the Frisians was noted for saying that he preferred
to be in Hell with his ancestors than in Heaven without them. However,
his great-grandson and namesake became a saint.
Catherine
was born Zoé Labouré on May 2, 1806, the ninth of eleven children born
to a farm family in Fain-les-Moutiers, France. When only eight years
old, her mother died and Catherine was made responsible for the running
the house and helping her father. Although she would remain illiterate
her whole life, she was allowed to enter the convent of the Sisters of
Charity of St. Vincent de Paul on the Rue du Bac in the French capital
when she was twenty-two and took the name Catherine upon her profession.
From America, Europe and Asia
One
day she showed him a Miraculous Medal and explained its origin to him.
He seemed to pay attention, but when she offered it to him, he became
annoyed and snapped angrily: “Take that away, this Virgin is just an
ordinary woman.” “I will leave it on the table,” the nun replied, “I am
certain that you will think about what I said.” He did not answer her,
but, in order not to see the medal, he placed his bible on top of it.
Mrs.
C.H., a 70-year-old widow, had been admitted in impoverished
circumstances to the nursing home of Saint-Maur because of a bad fall
that occurred on August 7, 1833. She walked with great difficulty and
even with the help of a crutch needed someone’s arm for support. She
also found it hard to sit and only with great difficulty was she able to
rise again. It was almost impossible for her to climb stairs, as she
had to hold on to whatever she could to do so. She could not bend down
or kneel, and had to drag her left leg, as that was where the problem
lay.
Despite
my every effort to persuade him, I also failed. I then thought it
better to allow him to reflect a little while and to return another day
to find out his decision. In the meantime, I asked him to have recourse
to the Most Holy Virgin, refuge of sinners; and, without telling him, I
placed a Miraculous Medal in his pillow and departed.
On
November 9, 1835, Rosalie Ducas from Jauchelette, near Jodoigne,
suddenly lost her sight. She was only four and a half years old, in
perfect health with no signs of illness. Any light or breeze disturbed
her to the point of having to cover her face with a cloth folded in
four. The pains the child suffered day and night caused everyone much
grief.
This
Christian carried a Miraculous Medal and took it into his hand. Drawing
near to the possessed boy, he showed it to him, ordering the devil to
leave him alone and depart, which happened immediately. The boy, seeing
the Christian with the medal, threw himself to the ground before this
image without knowing what it was. The pagans, who had watched him from
afar, were astounded.
When
she revealed the Miraculous Medal, Our Lady clearly promised that
“everyone who wears it, when it is blessed, will receive great graces,
especially if they wear it around their neck.” She did not put
restrictive conditions; she said “everyone.” And then completed the
phrase with: “The graces will be abundant to those who use it with
confidence.”
This son of the soil became one of the most illustrious preachers in the history of the Franciscan Order.
Widely
regarded in his own lifetime as a second St. Francis of Assisi, he died
in 1742 just as he was beginning the solemn novena for the feast of the
Immaculate Conception. Upon hearing of his death, the poor children of
Lucera ran through the streets, crying "The saint is dead! The saint is
dead!" In this humble Franciscan they had lost a true father and
protector.
Sylvester
was born in 1177 to a noble and prestigious Italian family. When he was
of age, he was sent to Bologna and then Padua to study law, but feeling
within himself a call to the ecclesiastical state, he left off the
study of jurisprudence to pursue that of theology and the Sacred
Scriptures. This course of action so angered his father upon Sylvester’s
return to his native city of Osimo, that it is said his father refused
to speak to him for ten years on that account.
During
His life in this world, Our Lord exercised aspects of all professions
fit for man—from the highest to the lowest. To even begin to appreciate
the perfection of His Person, we would have to imagine the archetype of
every licit profession known to man.
Our Lord personified the fulfillment of the Sacrament of Holy Orders. He was Priest and Pontiff
par excellence. The priests of the Old Testament prefigured His
priesthood, and every priest after Him would share His priesthood as an
"alter Christus" - another Christ. On Holy Thursday, Christ was the
Priest and Victim of the first Mass, which prefigured His sacrificial
offering on the altar of the cross.
Born
in 1795 in the Tonkinese town of Bac-Nihh in North Vietnam, Tran An
Dung was the son of pagan parents. In search of work for themselves in
1807, his parents moved to the ancient citadel of Hanoi. Here their
twelve-year-old son was taken care of by a catechist and for three years
was instructed in the Catholic faith. Baptized in Vinh-Tri, he received
the Christian name Andrew (Anrê) in baptism and went on to learn both
Chinese and Latin and himself became a catechist. He was selected for
further studies in theology and was ordained to the priesthood on March
15, 1823.
To
avoid further persecution by the authorities, Andrew Dung changed his
name to Lac and relocated to a different region. While visiting a fellow
priest, in order to confess himself, Dung-Lac was arrested with Father
Peter Thi on November 10, 1839. In exchange for a monetary ransom paid
to their captors, the two priests were liberated, but their freedom was
short-lived. Re-arrested not long afterwards, they were taken to Hanoi
and severely tortured. They were beheaded shortly before Christmas Day
on December 21, 1839.
Columban
was born about the year 543 in County Meath, in the Irish province of
Leinster, to respectable parents. He was well-educated in grammar,
rhetoric, geometry, and the Holy Scriptures. The young Columban resolved
early to embrace monastic asceticism and dedicate himself to a strict
and disciplined life, abstaining from many of the pleasures of the
world. However, he struggled with purity, and desperate to dedicate
himself wholly to God, asked the advice of a religious woman who had
lived as a hermit for many years.
Cecilia
was a devout Christian maiden of noble Roman birth who lived during the
early part of the third century. At a very young age, she secretly
dedicated herself to God, resolving to remain a virgin to her death. She
fasted and prayed often, and wore a coarse shift under her clothes as a
perpetual penance.
St.
Urban and his deacons buried her among the bishops in the catacomb of
St. Callixtus along the Apian Way. As she had requested, her house was
transformed into a church by the Holy Pontiff and it has remained in the
service of the Church until this day.
In
the US, Thanksgiving dates back to the first colonists in Plymouth,
M.A. in 1621, who organized a feast in thanks for a good harvest.
On
the feast of the Presentation of the Virgin Mary, we celebrate the fact
that Our Lady’s parents brought her to the Temple at the age of three
and handed her over to live there for a long period as a consecrated
virgin where she might exclusively contemplate God.
Though
only about fifteen years old when crowned in 855, Edmund showed himself
a model ruler from the first, anxious to treat all with equal justice,
and closing his ears to flatterers and untrustworthy informers. In his
eagerness for prayer he retired for a year to his royal tower at
Hunstanton and learned the whole Psalter by heart, in order that he
might afterwards recite it regularly.
Born
of royal descent, Nerses was the son of At'anagenes and his mother was
the sister of King Tigranes VII and a daughter of King Khosrov III. His
paternal grandfather was St. Husik I whose paternal grandfather was St.
Gregory the Illuminator, who converted the Armenian king to Christianity
and became the first Patriarch of Armenia.
Born
in 1814, Alphonse Ratisbonne was from a family of wealthy, well-known
Jewish bankers in Strasbourg, France. In 1827, Alphonse’s older brother,
Thèodore, converted to Catholicism and entered the priesthood, thus
breaking with his anti-Catholic family whose hopes now lay in the young
Alphonse. 
kneeling
close to an altar, weeping. Alphonse himself tells us what happened in
those few minutes he waited for the Baron: “I had only been in the
church a short while when, all of a sudden, I felt totally uneasy for no
apparent reason. I raised my eyes and saw that the whole building had
disappeared. Only one side chapel had, so to say, gathered all the
light. In the midst of this splendor, the Virgin Mary appeared standing
on the altar. 
Born
on August 29, 1769 in the French city of Grenoble, Rose Philippine was
baptized in the Church of St. Louis. She was educated at the Convent of
the Visitation of Ste. Marie d'en Haut and, against her father’s wishes,
became a novice there when she was eighteen years old. However, the
French Revolution caused much disruption for the nuns, and when the
Sisters of the Visitation were expelled from their convents, Rose
returned home.
Also
known as Elizabeth of Thuringia, she was born in Hungary in 1207. She
was a daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary and his wife Gertrude, a
member of the family of the Counts of Andechs-Meran; Elizabeth’s brother
succeeded his father on the throne as Bela IV; St. Hedwig, the wife of
Duke Heinrich I, the Bearded, of Silesia was her mother’s sister, while
another saint, Queen St. Elizabeth of Portugal, the wife of the
tyrannical King Diniz, was her great-niece.
Shortly
after their marriage, Elizabeth and Ludwig made a journey to Hungary;
Ludwig was often after this employed by the Emperor Frederick II, to
whom he was much attached, in the affairs of the empire. During the
spring of 1226, when floods, famine, and the plague wrought havoc in
Thuringia, Ludwig was in Italy attending the Diet at Cremona on behalf
of the emperor. Under these disastrous circumstances Elizabeth assumed
control of affairs, distributed alms, giving even state robes and
ornaments to the poor. In order to care personally for the unfortunate
she built below the castle of Wartburg a hospital with twenty-eight beds
and visited the inmates daily to attend to their needs; at the same
time she aided nine hundred poor daily. It is this period of her life
that has preserved Elizabeth’s renown as the gentle and charitable
chételaine of the Wartburg. Upon his return, Ludwig confirmed all that
she had done in his absence.