First Saturdays Devotion

The First Saturdays Devotion, also called the Act of Reparation to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is a Catholic devotion which, according to Sister Lúcia of Fátima, was requested by the Virgin Mary during the apparitions of Our Lady of Fátima at Fátima, Portugal, on 13 July 1917 and in an apparition at Pontevedra, Spain, on 10 December 1925.

History

A religious statue depicting the Immaculate Heart of Mary as it was revealed in the 1917 Marian apparitions which occurred at Fátima, Portugal.

The pious practice of honoring the Blessed Mother on Saturday is an ancient custom largely attributed to the Benedictine monk Alcuin (735-804), "Minister of Education" at the court of Charlemagne, who composed a Votive Mass formulary for each day of the week. Alcuin assigned two formularies to Saturday in honor of Mary. The practice was quickly adopted by both clergy and laity.

The practice of reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on the First Saturday was initiated in Rovigo, Italy, by Maria Dolores Inglese, a Servite tertiary in 1889. She started among her friends the pious practice of "Communion in Reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary". The practice was endorsed by Bishop Antonio Polin of the Diocese of Adria and was taken up by sodalities throughout Italy and elsewhere. On July 1, 1905, Pope Pius X approved and granted indulgences for the practice of the First Saturdays of twelve consecutive months in honor of the Immaculate Conception. This practice greatly resembled the reported request of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Pontevedra apparitions.

Inglese wished to establish a religious congregation dedicated to the apostolate of Marian reparation. Bishop Tommaso Pio Boggiani recommended that she join the Servite sisters, known for their devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows. She joined the Servites as Sister Maria Dolores in 1911. She and foundress Mother Mary Elisa Andreoli revised the rule, making propagation of Communion of Reparation on the First Saturday of each month the congregation's main apostolate. They also changed the name of the group from "Servants of Mary" to "Servants of Mary of Reparation". The sisters also published a monthly magazine that helped spread the devotion throughout Europe.

Fátima

Further information: Our Lady of Fátima

In her 1941 memoir, Lúcia dos Santos, one of the three Portuguese seers of the Marian apparitions of Our Lady of Fátima when she was 10, reported that Mary asked the following during the third apparition on 13 July 1917.

The war is going to end. But if people do not stop offending God, another, even worse one will begin in the reign of Pius XI. When you shall see a night illuminated by an unknown light know that this is the great sign that God gives you that He is going to punish the world for its many crimes by means of war, hunger, and persecution of the Church and the Holy Father. To prevent it, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart and the Communion of reparation on the first Saturdays.

This is the first reported request from Mary to establish the First Saturdays Devotion as part of the message of the apparitions in Fátima. According to Lúcia, this request was made in order to prevent the World War II from happening and to perform acts of reparation for sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary. In 1939, she also wrote: “Whether the world has war or peace depends on the practice of this devotion, along with the consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”

Pontevedra

Further information: Pontevedra apparitions

Dorothean convent in Pontevedra, now known as the Sanctuary of the Apparitions, in which Sister Lúcia lived and received Marian apparitions.

At the age of 14, Lúcia dos Santos was admitted as a boarder to the school of the Sisters of Saint Dorothy in Vilar, near the city of Porto. On October 24, 1925, she entered the Institute of the Sisters of Saint Dorothy as a postulant in the convent in Tui, Spain, just across the northern Portuguese border.

Sister Lúcia later reported that on December 10, 1925, the Virgin Mary appeared to her at the Dorothean convent in Pontevedra, and by her side on a luminous cloud was the Child Jesus. According to Lúcia, Mary requested the institution of the Devotion of the Five First Saturdays in reparation to her Immaculate Heart:

Look, my daughter, at my Heart encircled by these thorns with which men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You, at least, strive to console me, and so I announce: I promise to assist at the hour of death with the grace necessary for salvation all those who, with the intention of making reparation to me, will, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, go to confession, receive Holy Communion, say five decades of the beads, and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary.

Devotees of Fátima believe that the First Saturdays help to console the sorrows of God, Jesus, and the Virgin Mary for the sins against her Immaculate Heart.

See also

• Acts of Reparation to the Virgin Mary
• First Thursdays Devotion
• First Fridays Devotion
• Immaculate Heart of Mary
• Our Lady of Fátima
• Sanctuary of the Apparitions

External links

• "Devotion of the Five First Saturdays" by the Dominican Fathers of The Rosary Center
• Communal First Saturdays Apostolate (CFSA)