History of the Devotion of the Five First Saturdays

History of the Devotion of the Five First Saturdays

In the year of Our Lord, 1917, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared six different times to three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal with a most important message to the world concerning the salvation of souls and world peace. In her appearance on July 13th of that year she showed the children a vision of hell and said:

You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace... I shall come to ask for... the Communion of reparation on the first Saturdays.…

Eight years later, on December 10, 1925, the Blessed Virgin fulfilled her promise. On that day Our Lady appeared with the Child Jesus to Lucy — now Sister Lucy, and the sole surviving seer of the 1917 apparitions — in her convent in Pontevedra, Spain. She placed one hand on Sr. Lucy’s shoulder and in the other hand she showed her a Heart surrounded by thorns. 

The Child Jesus said to her: Have compassion on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother, covered with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to make an act of reparation to remove them.

After this, the Blessed Virgin said: Look, my daughter, at my Heart, surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce me at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You at least try to console me and announce in my name that I promise to assist at the moment of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months  shall receive the sacrament of Confession, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to my Immaculate Heart.

Here it is important to consider that reparation is to be made to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  Naturally, all reparation for sin is directed to God the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Ghost, but the Blessed Virgin’s unique role in the salvation of mankind makes sin especially hurtful to her Heart. And, making reparation means to make amends for this harm that has been done to her.

For a complete account of the message of Fatima, visit: fatima.org.