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:
- Going to Confession,
- Receiving the Sacrament of Holy Communion,
- Saying five decades of the Rosary,
- Meditating for 15 minutes on the mysteries of the Rosary.
Click below and print your 2022 Five First Saturday Devotion Calendar. Print double sided and fold it in half to create a "Tent Calendar"
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.
"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."
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."
— Our Lady, December 10, 1925
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:
- Blasphemies against the Immaculate Conception
- Blasphemies against her virginity
- Blasphemies against her divine maternity, at the same time the refusal to accept her as the Mother of all men
- Instilling indifference, scorn and even hatred towards this Immaculate Mother in the hearts of children
- 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.
With much latitude granted by Our Lord Himself, there is no reason for the faithful to hesitate or delay this pious practice in the spirit of reparation which the Immaculate Heart of Mary urgently asks.
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.)
Prayer: O
Great Son of God, you have become man in order to make yourself loved
by men. But where is the love that men give you in return? You have
given your life blood to save our souls.
Prayer: O
Dearest Infant! Tell me, what have you come on earth to do? Tell me,
whom do you seek? Yes, I already know. You have come to die for me, to
save me from hell. You have come seeking me, your lost sheep, so that,
instead of fleeing from you, my gentle shepherd, I may rest in the
protection of loving arms. O my Jesus, my treasure, my life, my love and
my all! Whom will I love, if not you? Where can I find a father, a
friend, a spouse more loving and more lovable than yourself?
Prayer: O
Dear Infant Jesus, would I have been so ungrateful and offended you so
often, if I had realized how much you have suffered for me? But these
tears which you shed, this poverty which you embrace for love of me,
fill me with the hope that you will pardon all the offenses I have
committed against you.
Prayer: O
Dearest Savior, you have embraced so many outrages for love of me, yet I
am incapable of bearing a single insult without immediately being
filled with resentful thoughts, I who have so often deserved to be
trodden underfoot by the demons in hell! I am ashamed to appear before
you, sinful and proud as I am. Yet, do not drive me from your presence, O
Lord, even though that is what I deserve. You have said that you will
not spurn a contrite and humbled heart. I am sorry for the offenses I
have committed against you. Forgive me, O Jesus. I will not offend you
again.
Prayer: O
Jesus, my sweet Love! I too have caused you to suffer during your
life. Tell me, then, what I must do in order to win your forgiveness. I
am ready to do all you ask of me. I am truly sorry, O sovereign Good,
for all the offenses I have committed against you. I love you more than
myself, or at least I feel a great desire to love you. Since it is you
who have given me this desire, do you also give me the strength to love
you exceedingly.
Prayer: O
my Dear Redeemer! Where would I now be, if you had not borne with me so
patiently, but had called me from this life while I was in the state of
sin? 
Prayer: Dear
Infant Jesus, crying so bitterly! How much reason you have to weep in
seeing yourself persecuted by men whom you have loved so much. I, too, O
God, have persecuted you by my sins. But you know that now I love you
more than myself, and that nothing pains me more than the thought that I
have so often spurned you, my sovereign Good.
Prayer: O
Jesus, my Savior! When I consider how, for love of me, you spent thirty
years of your life hidden and unknown in a poor workshop, how can I
desire the pleasures, honors and riches of this world? Gladly do I
renounce them, one and all, since I wish to be your companion on this
earth, poor as you were, mortified and humble as you were, so that I may
hope to be able one day to enjoy your companionship in heaven. What are
all the treasures and kingdoms of this world? O Jesus, you are my only
treasure, my only Good!
Prayer: O
Adorable Infant Jesus! I should not have the boldness to cast myself at
your feet, if I did not know that you yourself invite me to draw
near. It is I who by my sins have made you shed so many tears in the
stable of Bethlehem. But since you have come on earth to pardon
repentant sinners, forgive me also, now that I am heartily sorry for
having spurned you, my Savior and my God, who are so good and who have
loved me so much.
