Our Lady on Saturday

There is a custom of saying a votive mass of the Immaculate Heart of Mary on the first Saturday of each month, except during Lent. The Fatima visionaries believed that our Lady called for communions of reparation on first Saturdays.

Mary kept and pondered in her heart all the great deeds of God. According to Matthew 5.8, the Immaculate Heart is a heart which, with God's grace, has come to a perfect interior unity and therefore sees God. Because her Immaculate Heart is attuned to Him (Luke 1.49, 2.19, 2.51) and to the needs of others (John2.3), even before the Hour of the Lord's Glory (John 2.4) the intercession of her heart mediates through shared obedience (John 2.5) the first sign of the fullness of His Kingdom (John 2.11). To be devoted to the Immaculate Heart of Mary means Saying Yes to God - may His will be done - the defining centre of one's whole life, that the Kingdom may come.

Fatima

Fatima should be regarded as the most important Marian apparition of the twentieth century, if not the most important event in its own right, particularly because of the tremendous "miracle of the sun" which was seen by a crowd of at least 70,000.

Fatima also occurred just as the Russian Revolution was unfolding in 1917, during World War I. This revolution represented another stage in the "revolution" against the Church, truth and reason which began in earnest with the Reformation and was continued by the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.

In answer to the threat represented by these successive revolutions, Mary has repeatedly appeared and asked for repentance, a turning away from sin, if the most awful disasters are to be avoided. As the spiritual Mother of mankind she cannot stand idly by and watch humanity destroy itself through sin and selfishness.

Her apparitions have played a large part in the major Catholic renewals of recent centuries, and if the message of Fatima is heeded by enough people then the Church can again experience a great renaissance. As the details of the Fatima message make clear, this is not an option for mankind but an absolute necessity if we are to have true peace in the world.

Thus there is a remedy to all the evil currently afflicting mankind and that is acceptance of the teaching of the Church, particularly as it is expressed in the message of Fatima. The power of this message is evident in the huge changes that have taken place in Russia and its former satellites since the collegial consecration carried out in 1984 by Pope John Paul II.

Russia has not yet been converted but it is evident that the power of communism has been largely broken. This evil though has been replaced by another in the form of a global atheistic ideology, one based on materialistic evolution, which threatens to destroy any remnants of Christian morality. Thus after more than 80 years Fatima retains its importance and relevance.


First Saturday Devotion

The First Saturday Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary was first mentioned by Our Lady of Fatima on July 13, 1917. After showing the three children a vision of hell she 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, Mary and the Child Jesus appeared to Lucia, the sole surviving Fatima visionary, at a convent in Pontevedra, Spain. Our Lady rested her hand on Lucia's shoulder, revealing a heart encircled by thorns.

The Child Jesus said: "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..."

Our Lady spoke next, saying: "Look, my daughter, at my heart, surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You at least try to console me and say that I promise to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, shall confess, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me."

Christians have always honored the Blessed Virgin on Saturday because of her constant faith in Jesus on that first Holy Saturday before the Resurrection.

Five first Saturdays of reparation were requested to atone for the five ways in which people offend the Immaculate Heart of Mary:

attacks upon Mary's Immaculate Conception
attacks against her Perpetual Virginity
attacks upon her Divine Maternity and the refusal to accept her as the Mother of all mankind
for those who try to publicly implant in children's hearts indifference, comtempt and even hatred of this Immaculate Mother
for those who insult her directly in her sacred images.