Devotion
How to Make the Five First Saturdays
Preparing for the Eucharist · 7 steps
The Fatima devotion of reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary: confession, Communion, five decades of the Rosary and fifteen minutes of meditation on the first Saturday of five consecutive months.
7 steps · About 20 minutes
At Fatima on 13 July 1917 Our Lady told the three shepherd children that she would come to ask for the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays, and on 10 December 1925, at Pontevedra in Spain, she made the request to Sister Lucia: confession, Holy Communion, five decades of the Rosary and fifteen minutes of company with her while meditating on the mysteries, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, with the intention of making reparation to her Immaculate Heart. She promised to assist at the hour of death, with the graces needed for salvation, those who do this. The apparitions were judged worthy of belief by the Bishop of Leiria in 1930, and the devotion has been kept in parishes ever since; the promise remains private revelation, and the Church commends the devotion for what it plainly is — five months of confession, Communion, the Rosary and quiet meditation, offered in love to the Mother of God.
What you need
- A rosary and the list of the mysteries
- A calendar with the first Saturday of the next five months marked
- A parish with Saturday Mass, or a plan for reaching Communion that day
- Fifteen unhurried minutes, in church or at home, for the meditation
When to pray it
On the first Saturday of five consecutive months. Many parishes keep First Saturday with morning Mass, confessions and the Rosary; the devotion sits naturally beside the Nine First Fridays, and its feast is the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Saturday after the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart.
Steps
Step 1: Understand what Our Lady asked
Sister Lucia recorded Our Lady's words at Pontevedra: to all who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, go to confession, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary and keep her company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to her, she promised to assist at the hour of death with the graces necessary for salvation. Lucia later explained that the number five corresponds to five kinds of offence against the Immaculate Heart: against her Immaculate Conception, her perpetual virginity, her divine motherhood, the teaching of her to children, and insult to her images. Read this once, slowly, so that you know what you are undertaking: four simple acts, five months running, one intention.
Tips
- The four parts are confession, Communion, the Rosary and the meditation — the fifteen minutes of meditation are separate from the Rosary, not the Rosary itself. Give them their own time.
- Sister Lucia recorded that the confession may be made within the days before or after the Saturday, provided you are in the state of grace when you receive Communion and the intention of reparation is kept.
- Say the intention out loud at least once each First Saturday: 'in reparation for the offences against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.' The intention is what makes these five Saturdays this devotion.
- Having finished the five, many Catholics simply continue every First Saturday. The devotion was never meant to be a one-time transaction but a habit of the heart.