 World Unity Through Prayer |
World Apostolate of Fátima
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World Unity Through Prayer |
World Apostolate of Fátima
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This is the Summary - see Detailed section below.
On June 13, 1917, when she appeared to three shepherd children at Fatima, Portugal, the Most Holy Mother of God told Lucia dos Santos,
"Jesus wishes to make use of you to make me known and loved. He wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. I promise salvation to those who embrace it, and these souls will be loved by God like flowers placed by me to adorn His throne."
The next month, on July 13, the Blessed Virgin Mary showed the children a terrifying vision of hell. Then 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...."
Our Lady came to Lucia again, as she promised, eight years later on December 10, 1925. She appeared with the Child Jesus in the Dorothean convent at Pontevedra, Spain. The Blessed Virgin revealed 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 all 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. According to Sister Lucia, five first Saturdays of reparation were requested to atone for the five ways in which people offend the Immaculate Heart of Mary:
Are you ready to pledge yourself to Our Lady? Click [here]
The promise made by Our Lady to Lucia at Fatima on July 13,1917, that there would be a future manifestation concerning the five First Saturdays, was fulfilled on December 10,1925. Lucia was then a postulant in the Dorothean convent at Pontevedra, Spain. This time Our Lady appeared together with the Child Jesus. She addressed Lucia as follows:
Look, my daughter, at my heart encircled with thorns, with which ungrateful men wound it every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. Give me consolation, you, at least; and announce for me that I promise to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all who on the first Saturday of five consecutive months confess, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the purpose of making reparation to me.
Before Our Lady spoke these words, the Child Jesus had said to Lucia:
Have compassion on the heart of your Most Holy Mother, which is covered with thorns that ungrateful men drive into it every instant, while there is no one who does an act of reparation to withdraw them for her.
Before studying the actual words of Mary's message, we should note that from ancient times the Holy Church has considered Saturday a day especially dedicated to intensifying Christians' devotion to the Blessed Virgin, Mother of God and our most loving Mother. Many people used to consecrate the first Saturdays of the months to Our Lady for this very intention and for making reparation for the blasphemies and outrages against her by sinners and false teachers. Pope St. Pius X, on June 12, 1905, issued a decree in which he praised this practice and offered indulgences for it.
That same year, in the month of November, the Holy Father again blessed and indulgenced the traditional practice of the Sons of the Heart of Mary and the Archconfraternity of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to dedicate the first Saturdays of the months to the practice of this devotion with the purpose of making reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Now, at Fatima, the Virgin herself wished to recommend this devotion, specifying five consecutive first Saturdays, and enriching the practice with her promise of salvation.
In the ultimate instance, it is God Who is offended by every sin. For this reason it is God, likewise, Who is the ultimate object of every act of Christian reparation. This shows clearly in all the manifestations of Fatima, and in a very concrete fashion in the apparition of July 13, 1917. But let us add, nevertheless, that one will not properly understand the "heavenly message of Fatima," in this essential point of the spirit of reparation, unless the meaning be extended to include also a direct reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. It is Our Lord Himself Who tells us this: "Have compassion on the heart of your Most Holy Mother."
The predestination of Mary to the divine maternity, her active cooperation in all the work of Redemption, her mission to be spiritual Mother of the whole Church and of every person redeemed by the Precious Blood of Christ constitutes, as we have already said, one of the basic laws of divine providence for the effective application of the Redemption to souls. Therefore the Blessed Virgin tells us that it is God's design, to save the world and to save souls, that the devotion to her Immaculate Heart be intensified and extended. Consequently, whoever does injury to Our Lady-whether by blasphemy, by denying her greatness or her saving mission, or by trying to depreciate the devotion to Our Lady in the Church or in souls-likewise does injury to God and his providence.
An aware Christian sees this disorder as an injury which is directed to the Mother of God and to God Himself and his providence, and he thus tries to make reparation for it by intensifying his personal devotion and his efforts to bring about the reign of the Heart of Mary. Both aspects of Christian reparation-that which looks directly to God, and that which, subordinately, looks directly to the Heart of Mary - are complementary manifestations of one and the same spirit of authentic Christian reparation. Both aspects of reparation are recommended and united in the manifestations of Fatima; and now, again, in the subsequent recommendation made to us concerning the practice of the five First Saturdays, in reparation.
In this practice it is useful to consider four basic things: Confession, Communion, the Rosary and its meditation, and the promise of salvation. In all true devotion to Our Lady (and devotion to her Immaculate Heart is the perfect expression of this true devotion), there is always an effective invitation for the return of hearts to Christ the Savior. Where it is concerned with sinners, it is a call to conversion to the ways of grace and eternal salvation. Where it is concerned with souls who already live in the grace of God, true devotion to Our Lady gives them a strong impulse to travel the pathway to sanctity, and creates in them the spirit of the Christian apostolate.
This is a constant law in the vitality of the Church. Marian institutions, Marian shrines, and Marian movements and pilgrimages which are carried on many cities-have always been, and are everywhere today, an irresistible call from the maternal Heart of Mary for a sincere return of souls to Jesus Christ. For example, Fatima is now, as Lourdes has been for more than a century, an important chapter of this history of the return of souls to God and to the paths of eternal salvation.
The practice of the five First Saturdays in reparation belongs to this new chapter of the sanctification and the eternal salvation of the redeemed. Why precisely five First Saturdays? In a letter given by Sister Lucia to Fr. Jose Bernardo Gonzalves on June 12, 1930, she said that while in the convent chapel on the night of May 29-30, Our Lord revealed the reason for five Saturdays.
1. The blasphemies against the Immaculate Conception.
2. Against her virginity.
3. Against the divine maternity, refusing at the same time to accept her as the Mother of all mankind.
4. Those who try publicly to implant in the children's hearts, indifference, contempt and even hate against this Immaculate Mother,
5. Those who insult her directly in her sacred images.""My daughter, the motive is simple: there are five ways in which people offend, and blaspheme against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
But be that as it may, it is clear that the practice of this devotion leads souls to habitual devotion, or the spirit of devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and to frequent or daily Holy Communion.
In order to succeed in introducing this spirit of devotion in souls, it is very useful to state some definite period of time-here the First Saturdays of five successive months-for the teaching and practice of that which should be acquired as a habit. The same thing occurs in the process of education in all aspects of faith and Christian life; and the same principle is followed in the liturgical cycle of the feasts of the Church, with their annual rotation. Thus, the first fruit of the practice of the First Saturdays is the cult of the divine Eucharist, in its threefold aspect of sacrifice, communion, and adoration.
The second requirement in the practice of the five First Saturdays is the Rosary, with meditation. In a strictly Christo-centric interpretation of the devotion of the Rosary we should have to define certain points, in the proper place. Here we will limit ourselves to underlining two aspects of the devotion of the Rosary: prayer and meditation. The Rosary whose recitation is here called for is not that of the complete fifteen decades, but of five mysteries only. In her testimony in the canonical investigation of the apparitions of Fatima, and later in her writings, the confidante of Our Lady always quotes her as saying "a third of the Rosary." And the Lady appeared with the five-decade rosary, not the fifteen decade one, in her hands.
The vocal prayer of the Rosary always has as its foundation the interior act of meditation upon the mysteries of the life, suffering, and glory of Our Lord and of the Blessed Virgin. But the fifteen-minute meditation specified in the practice of the First Saturdays is another thing. During these fifteen minutes the attention may be centered on one mystery only; or, if the time of this meditation be inserted between or distributed over the recitation of the decades, it can be directed to the mystery which is announced at the beginning of each of them. Any method is good.
Yet, let us consider it as more typical to make this meditation separately. Concerning Our Lady, the Gospel says, "His mother kept all these things in her heart." (Luke 2:51) This is the best model for a soul that proposes to know and imitate Jesus Christ. In the hands of a good director, this practice of the separate meditation will give the best opportunity for setting forth throughout the whole year the principal passages of the Gospel in their different aspects: historic, dogmatic, and ascetic.
A new detail of interest in the recitation of the Rosary is the ejaculation that Our Lady invites us to insert between the decades. The Portuguese text goes thus:
O meu Jesus! perdonai-nos, livrai do fogo da inferno e levai as alminhas todas para o ceu, e socorrei principal-mente as que mais precisaren.
(O my Jesus; forgive us our sins: save us from the fires of hell. Lead all souls to heaven, especially those most in need of thy mercy.)
We have a correct version above. The expression alminhas (souls) has seemed to some to mean "the souls of Purgatory." One reads it thus in certain manuals. But Lucia herself, when expressly and repeatedly asked, has replied that the words never had that sense on the lips of Our Lady, but that it rather referred to the souls of sinners, for whose conversion and eternal salvation we are invited to pray.
But who are those "most in need?" Perhaps those who seem obstinately uprepentant, those who are exposed to an unforeseen death in the state of mortal sin, and finally, those who by circumstances of place, environment, or education, are farthest from any possible priestly influence and from the sacraments, even in the last moments of life. For all these poor souls, most in need of the mercy of God, should be poured out the efficacious prayers of Christian souls, interceding for them and making reparation, uniting themselves with the mediation of the Heart of Mary, Mother and Refuge of sinners.
To those who practice the devotion of the First Saturdays in reparation, Our Lady promises her assistance at the hour of death "with the graces necessary for salvation. . ." She does not promise them eternal salvation itself, but the divine graces necessary for salvation. It is not exactly the same thing. But is not this certainty of the special assistance of Our Lady a trustworthy guarantee that the soul, in that last hour upon which eternity depends, will respond to the call of divine grace with true contrition for its sins?
Frequent experience tells us that souls especially devoted to the Heart of Mary receive at that time an awareness from heaven that the hour of their parting is near. It is not precisely an announcement of death, but a new and gentle preoccupation with more frequent and more worthy reception of the sacraments, with a more pure intention in all one's actions, and with an intensification of one's charity and dedication to the apostolate. The Heart of Mary kindly goes about perfecting the souls of her children for their decisive encounter with the Divine Savior. There are some who do not favor insisting upon the reminder of the great promise of the Sacred Heart of Jesus concerning the First Fridays, or the promise of the Heart of Mary concerning the practice of the First Saturdays. They fear that Christian piety and love for God will be depreciated and converted into a sentiment, or even a sentimentality, which is self-interested and egotistic. It is not impossible for such a deviation to arise in the practice of Christian piety and in the ways of inculcating it. But is this danger as great as that of the reaction against it, which would silence all reference to the divine promise?
We have answered this objection before. It is not for man to give lessons to the Lord, or to correct the plan of the Savior's humane love, nor to straighten the paths traveled by his mercy, which is infinite, and infinitely delicate in the effective application of the fruit of his redemption to souls. The promises made by Divine Love in the Gospel, or in special manifestations to chosen souls at certain difficult moments in the history of salvation, are never the sole motive, nor the principal motive of the devotion of conscientious Christians. Yet their love of God, their faith, and their unshakable fidelity to God's commandments receive powerful aid from these promises, and from them they receive a firmer conviction in the supreme mystery of Divine Love and Divine Mercy. And more than a few times the memory of these divine promises was the effective point of departure for awakening in certain souls the first attention to the grave problem of their eternal salvation and their life in grace.
In conclusion, the promises made by the Hearts of Jesus and Mary are demonstrations of their love for us, and thus serve to enkindle love and gratitude in well-disposed souls. This is the experience of the Church concerning piety. Let us give one example. In keeping with the promise that the Heart of Mary made to them in her first apparition, the two younger shepherds of Fatima, Jacinta and Francisco, were well assured of their eternal salvation, and this prompted them to great undertakings of prayer and sacrifice, for the sake of reparation, so that they reached the summit of Christian holiness.
The devotion of First Saturdays, as requested by Our Lady of Fatima, carries with it the assurance of the graces necessary for salvation at the hour of death. However to derive profit from such a great promise of Our Lady, the devotion must be properly understood and duly performed. The requirements as stipulated by Our Lady are as follows:
A reparative confession means that the confession should not only be good (valid and licit), but also be offered in the spirit of reparation, in this case, to Mary's Immaculate Heart. This confession may be made on the First Saturday itself or some days before or after the First Saturday, and may be associated with another devotion. Thus the confession made in connection with First Friday devotion may be used for the First Saturdays.
The Communion of reparation must be sacramental. No external action to express the intention is needed. The Communion must be made during the 24 hours of the First Saturday. For justifying reasons, approved by a priest, a person may receive the Communion the next day, the Sunday following the First Saturday. A spiritual communion does not satisfy this condition.
This too must be recited in the spirit of reparation. The important thing is to pray the Rosary well by doing one's best to be attentive. One should make the intention to offer the Rosary in reparation to the Immaculate Heart at least at the beginning of the Rosary.
Here the meditation on one mystery or more is to be made without simultaneous recitation of the Rosary decade. As indicated, the meditation may be either on one mystery alone for 15 minutes, or on all 15 mysteries spending about one minute on each mystery, or again, on two or more mysteries during the period. This can also be made before each decade spending three minutes or more in considering the mystery of the particular decade. This meditation has likewise to be made in the spirit of reparation to the Immaculate Heart.
Many find it difficult to meditate because they have not made any attempt before. But a start could be made by using pictures depicting different mysteries, or by reading slowly and devoutly appropriate meditations prepared for our use, or even by reading the Gospel narratives containing the mysteries with or without commentaries.
There have been many apparitions of Our Lady, but Fatima is the first where meditation on the Rosary mysteries is requested. It is obvious that this request is to help us to recite the Rosary properly and to derive many aids for the amendment of our lives and for our sanctification.
All these acts have to be done with the intention of offering reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for the offenses committed against her. Everyone who offends her commits a twofold offense, for these sins also offend her Divine Son and endanger our salvation. Reparation emphasizes our responsibility towards sinners who, by themselves, will not pray and make reparation for their sins.
This devotion brings before us our social responsibilities and reminds us of the fact that to go to God we must love our neighbor and try to save his soul; it also shows us that one excellent way of doing this is through the spirit of reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. There are many who seem to be worried because, though they try to observe five First Saturdays in accordance with the requests of Our Lady of Fatima, they fail to remember to make the intention of reparation in due time for Confession, Communion, meditation, or the Rosary recitation. But this difficulty may be overcome by making a resolution at the very start when one decides to observe the First Saturdays for the next five consecutive months and resolve that all the acts or devotions connected with them will be offered in reparation to the Immaculate Heart.
The idea of the five First Saturdays is to make us persevere in the devotional acts for these Saturdays. Our Lady knows that the person will become devoted to her Immaculate Heart and persist in practicing such devotion on all First Saturdays.
Unless Russia is converted, the movement against God will continue to spread, promoting wars and making the attainment of peace and justice impossible. One means of obtaining Russia's conversion is to practice the Fatima message. The stakes are so great that to encourage Catholics to practice the devotion of the First Saturday, Our Lady has assured us that she will obtain the graces necessary for salvation at the hour of death for all those who observe the First Saturdays for five consecutive months in accordance with her conditions.
At the supreme moment the departing person will be either in the state of grace or not. In either case Our Lady will be by his side. If in the state of grace, she will console and help him to resist whatever temptations the devil might put before him in his last attempt to take the person with him to hell. If not in the state of grace, Our Lady will help the person to repent in a manner agreeable to God and so benefit by the fruits of redemption and be saved.
NOTE: Our Lady asked that, whenever we pray the Rosary, the following prayer be inserted after each decade.
O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell. Lead all souls to heaven, especially those most in need of thy mercy.
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First Saturday Masses
As of 08JUL05
Bagdad:
St. Francis of Asisi 8 am Comm Ser
Bullhead City:
St. Margaret Mary 7:30 am
Camp Verde:
St. Frances Cabrini 9:00 am
Carefree/Cave Creek:
Our Lady of Joy 8:00 am
Chandler:
St. Mary’s 8:15 am/PEA
Chino Valley:
St. Catherine Laboure 10:00 am
Cottonwood:
Immaculate Conception 8:30 am
Flagstaff:
Nativity/Blessed V M Chpl 5:30 pm
Our Lady/Guadalupe Chapel 5pm/PEA
St. Pius X Chapel 4:00 pm
Gilbert: St. Anne 8:00 am/PEA
Glendale:OLPH 8:30am:St HelenPEA
Lake Havasu City:
Our Lady of the Lake 8:30 am
Litchfield Park:
St. Thomas Aquinas 8:00 am
Mesa:
Queen of Peace 8:30 am
St. Timothy 8:30 am
Peoria:
St. Charles Borromeo 5:00 pm
Phoenix:
Corpus Christi 8:15 am/PEA
Immaculate Heart of Mary 7:00 am
St. Agnes & St. Gregory 8:00 am
St. Joan of Arc 5:00 pm
St. Joseph 8:00 am
St. Theresa 8:00 am(priv. devotions)
St. Thomas the Apostle 8:30 am/PEA
Prescott:
Sacred Heart 7:00 am/PEA
Prescott Valley: St. Germaine 5:30 pm
(private devotions)/PEA
Sedona:
St. John Vianney 8:00 am
Scottsdale:
Blessed Sacrament 8:30am
Tempe:
Our Lady/Mt Carmel 8 am
Holy Spirit after 8:30 am Mass
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Center Mailing Address:
World Apostolate of Fatima
P.O. Box 26943, Prescott Valley AZ 86312
Director: Ina Filas 928 775-4160
e-mail: ifilas at msn.com
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