This post was last updated during the big COVID scare
COVID AND REPARATION
Now, as the COVID 19 epidemic intensifies, we see our access to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass denied more than ever. And so, we find that it is seemingly impossible to observe Our Lady’s long-awaited First Saturdays of Reparation.
However, our loving Mother looks at our intentions and she is not so unreasonable as to expect us to do the impossible! I do hope you will consider the importance of these First Saturdays of Reparation. You have access to the internet – I realize it is an infernal contraption! But there are many sites that offer videos of the Holy Sacrifice in the true Catholic rite, By reading along with your Missal and watching the Sacrifice, you are able to make a spiritual Communion and therefore, doing your best, and surely Our Lady sees your heart’s intentions! One very nice thing is when we do this, our Spiritual Holy Communions can take as long as we want. I love to be able to just have plenty of time to give Him my love, without getting jostled out of my prayers by the distractions of those around me at Mass.
It seems to me that our dear Lord is extra generous with His favors in these hard times and these video Masses and Spiritual Communions are wonderfully edifying! Make the entire day as fervent a reparation as you can, complete with fasting, abstinence and whatever sacrifices you can add to the Mass and Rosary. (Let’s resolve not to waste a single cross during this time of aggravation and suffering!) Now, the 15 minutes with Our Lady is a very misunderstood part of this. It does not require you to be able to experience ecstasies of contemplation, but simply spend some quiet time thinking on her Rosary mysteries in her presence, with an emphasis on how, in these sad times, she is so disregarded, when she loves us so very much. Resolve to make up to her for all the indifference and even enmity she is having to endure. And now, an old, but good post on these things.
First Saturdays of Reparation – more necessary than ever
As we had feared, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is becoming scarcer, even as the need for Mass intensifies in this great crisis. We offer today a repost from 2017 which has been updated.
On her second visit (June 13, 1917), Our Lady told the little shepherds,
“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 will never forsake you. My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the path that leads you to God.” … Our Lady extended her right hand and in front of her palm was a heart encircled by thorns which pierced it. In Lúcia’s words, “We understood that this was the Immaculate Heart of Mary outraged by the sins of humanity and seeking reparation.”
And then, the following month, after showing them the the vision of Hell, Our Lady said:
“You have seen Hell, where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish throughout the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If people do what I request, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end. But if people do not stop offending God, another and worse war will break out in the reign of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that it is the great sign that God gives you, that He is going to punish the world for its crimes by means of war, famine, and persecutions against the Church and of the Holy Father.
“To prevent this I shall come to ask for the Consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays.
“If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace. If not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecution of the Church; the good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, she will be converted, and some time of peace will be given to the world.”
Frère Michel de la Sainte Trinité , in Volume II of the Whole Truth About Fatima quotes Sister Lúcia of Fatima’s recollection (given in the third person):
“On December 10, 1925, the Most Holy Virgin appeared to her, and by Her side, elevated on a luminous cloud, was the Child Jesus. The Most Holy Virgin rested Her hand on her shoulder, and as She did so, She showed her a heart encircled by thorns, which She was holding in Her other hand.
“At the same time, the Child 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 to remove them.”
“Then the Most Holy 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 confess, 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 Me.”
In this revelation, Our Lady of the Rosary as Mediatrix of Graces, promises the supremely valuable gift of God’s grace, that is, the gift of final perseverance, without which other gifts are worthless, “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?” (Matt 16, 26).
SALVATION
Frère Michel continues,
“the first fruit of the Communion of Reparation is the salvation of the one practicing it. Let us place no limits on the divine mercy, but keep to the letter of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s promise: whoever fulfills all the conditions set down can be sure of obtaining at the moment of death at least – and this even after miserable lapses back into a state of grave sin – the graces necessary to obtain the pardon of God, and to be preserved from eternal chastisement.”
The devotion of First Saturdays was not at all new, but was given a new emphasis by the Blessed Virgin. Previously, there had existed the practice of devoting Saturdays to Mary. For instance, “The Fifteen Saturdays in honor of the Most Holy Rosary”, a popular devotion of the Rosary Confraternities to receive the Sacraments and perform pious works on each of fifteen consecutive Saturdays in honor of the Fifteen Mysteries of Our Lady’s Rosary. Pope Leo XIII enriched this devotion with generous plenary indulgences.
Then, just a few years before Our Lady came to Fatima, St. Pius X, on June 13, 1912, granted generous new indulgences for the Devotion of Reparation on the First Saturdays of the month, in order to “promote the piety of the faithful towards Immaculate Mary, Mother of God, and to make reparation for the outrages done to Her holy Name and Her privileges by impious men”. On November 13, 1920, St. Pius’s successor, Benedict XV granted new indulgences to this practice when accomplished for eight consecutive months.
And so we see that when Our Lady requested that the Pope solemnly approve of this devotion and promote it, she was not seeking the impossible, but merely adding precision and simplifying an established devotion. And yet, since 1925, no pope whatsoever has obeyed this very simple request.
DISOBEDIENT POPES
Pope Benedict XV was succeeded by Pope Pius XI who did much to proclaim the Kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ. But Pope Pius XI pointedly ignored Sister Lúcia and her efforts to call the true message of Fatima to his attention. His efforts to broker peace by the use of secular means (diplomacy, humanitarian aid) failed dismally and his aid to the Russian people only served to assist Stalin’s hellish communism in its stranglehold on the enslaved Russian people.
We have seen in other posts how Pius XI’s misguided actions were the trigger for Our Lady’s return in 1929 to ask for the Consecration of Russia, which he also ignored, thus contributing to Russia’s spreading of its errors, and causing the loss of untold numbers of souls.
Pope Pius XII also did not establish the Devotion of the First Saturdays of Reparation as Our Lady requested. Much is made of his failure to Consecrate Russia, but the establishment of First Saturdays was easily within his reach and consequently, it is inexcusable that this was not done for fully 35 years until 1960, when all became clearer with John XXIII’s open defiance of the request of the Mother of God. And now, after more than a century, we are farther than ever from fulfilling that simple request of Our Lady and our dear Lord.
John Paul II, whom many today call “Great” and “Saint” added to the betrayal by refusing to promote the simple and profoundly merciful devotion of First Saturdays of Reparation, and promoting instead the false “Divine Mercy” devotion and the “Luminous” mysteries, knowing full well that every DM chaplet recited was a rosary denied to Our Lady, and every recitation of the Luminous Mysteries supplanted one of Our Lady’s venerable mysteries, thus falsely pitting the two Sacred Hearts against each other. The Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary are not vying with one another for our attention! Those who attempt to set the one against the other are offending both Hearts deeply.
At Fulda, John Paul gave his reasons for not revealing the Third Secret, When asked why the Third Secret was not revealed, the Pope responded:
“Given the seriousness of the contents, my predecessors in the Petrine office diplomatically preferred to postpone publication so as not to encourage the world power of Communism to make certain moves. On the other hand, it should be sufficient for all Christians to know this, if there is a message in which it is written that the oceans will flood whole areas of the earth and that from one moment to the next millions of people will perish, truly the publication of such a message is no longer something to be so much desired.”
Thus, the pope showed that he placed human considerations ahead of trust and obedience to God. He also never gave a clear explanation for why he refused to promote the First Saturdays asked for by Our Lady. If he was truly the devout Marian pope he professed to be, why did he refuse Our Lady this small favor she had asked for?
Our Popes have not obeyed Our Lady’s request for the First Saturdays of Reparation, our Bishops have not promoted this devotion (for the most part) neither have the majority of Novus Ordo Catholics. But now, more than ever, we few faithful can and must obey Our Lady’s request in this, the centenary year of the apparitions, miracle and message of Fatima.
WHAT DID OUR LADY ASK FOR?
Our Lady of Fatima requests that the devotion of First Saturdays of Reparation consist of:
- Confession (may be within 8 days either before or after).
- Holy Communion
- 5 Decade Rosary “o terzo”, Portuguese for one third of the Rosary. Thus, implicitly precludes Luminous.
- 15 minutes of visiting with Our Lady in reparation, while meditating on mysteries of her Rosary
- Each of the above steps, that is, Confession, Communion, Rosary and meditation must be offered in a spirit of reparation, of course.
Remember, let yourself be led by the Immaculata; do penance and pray the rosary, and we shall see that victory so long desired – The triumph of her Immaculate Heart!
Readers, this is a restored post from 2017. In it, we wrote:
Soon, we will have an opportunity that will never come again. The First Saturday of May, that is, May 6th, will present the opportunity to observe Our Lady’s long-requested First Saturdays from May through September in the Centenary of her apparitions at Fatima. Then, October 7th, we can give her one extra First Saturday, just because we, her true children love her so much! What a lovely spiritual bouquet for the Queen of the Holy Rosary, Queen of our hearts! What a blessing to be able to prepare for the momentous date of October 13, 2017! Please make every effort to perform this devotion!
I wonder how many actually made use of that occasion! Certainly, none of our spiritual leaders such as Bishop Schneider, Archbishop Vigano or Cardinal Burke has promoted these important First Saturdays of reparation! WHY???
And so here we are now, in the midst of a worldwide epidemic, unleashed by mankind, against mankind, with the specific purpose of imposing the worldwide new order – a government which sets itself above God and despises Christ the King. No Catholic leader who does not obey Our Lady of Fatima is fit to lead us in this crisis of faith.
Many, if not most of us , have no access to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass at present. In this crisis, please try to follow the Mass online, make frequent spiritual communions, and please live your total Consecrations to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Living our devotion to her Immaculate Heart, praying her Holy Rosary every day, offering all our daily duties and sacrifices for love of Jesus, reparation for sins and conversion of poor sinners, all these are the way through this crisis. We must save our own souls, and most certainly save those souls entrusted to us; even though, in most cases, these poor sinners – our own families! – are tragically blind to their own sad state.
Also, I have been reminded that reading the Mass in our Missals is an excellent practice and one accessible to all. We also have a brief version on our Family Consecration page which has many prayers as well.
Remember – Our Lady needs us to obey: First Saturdays of Reparation, daily rosary, at least 5 mysteries, wear her brown scapular and live your Total Consecration to her Immaculate Heart, offering daily duties in reparation and for the conversion of poor sinners.
† Immaculate Heart of Mary, Queen of our hearts, Mother of the Church, do thou offer to the Eternal Father the Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the conversion of poor sinners, especially our Pontiff.
† Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!
† Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Thy Kingdom come! Viva Cristo Rey!
† St. Joseph, guardian of the Holy Family, protect our families, protect our priests!
† St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle!
~ by evensong, for love of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, Queen of our hearts.
Vouchsafe that I may praise thee, O Sacred Virgin, give me strength against thine enemies!