Graces and blessings are given to us throughout our lives by Our Father in Heaven, but too often we do not recognise them as blessings and these gifts can sometimes remain as unopened presents.

The Angel of Peace first prepares the children by teaching them the Pardon Prayer as a means of understanding the need to pray for others:

“My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love Thee!
I ask pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love Thee.”

The second apparition has a greater urgency about the call to prayer and the value of sacrifice as a spiritual power to convert sinners. It was after the Angel’s messages that they realised the abundance of graces that were being poured out upon them in preparation for the visitation of Our Lady and the call for their participation in the triumph of Her Immaculate Heart through the First Saturday devotion:

“Pray, pray very much! Offer prayers and sacrifices constantly to the Most High……Make everything you can a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which he is offended, and in supplication for the conversion of sinners.”

The third apparition sees the Angel give Holy Communion to the children. As he did this he said:

“Take and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by ungrateful men. Repair their crimes and console your God.”

The children felt a great spirit of prayer come over them and they remained praying until the light began to fade. “So intensely did we feel the presence of God, that we were completely overwhelmed and absorbed by it.” This overwhelming desire to pray and console God through sacrifice was part of the preparation of the children for Our Lady’s apparitions in 1917, who explained to them that prayer and reparation are a means of bringing down graces on humanity.

The three Apparitions of the Angel of Peace (1916)

Our Lady first appeared to the children on the 13th May, inviting them to offer themselves and their sacrifices to God as acts of reparation for the sins by which He is offended. Once the children offered their consent, Our lady opened Her hands and a great light shone from them, causing the children to be lost in God, whom they recognised in the Light. (The message of Fatima, Lucia speaks.) She told them that praying the rosary everyday would bring peace to the world and the end of the war.

Our Lady next appeared on the 13th June urging the children to pray the rosary every day. She tells Lucia that “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.” On this occasion, when she opened her hand, the children could see a heart encircled by thorns which seemed to pierce it. They understood this to be the Immaculate Heart of Mary, grieved by the sins of humanity and seeking reparation.

This devotion to the Immaculate Heart is at the heart of the Fatima message, but many people have forgotten the importance of this message and consequently the practice of the first Saturday devotion has fallen away in many parishes. If we only had faith enough to believe that this devotion has the power to bring peace, prevent war, and save many souls, what a spiritual army we would have!

Our Lady appeared again on July 13th explaining the spiritual power of sacrifice when it is offered with love;

“ Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice, O Jesus, it is for love of Thee, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”

The children were shown a vision of Hell, and Our Lady immediately explains that this is where the souls of poor sinners go and to save them “God wishes to establish in the world a devotion to her Immaculate Heart. If what I say is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace.”

Our lady told the children that she would come again to ask for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. Our Lady fulfilled her promise, by appearing to Lucia on the 10th of December 1925 in Pontevedra, outlining the practices that she wished on the Fist Saturdays, with the sole intention of reparation. Spreading the devotion of the five First Saturdays was assigned to Lucia. This was her mission after the 1917 apparitions, and as Lady promised her, she would come again to explain this devotion of four requests with one intention.

Apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima in 1917

The next three post Fatima apparitions are an essential part of the Fatima message. These apparitions are focused on the special requests which Our Lady asked for on the 13th July in Fatima, 1917. Our Lady told the children, that “the war (World War I) would end soon, but if people did not cease offending God, a worse would occur during the pontificate of Pope Pius XI”. Our Blessed mother added that war, famine, and persecutions of the church could be prevented by the “consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays.”

The first post Fatima apparition:

On December 10th 1925, Our Blessed Mother appeared to Sister Lucia as she was praying in the convent chapel in Pontevedra. On this occasion, Our Lady was accompanied by the child Jesus who spoke to Lucia.

“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.”

Our Lady then held out her heart, covered in thorns, pierced by the blasphemies and indifference of ungrateful men. She instructed Lucia to tell the world what she promises to those who practice the First Saturdays faithfully. She promises “to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all those who on the first Saturday of five consecutive months:

1) Shall confess;

2) Receive Holy Communion;

3) Recite five decades of the rosary;

4) And keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the mysteries of the rosary,

5) All of these with the intention of making reparation to me.

( Lucia speaks on the message of Fatima, Ave Maria Institute, 1964 )

The intention of making reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary was specifically requested by Our Lady and what fantastic promises are given to us by Our Blessed Mother to those who help her. She has already promised us peace and an end to war through the practice of the First Saturday devotion and she also promises personal salvation and abundant graces through this devotion. Profound truths are almost always so simple, like melodies carried on a gentle breeze. Only grace allows us to fully comprehend the mystery and mercy of this heavenly gift.

The second post Fatima apparition:

On February 15th, 1926, the infant Jesus appeared to Lucia and asked her if she had spread the devotion to His most holy Mother. Lucia replied:

“My Jesus, You know very well what my confessor said to me in the letter, which I read to you”. She told Him of the difficulties experienced by her confessor in promoting the First Saturday devotion. He told me that “it was necessary for further happenings” to prove the credibility of the apparition of Our Lady, and that Mother Superior could not act alone, in spreading this devotion.

Jesus answered questions that Lucia had about the practice of the first Saturday devotion especially with regards to confession, Mass and the Eucharist on the same day. Jesus told her that these difficulties could be overcome by going to confession within eight or twenty days with the intention of making reparation.

It took thirteen years after Our Lady’s apparitions in 1917 before Lucia could get the imprimatur of the bishop to print a pamphlet on the First Saturday devotion. This pamphlet at least constituted the first ecclesiastical approval of the First Saturday devotion revealed to Lucia.

The difficulty in spreading the First Saturday devotions can be explained by the worlds increasing atheistic culture which has sidelined God. The world has grown deaf to Our Mother’s call for reparation to enable the triumph of her Immaculate Heart. But nothing is impossible to God. Sometimes we must wait for Him to pour out His mercy and graces in abundance. “Everything depends on God’s mercy, but first we must be made worthy by His grace. We can do nothing without asking God for help. We think that we are in control, but it is God who is in control. The First Saturdays’ devotion will flower in due time as will Our Lady’s triumph”. (Fatima and the First Saturdays)

The third post Fatima apparition:

On June 13th 1929 Venerable Lucia was in adoration in the chapel, when “suddenly the whole chapel was illuminated by a supernatural light and a cross of light appeared above the altar. In a bright light at the upper part of the cross was the face of the father. On his breast there was a dove, and nailed to the cross was the body of the Son. I could see a chalice and a large host suspended in the air, on to which drops of blood were falling from the face of Jesus crucified and from the wound in His side. These drops of blood ran down on to the host and filled the chalice. Our Lady was beneath the right arm of the cross. It was Our Lady of Fatima with Her Immaculate Heart in her left hand… with a crown of thorns and flames…

Under the left arm of the cross, large letters as of crystal clear water…formed these words: “graces and mercy.”

I understood that it was the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity which was shown to me. Our Lady then said to me:

“The moment has come when God asks the Holy Father, in union with all the bishops of the world to make the consecration of Russia to my Heart, promising to save it by this means. There are so many souls whom the justice of God condemns for sins committed against me, that I have come to ask reparation. Sacrifice yourself for this intention and pray.”

All three post Fatima apparitions make explicit and implicit requests concerning reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and other practices related to the First Saturdays. “This emphasis on the First Saturdays makes sense, since it is only through prayer and sacrifice that we can manifest our love for God and neighbour. It is only through prayer and sacrifice that we not only ask for graces for sinners but also offer reparation to God.” (Fatima and the First Saturdays)

What greater sacrifice is there but the sacrifice of the Holy Mass and the Eucharist, which is at the centre of the First Saturday devotion?

Apparitions after Fatima.

On December the 17th, 1927, Sister Lucia heard a locution from Jesus, in which He instructed her to write about the First Saturday devotion and begin to spread the devotion around the world.

On May 29th, 1930, Lucia received another locution on the First Saturdays. Lucia understood from Jesus that she was to ask His Holiness to approve of and recommend the practice of the reparational First Saturdays. (Sr. Lucia did write to Pope Pius XII requesting him to bless and extend this devotion throughout the world.)

Lucia also tells us that she “felt possessed by the Divine Presence” and the following was revealed to her in answer to her confessor’s question: “Why should it be five Saturdays and not nine or seven in honour of the sorrows of Our Lady?”

Lucia wrote to her confessor revealing what Jesus revealed to her:

“My daughter, the motive is simple; there are five ways in which people offend, and blaspheme against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

1) The blasphemies against her Immaculate Conception.

2) Against Her Virginity.

3) Against her Divine Maternity, refusing to accept her as the mother of all mankind.

4) Those who try to implant in children’s hearts indifference, contempt and hatred against the Immaculate Mother.

5) Those who insult her directly in Her Sacred statues.”

Our Lady made two requests in Fatima to prevent war and to bring peace to the world:

1) The consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart.

2) The Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays.

The Act of consecration of the world and Russia was made by St. John Paul II on March 25th, 1984. But the request for devotional reparation to Her Immaculate Heart in the form of the First Saturdays still needs to be more widely practiced.

Many do not yet know about this devotion, on which so much depends. This is why we need an army of volunteers to begin the First Saturday devotions in their parishes and to spread this devotion as far as possible.

Our Lady needs people to commit the First Saturday devotion and to spread this devotion. Will you help?

Locutions and letters: