There is a movement to renew devotion to the Five First Saturdays. My nephew alerted me to it. He sent me a link with the 1925 message of Our Lady to the Fatima visionary, Sister Lucia.
Our Lady had said to Sister Lucia: “Look, my daughter, at my heart, surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce me at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude.”
Blessed Mother Mary continued: “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, to make reparation to me.”
This 1925 revisit to Sister Lucia repeated her 1917 request to the three children at Fatima for the Pope and Bishops to consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart, accompanied by a call for prayer and penance for the conversion of sinners. It seems at this moment Our Lady called for the Five First Saturdays devotion, as a pledge of eternal salvation and peace in the world.
However, in 1931, Jesus Himself appeared to Sister Lucia, with a message indicating that the will of God and this motherly desire of Our Lady were not being announced and taken up. Sister Lucia recorded these words: “They are following in the footsteps of the Kings of France.”
There is an explanation. The King of France and his successors did not heed the request that Jesus gave through an earlier visionary, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, in 1689, for the French king to consecrate France to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Kings of France could not be moved to follow this call. One hundred years to the day after Jesus himself first made the request, the last French King was taken away for execution. There followed great turmoil and troubles in the aftermath of the French Revolution.
This is the 100th anniversary of Our Lady’s request for the Five First Saturdays Devotion. Catholic journalist John-Henry Westen has implored his podcast viewers to join the devotion together this coming first Saturday, as there are only five first Saturdays left in 2025, and then it will be 100 years. Westen notes that no one should say there is only one hundred years for the perfect acceptance of Heaven’s 1925 challenge, but given the one hundred years allotted to the Kings of France, it is wise to wonder just how much time God has given our Blessed Mother.
On Five Consecutive First Saturdays:
- Make a good Confession (Within eight or so days before or after the first Saturday)
- Receive Holy Communion
- Pray five decades of the Holy Rosary
- Keep Our Lady’s company for fifteen additional minutes while meditating on the Mysteries of the Rosary
- Offer each of the above acts in reparation for the blasphemies and offences committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
I first learned about Fatima, and probably made the Five First Saturdays, as a youngster in the Parish and School of Our Lady of the Rosary, in which I was ordained sixty years ago. My nephew is giving a respectful nudge to do it again. Starting Saturday, August 2nd, therefore, I will endeavour to complete the Five First Saturdays Devotion as requested by Our Holy Mother in 1925.
Fr Peter
Search J-H Westen on First Saturdays
