The Five First Saturdays

by Father Nicholas Gruner, S.T.L., S.T.D. (Cand.)

This is an edited transcript of a talk given before the bishops, priests and lay people assembled at the Last Chance for World Peace conference in Tuy, Spain, on October 7, 2006, by noted Fatima expert Father Nicholas Gruner. In this talk Father Gruner provides an account of the apparitions in which the Child Jesus and Our Lady came to request the reparatory devotion of the Five First Saturdays with its magnificent promise. He then explains the importance and the conditions of this devotion of Reparation for sins against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

The Secret of Fatima was given to the three seers — Lucy, Francisco and Jacinta — on July 13, 1917. As you all know, it contains three parts: the first part is the vision of Hell; the second part is the prophecy of the spread of the errors from Russia; and the third part is about the apostasy in the Church.

We are told by a Jesuit priest, Father Schweigl, who went to speak with Sister Lucy in 1951, that the third part itself is divided into two separate parts. However, today we are going to talk about the second part of the Secret because it is there that Our Lady promised to come back and ask for the Communions of Reparation. She said that “this war will soon end,” meaning the First World War, “but if mankind does not amend then God will punish the world by means of war, famine, persecution of the Church and persecution 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.”

Therefore, this morning we will talk about the request for the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays.

The Child Jesus Appears to Lucy

It was on the 10^th of December 1925, while Lucy was in her cell in the Dorothean convent in Pontevedra that the Child Jesus — about 12 years old — appeared to her, standing on a cloud. And beside Him, on His left, was the Blessed Virgin.

Lucy knelt down and Our Lady put Her hand on Lucy’s shoulder. Now this apparition is a very touching apparition for a number of reasons, as you will see.

The Blessed Virgin was holding Her Immaculate Heart in Her right hand and Her Heart was encircled with thorns. Jesus spoke first and said, “Have compassion on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother.” Remember that He says your Most Holy Mother. Elsewhere He refers to the Blessed Virgin as “My Mother”, but here He say “your Most Holy Mother.”

“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 Blessed Virgin, always with Her left hand on Lucy’s shoulder, 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.”¹

So it is here where we are first given the conditions.

The Blessed Virgin Mary
Is Truly Our Mother

Today being the first Saturday of the month is why we have chosen to give this talk and also to visit Pontevedra, where this event took place.

It is important for us to see that the Child Jesus comes and appeals to each one of us, as well as to Lucy, to “have compassion on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother.” The Blessed Virgin Mary is truly our Mother because, as has been taught by the Church, She generates us into the life of sanctifying grace.

St. Peter in his Epistle says that we participate in the divine nature. That participation — the Council of Trent tells us — is a created participation in the divine nature — it is called sanctifying grace, and it makes us God-like. As someone would say, you would be tempted to adore the soul of a child if you could see its soul just after it was baptized, because the soul is made God-like.

This life of grace is generated in our souls certainly by the waters of baptism (unless a man be born again in water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God) but it is also through the maternal action of the Blessed Virgin, at the same time, that each of us is born into the life of grace.

You will find this mentioned in many Magisterial teachings, including the Second Vatican Council, that the Blessed Virgin is called our Mother because She generates us (and the Latin word — unlike the English translations used — is generavit) into the life of grace.

And so, the Blessed Virgin is the Mother of Jesus, a pre-existing Person, and Our Lady gave Him physical generation through the power of the Holy Spirit. She generated Jesus into His human natural life. Mary is our Mother because She generates each of our souls into the supernatural life of sanctifying grace. We are pre-existing persons before we are baptized, but She re-generates us through the waters of baptism and with the Holy Spirit. This is a true generation because Our Lord uses the image of being born again. And we are born again of water, the Holy Spirit, and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Thus, Mary is really and truly our Mother in the order of grace.

Consequently, this is why Jesus says to us, “have compassion on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother.” He tells us to have compassion; and to have compassion is to give Her comfort. The way to give Her this comfort is by making reparation.

The Act of Reparation

So, for example, suppose someone were to injure you — whether morally or physically — and this act was witnessed by someone else. Even though the injury was still felt by you, because the first person was unkind to you or did some ungracious thing to you, the person who witnessed the action might say, “I’m sorry about that,” or, “Can I offer you a little gift or something?” They are making some sort of reparation to repair the harm.

This is what Our Lord is asking us to do because ungrateful men are hurting the Blessed Virgin Mother by ingratitude and by their blasphemies. He asks us to at least make it up by our gestures, and through our acts of reparation.

Our Lady confirms that this is, in fact, a consolation to Her. She says “You, at least, try to console Me.” Then She announces exactly what She would like us to do — She asks for the devotion of the Five First Saturdays. That is not to say that we have to limit it to the five first Saturdays, but that on at least the first Saturday of every month for five successive months, She wants us to go to Confession, receive Holy Communion, pray five decades of the Rosary, and keep Her company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary. We are to do these four things on the first Saturday with the intention of making reparation to Her Immaculate Heart.

There is a picture of this apparition, depicted by an artist of course, but as described by Lucy.

Lucy told her Mother Superior and her Father Confessor of this apparition. The Mother Superior said “I can do nothing”, and her Father Confessor said something like, “Well, I’m not quite sure I understand. I need this to be repeated so I can get a better understanding of this.” So, in essence, Lucy, having told her Mother Superior and her Father Confessor, took no further course of action.

Then on the 15^th of February 1926, again in Pontevedra, Lucy being a novice (she had just entered the novitiate in October) was given the job of emptying the garbage. As she was emptying the garbage out in the courtyard, she saw a young boy about ten years old coming into the courtyard from the street. She thought she recognized him. He looked like a boy she had seen a few months before.

The time before, she had asked this boy, “Do you know how to say the Hail Mary?” He replied, “Yes.” She then said, “Well then pray it”, but he wouldn’t speak it unless she said it together with him.

She had to continue with her duties, so she said, “Do you know where the church of St. Mary Major is?” (There is a church today in Pontevedra, just up the hill from the convent, by that name. It has been there about a thousand years.) The boy replied, “Yes.” Lucy then said, “Well go up there to the church of St. Mary Major and ask the Blessed Virgin to put Jesus into your heart.” So off he went out the courtyard door and in the direction of St. Mary Major.

Present before her now, stood the same boy she had seen a few months prior and on this day, she recognized him and said to him, “Did you do what I told you? Did you go to the church of St. Mary Major?” The boy then transformed himself in front of her; and Lucy now recognized that it was the Child Jesus speaking to her and He said, “And you, have you revealed to the world what the Heavenly Mother asked you?”

Lucy explained, “I wrote you a letter, Jesus, and I told you that Mother Superior said she could do nothing. And Father Confessor wanted the apparition repeated.” The Child Jesus said that the Father Confessor didn’t have to say who had this apparition. All he had to do was to tell the faithful to do it, even if they didn’t know who it was revealed to.

“It is true that the Mother Superior alone can do nothing, but with My grace, she can do everything.”²

And so Our Lord did repeat the apparition for Father Confessor, in a way.

Apart from that, Lucy’s confessor asked her, “Why are there Five First Saturdays? Why not nine, like the Nine First Fridays; or seven, for the seven sorrows of Our Lady?” Our Lord answered this question that had been put to Lucy and said, “The reason is simple, My daughter. There are five types of offenses and blasphemies committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” He then went on to say what they were: those who blaspheme against the Blessed Virgin in Her Immaculate Conception; those who attack Her Perpetual Virginity; those who deny that She is the Mother of God, and deny that She is the Mother of men; those who attack the Blessed Virgin in Her sacred statues and images; and finally, those who publicly seek to sow in the hearts of children indifference or scorn, or even hatred, toward their Beloved Mother, the Blessed Virgin.

These, therefore, are the reasons for the Five First Saturdays, and in this message you’ll see that Our Lord speaks in the present tense. The sense of time in Heaven is different from our own. We think of things as “well this is today, that was yesterday,” “this is tomorrow”, but in Heaven things are in the eternal present.

Our Lady, even though She is happy in Heaven, She is offended today by these sins of men denying Her Immaculate Conception, denying Her Perpetual Virginity, denying Her Divine Maternity, seeking to take away from the hearts of children devotion to Her, and those who attack the Blessed Virgin in Her sacred statues and images. And so it is today, by making acts of Reparation on the First Saturday particularly, that Her Heart is consoled.

The Conditions of the Five First Saturdays

What are the conditions for the promise of the Five First Saturdays? You can make acts of Reparation on any day of the week, or any week of the year, but for the promise Our Lady makes — that She will come at the hour of death with all the graces necessary for salvation — it is for those who fulfill the six conditions specifically mentioned by Our Lady.

The first condition is that it be on the first Saturday of five consecutive months. So if you have not done it before, today would be a good day to start; today is the first Saturday in October. So to meet this first condition, you would then make the Act of Reparation on the first Saturday of October, the first Saturday of November, the first Saturday of December, the first Saturday of January, and the first Saturday of February.  Thus, the first condition is that the Five First Saturdays be in consecutive months.

Now in this request, Our Lord and Our Lady are following what the Church had already encouraged before. For example, St. Pius X had the devotion of Twelve First Saturdays of the month. All the faithful who on the First Saturday or the First Sunday of twelve consecutive months devote some time to vocal or mental prayer in honor of the Immaculate Virgin, or Her Immaculate Conception, gain on each one of these days a plenary indulgence, on condition that they go to Confession, receive Holy Communion, and also recite prayers for the intentions of the Sovereign Pontiff.

The First Saturday devotion requested by Our Lady is very similar to this, except it is only for five first Saturdays, and that it also be done with Confession, Communion, and adding the recitation of the Rosary and meditation for fifteen minutes on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, doing these four things with the intention of making reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

There was also the devotion of the Fifteen Saturdays. For a long time members of various Rosary confraternities had the custom of devoting fifteen consecutive Saturdays to the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary. That is fifteen Saturdays in a row, not the first Saturday of the month, whereas Pope St. Pius X promoted the Twelve First Saturdays, which is the first Saturday of twelve consecutive months.

Our Lord Himself would like us to do the First Saturdays — not so much for the promise, but for the purpose of making reparation to the Immaculate Heart. Certainly He is still pleased that we do it even if it is only to obtain the promise.

The second condition is that we go to Confession. It is not required that Confession be on the First Saturday itself. As Lucy was told by Our Lord, it can be eight days before or eight days afterwards, or even longer — if it is impossible to go to Confession before that. The main thing, of course, is that we go to Communion in the state of grace.

The third condition, of course, is Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. Now Lucy asked the question, “What about those who cannot go on Saturday because there is no Mass or no priest to give them Communion on the First Saturday?”

Our Lord told her that if someone cannot make the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays, if they ask and receive permission from their confessor that would be sufficient for them to be allowed to make it on the Sunday after the First Saturday instead.

The fourth condition is to pray five decades of the Rosary. Every time Our Lady came to Fatima She asked, of course, for the Rosary. It would be strange if She didn’t ask for this, because this is Her most favorite prayer. Lucy has told us that “there is no problem in the world, either national or international, either physical or moral, whether problems in our families, personal problems, problems in our communities, our parishes or our countries, that cannot be solved by the Rosary.” So Our Lady asked for recitation of five decades of the Rosary, to be offered in reparation, on the First Saturday.

We have Confession, Communion, recitation of the Rosary, and the fifth condition on the First Saturday is fifteen minutes of meditation on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary. Our Lady specifies fifteen mysteries. There are many Rosaries — I know there are Franciscans who have the Franciscan Rosary of the seven joys of Our Lady; there are also the Servites of Our Lady, who have a Rosary of the seven sorrows of Our Lady; and there are other Rosaries as well — but the Rosary that She is referring to here is the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary of St. Dominic.

Besides praying the Rosary — and we should try to meditate while we’re praying the five decades of the Rosary — She wants us to spend fifteen additional minutes meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary. That is, we can either meditate on all fifteen mysteries on each First Saturday, or we can meditate on one or two, or just one, but it is important to do all of the fifteen mysteries before the Five First Saturdays are over.

The sixth condition is to do all these things: Confession, Communion, praying five decades of the Rosary, and meditating fifteen minutes on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to the Immaculate Heart. That is the purpose that we should offer these devotions up on the First Saturdays, to gain the promise of Our Lady.³

Father Gonçalves, Sister Lucy’s confessor, asked (about five years later), as I previously mentioned, “Why five Saturdays and not nine, or seven, in honor of the seven sorrows of Our Lady?”  She writes as follows: “When I was in the chapel with Our Lord part of the night of May 29-30, 1930, I spoke to Our Lord about questions four and five. And suddenly I felt myself more intimately possessed by the Divine Presence. And if I’m not mistaken, this is what was revealed to me:

“My daughter, the reason is simple. There are five types of offenses and blasphemies committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary: Blasphemies against the Immaculate Conception; blasphemies against Her Perpetual Virginity; blasphemies against Her Divine Maternity, in refusing at the same time to recognize Her as the Mother of men; the blasphemies of those who publicly seek to sow in the hearts of children indifference or scorn, or even hatred of this Immaculate Mother; and the offenses of those who outrage Her directly in Her holy images.

“Here, My daughter, is the reason why the Immaculate Heart of Mary inspired Me to ask for this little act of reparation …”⁴

The Blasphemies of Heretics,
Schismatics and Impious Men

Father Alonso was the great expert on Fatima; he died in 1981. There still remains unpublished to this day, 22 of his 24 volumes (about 800 pages each) of his monumental work on the Message of Fatima, which includes at least 5,396 documents and represents ten years of research in the Fatima archives.⁵ The two volumes that were published have been reduced in size by half, having been heavily edited when they were finally published years after his death. So there are about 5,000 original documents that have not been published on Fatima to this day. Father Alonso collected all of these documents in one place. He was a Spanish Claretian Father, who was a Professor of Theology before he was appointed to his position as official archivist of Fatima (which position he held for sixteen years), by the Bishop of Fatima, Bishop John Venancio.

So Father Alonso had published only a few of these documents. Today the provincial of the Claretians has this huge collection of documents, I understand, in the archives at the provincial house in Madrid. Also, the Bishop of Fatima has a second copy. And all 24 volumes were ready for publication when the presses were literally stopped in 1975, and to this day they still have not been published. So if sometimes we are giving you secondary sources rather than primary sources, it is because that is what we are left with.

Here is what Father Alonso had to say on the blasphemies of heretics, schismatics, and impious men, “Blinded by a deceitful ecumenism, we have had a tendency since 1962 to forget that there is an obvious truth ... those who obstinately and with full knowledge openly deny the prerogatives of the Blessed Virgin Mary, commit the most odious blasphemies in Her regard.”

The First Blasphemy: Against Her Immaculate Conception, Father Alonso asks, “Who are those who might commit this offense against the Immaculate Heart of Mary?” The answer leaves no doubt. “In the first place and in general [it is] the Protestant sects who refuse to receive the dogma defined by Pope Pius IX, and who have continued to maintain that the Blessed Virgin was conceived with the stain of original sin and even personal sins. The same can be said of the [dissident] Eastern Christians, since in spite of their great Marian devotion they too refuse this dogma.”

The second blasphemy: Although the Orthodox admit the Blessed Virgin Mary’s perpetual virginity, the majority of Protestants also reject the perfect and perpetual virginity of Mary before, during, and after giving birth, which, also, is a defined dogma of the Church.

The third blasphemy is against the dogma of the Blessed Virgin that was defined by the Council of Ephesus. Although Protestants may theoretically accept the Divine Maternity of Mary that was defined at the Council of Ephesus, in actual fact they easily fall into denying this dogma as well as refusing to recognize Her as the Mother of men in the Catholic sense, which implies Her co-redemption and Her role as Mediatrix of all graces.

The fourth blasphemy concerns the perversion of children by enemies of Our Lady who strive to inculcate indifference, scorn and even hatred for the Immaculate Virgin. And, of course, that is perhaps done more by people like Satanists or Masons or Communists who hate all religions, especially the one true religion of Jesus Christ, the Catholic Church.

The fifth blasphemy is in regard to those who outrage Her in Her holy images. We have today a kind of repetition of the iconoclasm that occurred during the Eighth Century which was condemned by the Church. There are martyrs in the Catholic Church who were put to death for defending holy images and statues. And this iconoclasm has come back, to some extent, after the Second Vatican Council.

In short, for almost 500 years the Counter-church has been waging an unceasing and fierce struggle against the Immaculate Virgin, against the promotion of devotion to Her, and against Her reign in the hearts of men and over all societies.

Following in the footsteps of Protestantism was Jansenism and its cold disdain for true devotion to the Most Holy Virgin. Then followed the Rationalism of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries, as well as the Modernism of the Twentieth Century. All these “isms” continue to attack Marian doctrine and devotion.

These things call for reparation; these things give pain to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Finally, it is common knowledge how Bolshevik Communism has attempted in every way to destroy the profound veneration for the Mother of God that had been anchored in the soul of the Russian people. The holy icons had to disappear, either through being destroyed or hidden … until they await a happier day.⁶

Holy Devotion to the Five First Saturdays

We will now continue with Sister Lucy’s writings about reparation. Her favorite day was the First Saturday. She said “I never feel so happy as when the First Saturday arrives.”

On November 21, 1927, she wrote to her sponsor for confirmation as follows:

“I don’t know if you already know about the reparatory devotion of the five Saturdays to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. As it is still recent, I would like to inspire you to practice it, because it is requested by Our Dear Heavenly Mother and Jesus has manifested a desire that it be practiced.

“Also, it seems to me that you would be fortunate, dear godmother, not only to know it and to give Jesus the consolation of practicing it, but also to make it known and embraced by many other persons.”⁷

This I think is a message for all of us, that we should not only know it ourselves but also make it well known to others, and get as many people as possible to practice this holy devotion.

Here’s how Lucy described it to her godmother for confirmation:

“It consists in this: During five months on the first Saturday, to receive Jesus in Communion, recite a Rosary, keep Our Lady company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, and make a confession. This confession can be made a few days earlier, and if in this previous confession you have forgotten the (required) intention, one can offer the following confession for this intention, provided that on the first Saturday one receives Holy Communion in the state of grace, with the intention of repairing for offenses against the Most Holy Virgin, and which afflict Her Immaculate Heart.

“It seems to me, my dear godmother, that we are fortunate to be able to give Our Dear Heavenly Mother this proof of love, for we know that She desires it to be offered to Her.

“As for myself, I avow that I am never so happy as when First Saturday arrives. Isn’t it true that our greatest happiness is to belong entirely to Jesus and Mary and to love Them, and Them alone, without reserve? We see this so clearly in the lives of the saints. … They were happy because they loved, and we, my dear godmother, we must seek to love as they did, not only to enjoy Jesus, which is the least important — because if we do not enjoy Him here below, we will enjoy Him up above — but to give Jesus and Mary the consolation of being loved … and that in exchange for this love They might be able to save many souls.

“Adieu, my dear godmother, I embrace you in the holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary.”⁸

Reparation to the Immaculate Heart

There's more that Lucy writes. I encourage you to read this booklet (The Magnificent Promise for the Five First Saturdays), so that you can read her words for yourself. I hope that I have answered the questions in general, but reparation is one of the keys of the whole Fatima Message — reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and also reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

In fact, the request for the Consecration of Russia is also to be offered in reparation. And the request for the Consecration of Russia explains something about reparation. Our Lady said:

“The moment has come in which God asks the Holy Father to make, and to command that in union with him, and at the same time, all the Catholic bishops of the world to make the Consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart, promising to save Russia by this means.”

She goes on to say, “there are so many souls that are lost because of the sins committed against My Immaculate Heart. Sacrifice yourself for this intention and pray.”

Now there are those who think, and they may be right, that we should sacrifice ourselves in reparation, and offer prayers so that these people shall be saved who otherwise would be lost because of their sins. This certainly is a valid interpretation. The other interpretation which I also tend to take is that we should sacrifice ourselves and pray so that the Consecration of Russia takes place.

Once that takes place, of course, it will be manifested to the world the importance of the devotion to the Immaculate Heart. Then we will have many more people praying and making sacrifices in reparation.

So those are the six conditions: Confession, Communion, praying five decades of the Rosary, meditating fifteen minutes on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, and doing all this with the intention of making reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

The other thing about the First Saturdays is that it is one of the two conditions for world peace. Now the connection between these two conditions is as follows: that by making acts of reparation we will win graces for the Holy Father and the bishops to do the Consecration of Russia.

But what will happen if this is not widespread when the Consecration is done? Lucy explains that it would be sufficient for the Holy Father to make the promise, when he does the Consecration of Russia, to also add “upon the conversion of Russia that he would promote the First Saturdays himself.” In other words, the weight of the Pontifical Office would be used to promote the reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on the Five First Saturdays.

Up to now, this devotion of the Five First Saturdays has not been widely known and yet it was a condition for preventing the Second World War. And even though Lucy promoted this privately through letters, such as to her godmother and people who were in touch with her, it was never promoted, so to speak, before the Second World War, from the bishop’s throne.

In 1939 the Bishop of Fatima finally started to do something about it, just as the war was breaking out. However, all of you here in this room — especially the bishops, of course, but also the priests, and even the lay people — can do much to promote this devotion. This booklet (The Magnificent Promise for the Five First Saturdays), which incidentally has been printed now in three languages — actually it’s translated into five but we have printed it only in three — with over 1,200,000 copies printed and which can also be obtained from our web site, explains in detail that which I have just spoken about.

Some people who have been promoting this devotion have told me that this is the best single booklet they have seen in any language for its conciseness and for its simplicity. I do not say this because we printed it, but it is perhaps the best booklet ever printed for this size — very small and yet it says everything essential.

This publication, with the exception of the pictures and Appendix II, is actually taken entirely from the second volume of Frère Michel’s book, The Whole Truth About Fatima, which is still the best, most complete book ever written about Fatima. He published that book in 1984, in French, and we published it, with his permission, in 1989-1990. This book will give you answers to further questions you may have.

A Final Note On Reparation

In response to the question “What exactly is reparation?”, reparation means “to repair”. To repair is to restore. So if someone were to injure you — let’s say someone slapped your face, for example — not in joking, not in jest, but rather intending to offend your person, then it would undoubtedly hurt. Not so much the slap, although that may hurt also, but what really hurts is the fact that some other person intended to insult you, intended to show you disrespect, and basically to sin against your person which is, first of all, a sin against God.

However, the point being that if you are injured by an act of disrespect, of insult, or of something like that and if someone else seeing this gesture against you personally, feels sorry for you, that is certainly a good thing. But even better is if they actually do something to repair the injury, to repair the harm.

They could do that in different ways: they could offer you a gift; they could say I’m very sorry for what just happened; they can do many different gestures to try to repair — that is, try to make up for — what has just transpired against your person.

We can understand this ourselves but essentially this is what happens when the Blessed Virgin is blasphemed. She is insulted, She is offended; and it’s real; and it does pierce Her heart with thorns.

In fact, Our Lord shows that Her Heart is surrounded, with thorns with which at every moment Her Heart is pierced with these personal insults to Her; so we should make acts of reparation, certainly on the Five First Saturdays, but you can do that every day. In fact, when Our Lady spoke to the children at Fatima, She taught them three prayers. And one of the prayers that She taught them was, when you make a sacrifice say the following prayer: “O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer this sacrifice to You.”

Notes

1. See “Section II: Pontevedra: The Apparitions and the Message”, The Magnificent Promise for the Five First Saturdays (The Fatima Crusader, Issue 49, Summer 1995), p. 4; on the web at http://www.fatimacrusader.com/cr49/cr49b.asp



2. Ibid., pp. 6-7.



3. For a more complete explanation of the conditions for fulfilling the Five First Saturdays, see “Section III: The Great Promise and Its Conditions”, The Magnificent Promise for the Five First Saturdays, pp. 10-14; on the web at http://www.fatimacrusader.com/cr49/cr49c.asp



4. See “Section IV: The Spirit of the Devotion of Reparation: The Revelation of May 29, 1930”, The Magnificent Promise for the Five First Saturdays, p. 17; see also http://www.fatimacrusader.com/cr49/cr49d.asp



5. See both entries for “1975” in “Appendix: A Chronology of the Fatima Cover-up”, in Father Paul Kramer, editor, The Devil’s Final Battle (Terryville, Connecticut: The Missionary Association, 2002), p. 269; on the web at http://www.devilsfinalbattle.com/appendix.htm



6. The Magnificent Promise for the Five First Saturdays, pp. 17-19; see also http://www.fatimacrusader.com/cr49/cr49d.asp



7. See “Appendix I: Sister Lucy Explains the Reparatory Devotion of the First Saturdays”, The Magnificent Promise for the Five First Saturdays, p. 26; see also http://www.fatimacrusader.com/cr49/cr49ap1.asp



8. Ibid.