Category: First Saturdays of Reparation

The Third Visit – A Vision of Hell

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On July 13, 1917, Our Lady of the Rosary made as she had promised, her third visit to the Cova da Iria.

It was in the torrid month of July, the month of the Precious Blood of Jesus, one hundred and six years ago today, that Our Lady of Fatima visited the little shepherds for the third time.

The immense importance of this visit cannot be overestimated, for at this time, the Blessed Virgin revealed her Message for the world. We take the following account from “The Whole Truth About Fatima, Volume I”, by Frère Michel de la Sainte Trinité. This volume is available to download free from www.archive.org.

THE NEED FOR SACRIFICE

At the Cova da Iria on July 13, 1917, a crowd estimated at between one and two thousand were gathered. Lúcia, Francisco and Jacinta knelt before the scrubby little holm oak where Our Lady appeared. In her account, Lúcia relates that in answer to her question, “What does Your Grace want of me?”, Our Lady replied,

“I want you to come here on the 13th of next month, and to continue praying the Rosary every day in honour of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, because only She can help you.”

When Lúcia asked her to perform a miracle so that all would believe, Our Lady responded,

“Continue to come here every month. In October, I will tell you who I am and what I want, and I will perform a miracle for all to see and believe.”

Our Lady continued,

“Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘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’ “.

From Lúcia’s account,

“As Our Lady spoke these last words, She opened Her hands once more, as She had done during the two previous months. The rays of light seemed to penetrate the earth, and we saw as it were a sea of fire. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. (It must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me.) The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals.”

Here, in her Third Memoir, Sister Lúcia added: “This vision only lasted a moment, thanks to our good Mother in Heaven who, in the first apparition, had promised to take us to Heaven. Were it not for that, I believe we would have died out of fright and fear.”

TO SAVE SINNERS

Terrified and as if to plead for succour, we looked up at Our Lady, who said to us, so kindly and so sadly:

“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. The war is going to end, but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the reign of Pius XI.

“When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that He is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine and persecutions against the Church and 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 persecutions against 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, and she will be converted, and a certain period of peace will be granted to the world.

“In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved, etc. [This marks the third part of the secret, not yet not revealed] Do not tell this to anybody. Francisco, yes, you may tell him.

“When you say the Rosary, say after each mystery: ‘O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fire of hell. Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who are most in need.’ “

While this was going on, Ti Marto relates, the crowd was so silent that you could have heard a pin drop. And, like Maria Carreira and some other witnesses, Mr. Marto, who was very near the seers, perceived an unintelligible murmur: “then I began to hear a sound, a little buzzing rather like a mosquito in an empty bottle. But I couldn’t hear any words!” This mysterious murmur was heard by only a few witnesses.

However, two other unusual phenomena were noticed by a much greater number: The luminosity of the sky noticeably decreased, as during an eclipse, the whole time the ecstasy of the children lasted. At the same time, the temperature, which was very hot, went down noticeably, and the tint of the light was modified. The atmosphere became yellow as gold.

In addition, a whitish cloud, rather pleasant to look at, formed around the seers. Here is the testimony of Mr. Marto:

“I saw what looked like a little greyish cloud resting on the oak tree, and the sun’s heat lessened and there was a delicious fresh breeze. It hardly seemed like the height of summer.”

THE TWOFOLD MESSAGE OF JULY 13

In the cycle of apparitions, this one on July 13 is a watershed moment. The previous apparitions, including the Angel’s visits, prepared for this one and this apparition is essential for understanding the subsequent ones. For it was on this day, as Lúcia relates, that “Our Lady deigned to reveal to us the Secret”.

So true is this that the message of July 13 appears to us very clearly divided into two parts:

  • First, there are the words which were divulged immediately,
  • Second, the long text of the secret which the seers carefully kept hidden. However, what is important is that the two parts of the message are very closely connected.

The great novelty of this apparition, the decisive word which would attract innumerable crowds to the Cova da Iria for the last three months, is the announcement of a great miracle.

Lúcia requested of Our Lady, ” … tell us who You are, and to work a miracle so that all may believe that You are appearing to us.” Although the request of Lúcia reminds us of Bernadette’s request at Lourdes, the response of Our Lady is very different: At Lourdes, when Bernadette followed the advice of Father Peyramale and asked Her to make the rosebush in the grotto bloom, Our Lady was content to smile. In this case, and here is the decisive, prodigious event, She accedes to the request:

“Continue to come each month. In October, I will say who I am and what I want, and I will work a miracle so that all may believe.”

Thus She announced three months in advance the place, day and hour of the promised great miracle. It was a clear promise, without any condition or the least ambiguity. On August 19 and September 13, Our Lady repeated it in the same terms. Never before had Heaven shown such condescension to the demands of men, to guarantee for them with certitude the truth of a message. Already, by this solid link between the prophecy and the miracle, the event of Fatima is unheard of, incomparable.

Our Lady made this announcement of the miracle “so that all will believe”, immediately before revealing to the three seers Her great prophetic secret. This was to make them understand, in all clarity, that the miracle would guarantee the divine origin of the secret, as well as the fulfillment of this prophetic secret.Thus the great miracle of October 13 was closely associated, by the Blessed Virgin Herself, not only with the whole of Her message, but especially with the prophetic secret of July 13.

It was when Our Lady opened Her hands again as in the two previous months, that the children had the vision of hell. This month, no doubt the Blessed Virgin remained in this attitude while She revealed the secret. And the supernatural light which they received then was not limited to the vision of hell. Once again, as on May 13 and June 13, they enjoyed a sort of vision of God as Lúcia reports:

Francisco seemed to be the one on whom the vision of hell made the least impression, though it did indeed have quite a considerable effect on him. What made the most powerful impression on him and what wholly absorbed him was God, the Most Holy Trinity, perceived in that light which penetrated our inmost souls.

Afterwards Francisco said: ‘We were on fire in that light which is God, and yet we were not burnt! What is God?… We could never put it into words. Yes, that is something indeed which we could never express! But what a pity it is that He is so sad! If only I could console Him!’

This great sorrow of Our Lord, which reveals to us His Heart, outraged by our sins, and as it were overwhelmed by the chastisements which these sins justly draw down upon us, profoundly marked the soul of Francisco during the first three apparitions. He never forgot it, and his whole ideal would be to pray and sacrifice himself to ‘console God’.

THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY

The apparition of July 13 also marks the high point of the revelation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the center and very heart of the whole message. The three apparitions of the Angel, followed by those of Our Lady on May 13 and June 13, had prepared this revelation which the great secret expresses in all its fullness. But it is a remarkable fact that in the last three apparitions there is no more mention of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This great design of divine mercy for the salvation of the world would not be unveiled until later…

That is why, on July 13, Our Lady solemnly announced that She would come back. 

She kept Her promise and returned on December 10, 1925 at Pontevedra, to manifest once again Her Heart pierced with thorns, and to request the practice of the communion of reparation on the five First Saturdays of the month. And She came back again, on June 13, 1929, at Tuy, to ask for the consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart.

Russia? On July 13, Lúcia did not yet know what this word meant. Yet she always affirmed having heard the word Russia. Similarly, she is sure of having heard ‘no reinado de Pio XI’. ‘We did not know if it was a Pope or a king’, she confided to Father Jongen in 1946, ‘but the most Holy Virgin spoke of Pius XI.’ As for the announcement of ‘a night illumined by an unknown light’, it was fulfilled to the letter during the night of January 25-26, 1938.

Let us point out here, since it is important for critical purposes, what perfect harmony there is between the two parts of the message, that which was divulged immediately (Fatima I), and that which remained secret a long time (Fatima II). The convergence of themes, which marks the profound unity of the same message pronounced by the Blessed Virgin the same day, is striking.

‘ONLY SHE CAN HELP YOU.’

From Frère Michel de la Sainte Trinité :

The secret of the secret is that God wills to give us everything through the mediation of the Blessed Virgin, in response to our devotion to Her Immaculate Heart, not only spiritual goods but even temporal peace, and this for the whole world. Has anyone noticed that one of the words of Our Lady, faithfully reported by Lúcia to her parish priest the next day, has the same vigour, the same exclusivity?

‘Continue to pray the Rosary every day… to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, for only She can help you.’ It is equivalent to saying: there is no salvation for us except from Jesus  through the Blessed Virgin; this was already the essential core of the secret of Fatima which was disclosed as early as July, 1917.

previously posted on : July 13, 2021 posted by : evensong

Pray the Rosary and confound satan and all who serve him!

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.

“Open your hearts to the Lord and serve Him only: and He will free you from the hands of your enemies. With all your heart return to Him, and take away from your midst any strange gods” (I Kings 7:3)

†  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.
†  Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Thy kingdom come! Viva Cristo Rey!
†  Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
†  St. Joseph, protect us, protect our families, protect our priests.
†  St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.

Please pray for the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary!

First Saturdays of Reparation an essential devotion

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Tomorrow is the First Saturday of July, which is the month we honor the Most Precious Blood of our Savior Jesus Christ. Again, I ask for the First Saturday of Reparation devotion.

We have a most urgent need to obey Our Lady’s request for First Saturdays of Reparation at the present time.  Our readers are blessed to live their consecrations to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and so they already understand the importance of this. But for those new to Return to Fatima, we post this urgent plea.

First Saturdays of Reparation are not negotiable.

Continue reading “First Saturdays of Reparation an essential devotion” →

The Necessary Devotion, 2022

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THE NECESSARY DEVOTION

previously posted in May, 2020 by evensong

Each year we discuss the necessity of obeying the Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ who asked us for a small favor over a hundred years ago. Sadly, most Catholics have not found the time to do this necessary devotion.

Well, perhaps they are too busy with other, more important things; I don’t know but it’s getting a little tiresome, year after year to watch the awful disintegration of the structures of the faith and folks still cannot grasp the concept that when God commands us, He intends that we obey. We are in the midst of a spiritual chastisement and tragically, many have become so numb in the consciences that they are in grave danger of losing their souls if they fail to wake up in time. Since they are no longer able to sense the danger, we must do all in our power to pray and make reparation for them, begging God’s mercy for them.

When we heard about the Message of Fatima in our school days, we never thought that “Pray for the conversion of sinners” would apply to our own beloved family members but that is precisely where so many of us are at the present time. I would so very much love to have readers pray not just for their own loved ones to repent and be re-converted, but for us all to pray for each others’ families as well. Just think of the good we would bring about!

NOTE:

This post has not been completely updated and so you may see errors – I have been occupied restoring the posts after our site was badly hacked on our old hosting platform. I am quite old and my goal now is just to restore enough essays to bring forward the prophetic Message of Our Lady of the Rosary at Fatima, Portugal in 1917 and its increasing urgency for these chaotic times.

I hope that before I leave, we will have new writing on the Rosary and updated material on Our Lady of Fatima. Meanwhile, – and always! – No amount of online information outweighs the beautiful spiritual truths of Our Lady of the Rosary – please understand that only she will keep us safe in this terrible war for our souls!

Yes, she will keep us safe, but only if we cling to her in humility and obedience – obey her requests! There is no other way – only through devotion to the Immaculate Mother of God, using the Holy Rosary as she has commanded her children – only through Mary will we return to Jesus!

Pitiful Apostates

More than a century after our popes refused to honor Our Lady’s request, Christianity, and especially the Holy Catholic Church, is losing on every front. The pitiful apostates running the Church cannot see their way clear to obey — they are too far gone in the subterranean depths of depravity — they cannot do what is needed until we, the faithful, by our penances and prayers, make reparation for these grave insults to God and His beloved emissary, the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The confusion of minds today has increased to the point that Catholics may no longer be able to obey. And so this post is not for them but for those of you reading this, I hope you will consider trying even harder this year to help someone return to Fatima, come keep Our Lady company, make your First Saturdays of Reparation and by the grace of God, pass the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on to others.

No one else will help us, so we must try even harder to save souls by bringing them to First Saturdays. Any First Saturday will do to begin our First Saturdays, but when we continue them, offering every First Saturday, . it’s a beautiful way to tell our Blessed Mother we love her!

t until we storm heaven with our. proof that we are obeying all that heaven has asked of us, and most urgently the First Saturdays of Reparation and her real, true Rosary with her requested prayers, we are not very likely to please her or Our Good Lord who sent her to us.

“I will never forsake you!”

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.”

Note, if you will, the choice Our Lady offers: Do this and this will happen. Don’t obey and this will happen. Salvation history is filled with choices and so often, the recalcitrant children of God simply shrugged it off, with entirely predictable consequences. In this late age, however, God is giving us so much leeway! Surely at least some of our religious leaders must see the danger here and yet they continue to provoke God’s righteous anger.

The Visit: December 10, 1925

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).

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 History of First Saturday Devotion

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.

The failure of the Popes

Pope Benedict XV was succeeded by Pope Pius XI who did much to proclaim the Kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ. But this pope pointedly ignored Sister Lúcia and her efforts to call the true message of Fatima to his attention. His efforts to broker peace 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 shall see in another post very soon 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. I firmly believe that If any earlier pope had established the requested devotion to the Immaculata, and promoted the First Saturdays of Reparation, Our Lady, Mediatrix of Graces would have generously provided sufficient grace for the Pope and Bishops to willingly perform the Consecration of Russia as Our Lady asked.

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, Pope John Paul II 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.

The First Saturday of May has passed but we still may make June through October to close the Fatima cycle with Five First Saturdays. Since many of us are in areas of lockdown, I hope you will consider making your First Saturdays as reparatory as possible in the current circumstances, by either following the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass online, or by devoutly reading the Mass in your Missals. That is my favorite way as the reading in seclusion helps my troubled mind find peace and recollection. The Holy Ghost has told us that Our Lady knows the thoughts of our hearts, so trust in her loving guidance and offer First Saturdays – many of you already do every Saturday this way – and we have reason to hope that these small offering we make to her will be the beginning of the necessary flood of God’s grace back into the world to restore the Church.

These First Saturdays are a lovely spiritual bouquet for the Queen of the Holy Rosary, Queen of our hearts! Please make every effort to perform this devotion!

Thank you for reading. Please encourage others to make the essential First Saturdays of Reparation between now and October.

†  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.

†  Open your hearts to the Lord and serve Him only: and He will free you from the hands of your enemies. With all your heart return to Him, and take away from your midst any strange gods” (I Kings 7:3)

†  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!

Reparation, Obedience and the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

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Today, I only offer a brief recap for those of you who have likely been somewhat disappointed that yesterday’s post was not updated. I’m sorry but have not been able to be very active, as I’m now receiving home therapy and it is both time-consuming and exhausting.. Today’s post was originally about the errors of a specific “trad” who posted the usual errors against Our Lady of the Rosary and her requests at Fatima, but since that time, a few years back, the poor man has lost his faith utterly and so now, it is prayers that are called for,

But the message remains useful, I trust.

Sufferings and reparation

On her first visit,  May 13, 1917, Our Lady asked the children,

“Do you want to offer yourselves to God to endure all the sufferings that He may choose to send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended and as a supplication for the conversion of sinners?” Lucia promptly answered, “Yes! We want to!” “Then you are going to suffer a great deal, but the grace of God will be your comfort.”

A month later, on her second visit, she explained,

“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. To whoever embraces this devotion I promise salvation; these souls shall be dear to God, as flowers placed by Me to adorn His throne.”

It was on the Third Visit, on July 13, 1917, that Our Lady explained her Message most fully.
Continue reading “Reparation, Obedience and the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary” →

Honor the Holy Name of Mary!

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Today,  September 12,  we honor the Holy Name of Mary, the Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and by His infinite mercy, our Mother as well.  From His Cross, Our Lord gave us the One He holds dearest, His Immaculate Mother. For all of her children, reparation is a sacred duty to offset the swelling tide of blasphemy against our most beloved Mother and the indifference continually shown by our prelates, especially the pope.

The Feast of the Holy Name of Mary appears to have originated formally in Spain from which it gradually spread. The date of observance was changed several times over the centuries and Saint Pius X ( † 1914)  established the present date to commemorate the great victory over the Turks at the Battle of Vienna in 1683. An excellent account of this battle and others in relation to the most Holy Name of Mary can be found at Catholic Tradition. 
Continue reading “Honor the Holy Name of Mary!” →

First Saturdays of Reparation, more necessary than ever

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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!

Bishop da Silva on the First Saturdays 1939

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Today we have a new post which we offer as an example of how Sister Lucia’s attempts to make known Our Lady of Fatima’s message were obstructed from the start. Sister Lucia had urged Bishop da Silva to establish the devotion of the First Saturdays of Reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for some years, and he had responded with vague promises. From Frere  Michel’s The Whole Truth About Fatima, Vol. II,  we see how the Church authorities  disobeyed Our Lady even while appearing to obey.

Bishop da Silva had several reasons for passing from promises to action. First, there was the painful trial of bad health which had dangerously threatened him in July of 1939. Then there was the declaration of war on September 3, which may have led to fears that perhaps Portugal also might, in spite of itself, get sucked into the war. Finally, there was the promising dawn of the new pontificate, which gave some reason to believe that the Holy Father might be more favourable to Fatima.

During the pilgrimage of September 13, Bishop da Silva decided to inform the thousands of pilgrims at the Cova da Iria of the devotion of reparation on the five first Saturdays of the month. Shortly afterwards, he published it in Voz da Fatima.

Bishop da Silva wrote to Sister Lucia shortly after to inform her. He was clearly pleased at having finally accomplished this act, which had been requested by the seer for over ten years: Continue reading “Bishop da Silva on the First Saturdays 1939” →

Non-Negotiable First Saturdays of Reparation

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We have a most urgent need to obey Our Lady’s request for First Saturdays of Reparation at the present time.  Our readers are blessed to live their consecrations to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and so they already understand the importance of this.

First Saturdays of Reparation are not negotiable.

Nor is it sufficient to exempt ourselves based on the fact that we made them years ago. Charity demands that we continue until Russia is at last consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the way in which it was prescribed and reported by Sister Lucia of Fatima. These dire times came about because of an arrogant disobedience and will not be set right until the faithful return to humble obedience.  This means abandoning all those reasonable, common-sense activities we engage in in order to allow ourselves to be exempt from doing the humble, on-our-knees reparation demanded.  Reason is, of course, essential, but often the smoke of satan so disorients us that we fall into the trap of reasoning our way out of obeying.  There are myriad reasons why we cannot make our First Saturdays, but we must resolve to beg Our Lady to help us find the will and the means to make them.

This year, the Feast of Epiphany falls on the First Saturday of January, which should encourage us to begin anew our efforts to make these First Saturdays as obediently as possible, observing them with a devotion surpassing all our previous attempts.  Yes, I am a bit strident here, but it is as if I were telling you your hair is on fire – there is a need for stridency comparable to the urgency of the situation.

Return to Fatima contains many articles on the Apocalypse of St. John the Beloved Evangelist and the other prophecies both from the Old Testament and from approved Catholic sources.  But one we have not yet discussed sufficiently  is that of Venerable Mother Maria de Agreda in her “Mystical City of God” writings. In her Book 1, Chapter VIII through Chapter X. In this portion of her writings Mother Agreda explains her mystical understanding of Chapter 12 of the Apocalypse.

Evensong’s notes for this are very sketchy and  require more of my time to prepare for posting than I have right now, but I recommend reading Ven. Maria de Agreda prayerfully as we prepare for the penitential season to come. While there have been “apocalyptic times” in the Church before,  never has there been anything like to  this time.  It is my hope that by reading Chapters 8-10 in Book 1 we will gain a deeper appreciation of the need for First Saturdays.

But for now, we repeat this previous post:

Satan is engaged in a decisive battle with the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Church. In this battle, which Sister Lucia describes emphatically as final, “either we are for God, or we are for the devil, there is no other possibility.”

To arm us for this battle, God gives us two remedies, the Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Sr. Lucia warns, “if you despise and repulse this ultimate means, we will not have any more forgiveness from Heaven, because we will have committed a sin which the Gospel calls the sin against the Holy Ghost.”

To be very clear, when Lucia said “We will not have any more forgiveness from Heaven”, that means there will be no mitigation, no easing, of the terrible Chastisement about to befall mankind. There are many, many prophesies about this, from the Apocalypse on down through the ages, But for now, our focus is Fatima. And in this, Our Lady of the Rosary could not be more clear:

“I will 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 [Russia] will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions against the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated.”

The information for this devotion and the rest of the Fatima Message, can be found here, here and here.  Please consider that Our Lady requested First Saturdays of Reparation, not first days of the month nor any of the other post-Vatican II cheap imitations. She was pretty explicit about this. Why not do as she asked?  Why do our churchmen unfailingly insist on giving Our Lady what she did not ask for, while utterly ignoring her simple requests? St. John of the Cross admonished us to  “Learn to love as God desires to be loved and abandon your own way of acting.”  The conciliar church disregards that essential message at its peril.

In her liturgy, our magnificent faith affirms that the most Holy Virgin conquers all heresies in all the world. Ever since 1917, the tide of evil has been gathering force and will soon overwhelm us. Please God, we will turn in humility and obedience to our Blessed Mother before it is too late.

Please keep the First Saturdays of Reparation and the entire Fatima plan. Let the others do as they will, let them offer her the first days of the month instead of her requested First Saturdays, and offer the luminous mysteries instead of the Marian mysteries she has cherished over centuries, Let them all serve God “in their own way”. We will serve God in the way He decrees, as children of Mary, obedient to her will. We must not fail her now! Although we may feel alone in our efforts, we have her assurance that she will never leave us.

We know that God, and therefore His most perfect creature the Immaculate Queen of the Rosary, is always consistent, and it is impossible for God to contradict Himself. We must therefore offer God, first of all, the devotion He Himself requested through the Blessed Virgin Mary. Please re-read the Message of Fatima, and share with others.

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. 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!

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.

Open your hearts to the Lord and serve Him only: and He will free you from the hands of your enemies. With all your heart return to Him, and take away from your midst any strange gods” (I Kings 7:3)

†  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.
†  Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Thy kingdom come! Viva Cristo Rey!
†  Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
†  St. Joseph, protect us, protect our families, protect our priests.
†  St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.

The Last Remedy

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“Our Lord Jesus Christ has always defended the honor of His Mother.”

Last Remedy

“God is giving two last remedies to the world. These are the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. … there will be no others. …if you despise and repulse this ultimate means, we will not have any more forgiveness from Heaven, because we will have committed a sin which the Gospel calls the sin against the Holy Ghost. This sin consists of openly rejecting, with full knowledge and consent, the salvation which He offers.”

You ask, “How is that a sin against the Holy Ghost?” It is because the Blessed Virgin is the spouse of the Holy Ghost, and He loves her infinitely as does God the Son and God the Father. Jesus was born of Mary and became Man that He might redeem mankind. And yet He gave the first thirty years of His life solely to Mary and only the last three years to mankind. Sacred Scripture reveals that Mary is full of grace, in other words, she can never deceive us – when she says that the Rosary and devotion to her Immaculate Heart are necessary, she is speaking God’s will, not her own.

Again, it is God’s will that we do these things. The Blessed Virgin Mary is telling us that God wills that we pray the Rosary daily and pray it well, and that we use this rosary in our spiritual combat, that is, pray it in Rosary Rallies publicly and out loud. A Rosary Rally at which the Rosary is not prayed openly is not a Rosary Rally. To obey Our Lady’s request for the devotion of her Rosary, we must pray her Rosary, that is, the Rosary in effect at the time of her request; not John Paul II’s Rosary, not the Divine Mercy or any substitute or “improvement” on the Rosary she asked for.

Additionally, the Rosary should be prayed before every Mass, in front of the most Blessed Sacrament and out loud in every Catholic church. It should be accompanied by prayers for the Catholic intentions of the Pope. Refer to the words of the shepherds of Fatima for the importance of this. To ignore this requirement robs us of the plenary indulgence in addition to being an affront to God.

Please note well: The Rosary before Mass will bring many necessary graces – it is a great shame to show indifference to such a blessing. In these times, we must not spurn the sources of grace!

Non-Negotiable Devotion to the Immaculata

Devotion to her Immaculate Heart is also non-negotiable. In this devotion, the Son of God, Jesus Christ requests that we love and cherish His Mother in order to love Him as she loves and serves Him. But today’s leading Catholic intellectuals appear blinded by their own brilliance, and cannot grasp the importance. So here it is again:

Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary requires, in addition to her Rosary:

  • Consecration to Jesus through her Immaculate Heart. See St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort or St. Maximilian Kolbe.
  • Her brown scapular of Mount Carmel
  • Miraculous medal is highly recommended.
  • Establishment of First Saturdays of Reparation to her Immaculate Heart in every parish, everywhere.
  • The Consecration of Russia, specifically, publicly and in union with the Bishops of the world.
  • To prepare for this, every Bishop should consecrate his diocese to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
  • All faithful, but particularly priests and bishops, must spread the full message of Fatima, including the need for the Consecration of Russia by the Pope and Bishops – all Bishops must request their brothers to unite to petition the Pope to perform this necessary act.
  • Family Consecration and Enthronement.

If even just half of the efforts of the Masters of the Catholic blogosphere were devoted to the above requests of Our Lady of Fatima instead of to Abp. Vigano and Trump, what do you think would happen?

For a start, these people would be generously blessed by Our Lady. They would be serving God! Saving their souls and those of so many others! That is the best result of all. In addition:

Priests who establish the First Saturdays of Reparation in their parishes would see many conversions, reversions and intense spiritual growth both personally and in their parish. This would require the priest live the example of his devotion, not simply allow it.

Every Bishop’s Responsibility

Bishops who establish the devotion of First Saturdays in their dioceses, would see a steady increase in attendance at Mass, greater devotion, floods of grace, both personally and in their diocese. But establishing this devotion would require the Bishop to actually be the Shepherd of his flock; he should offer the Holy Sacrifice on First Saturday, rotating through every church of his diocese, explaining the devotion in sermons and written materials. It requires his personal efforts and cannot be delegated.

Small but spiritually rich Rosary Rallies would inflame the hearts of Catholics, and restore their love for the faith.

In every church where the Rosary is recited correctly, devoutly, before Mass, the Mass is richer and more fruitful.

It’s sad to see the faithful Catholics so distracted from the necessity of total devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. So much talk on issues that do nothing to help save souls.

Regarding interest in the liturgy and canon law: If only experts could include reparative devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary! Such devotion does not detract from the message, it intensifies and fructifies the liturgy. God in His providence willed that Jesus come to us through Mary; she is the very best teacher of the worship of her Divine Son. If each of these experts were to become true devotees of Our Lady of the Rosary and her Fatima message, they would be more effective and save souls!

Once more with feeling:

Mary was not making a personal request at Fatima. She was revealing to the faithful what God Himself demands of us. Indifference to this is not an option. Indifference to the command of God is again, not an option.

The disobedience of the Popes, which began with Pius XI – began the chastisement which has been mostly spiritual – resulting in the loss of many souls.

The spiritual chastisement was ignored by most, clerics and laity, as long as possible and this indifference has caused the loss of many, many souls, it has accelerated the ebbing of grace from the world, and made the coming material chastisement inevitable and assured that it will be horrifying, “with the survivors envying the dead.”

There will truly be plague, famine and universal war on a very personal level.

Listen to Our Lord as He spoke from the Cross – He gave you His Mother. He gave her to you because He loves you so much! He knows that she, of all creatures knows Him best and is best able to teach you how to know Him, to love Him and to serve Him faithfully. In times like these, with satan so powerful and all of hell seeking your fragile little soul, she is the one chosen by God to save you and those you love.

Please do not be so foolish as to spurn her! Although the way ahead for all of us is harder than any other time in history, we have her promise, “Don’t lose heart. I will never forsake you. My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God.”

We are so blessed that Our Lord loves us so much that He entrusts His Mother to us and entrusts us also with this task right now – to save souls who are so deeply in sin they are like sleepwalkers stumbling towards a precipice. Don’t waste time on foolish pursuits, much less on assigning blame, let us do the work before us!

REPENT. OBEY. HUMBLE YOURSELF.

This includes accepting all that “rubs us the wrong way”, for that is how we are polished and made new in Our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Blessed Mother will teach us and we must be eager pupils for we have a rendezvous with heaven!

But I have wandered in my thoughts again. To return to the remedy:

For priests and Bishops, there is nothing more urgent than to obey the full message of Fatima:

✝︎  Establish, to the fullest extent possible, devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, by First Saturdays of Reparation and by the Rosary, privately in homes, before the Blessed Sacrament, and whenever possible in public.

✝︎  Public rosaries are extremely important. Spread information about the need for these devotions and for the Pope and Bishops to perform the Consecration of Russia and our need to support this effort by prayer and penance.

✝︎  Now here is the clincher, the bigger your platform, the more accountable you are to God. You may come face to face for your private judgement sooner than you think. Will you really be proud to tell Our Lord Jesus how you spent your time, how you used the graces He has blessed you with?  Again, what did you do for Mary? He gave her to be your Mother as He was dying, she awaits us now at the Cross. It is not too late!

There is much more to tell you, but it is very late now. And I too, have wasted my resources.

When I began, I thought all that was needed was to make Catholics aware of the true message of Fatima, and of course, Catholics would flock to Our Mother, eager to pray her true Rosary with renewed devotion, happy to pray the Fatima Decade Prayer which is such a beautiful prayer straight from Our Lady herself and filled with her maternal solicitude for her erring children. I was certain that once I pointed it out, others with better skills (and lacking my limitations) would lead the faithful to rally with public rosaries, and use their respected positions to press Bishops to establish First Saturdays in their dioceses; that Bishops would not only establish First Saturdays but would actually visit each of their churches for First Saturdays of Reparation, teaching the faithful the importance of the devotion, emphasizing the need for penance, and praying the Rosary.

What a silly old woman I am.

And now, we are running out of time. I will leave this post up a while in case someone may see it and decide to risk all and take up the task. Meanwhile, for those who may have missed their Consecrations, we offer the following in hopes you’ll be inspired to make your Consecration and share with others. This is the short one:

Act of Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, in the presence of all the heavenly court, I choose you this day for my Mother and Queen. I deliver and consecrate to you, and to your Immaculate Heart, as your loving child, my body and soul, my will and all my good actions, past, present and future; leaving to you the entire and full right of disposing of me, and all that belongs to me, without exception, according to your good pleasure, for the triumph of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and of your Immaculate Heart now and forever.

I renew today in your heart, O Immaculate Mother, the vows of my Baptism; I renounce forever the evil one, his pomps and works; I renounce my own pride and willfulness and I give myself entirely to Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Wisdom, to carry my cross after Him all the days of my life, and to be more faithful to Him than I have ever been before. Amen.

We must never forget this:

“Don’t lose heart. I will never forsake you.
My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God.”

“O my Jesus, forgive us our sins and save us from the fires of hell. Lead all souls to heaven, especially those most in need of Thy mercy.” (The Decade Prayer of Our Lady of the Rosary at Fatima. 1917)

Remember – Our Lady needs us to obey: First Saturdays of Reparation, daily rosary, at least 5 mysteries, wear her brown scapular and live our Total Consecration to her Immaculate Heart, offering our daily duties in reparation and for the conversion of poor sinners.

Open your hearts to the Lord and serve Him only: and He will free you from the hands of your enemies. With all your heart return to Him, and take away from your midst any strange gods” (I Kings 7:3)

† 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.
† Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Thy kingdom come! Viva Cristo Rey!
† St. Joseph, protect us, protect our families, protect our priests.
† St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.

~ by evensong for love of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, King.
Vouchsafe that I may praise thee, O Sacred Virgin! Give me strength against thine enemies!

First Saturdays, the overlooked devotion

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The most overlooked devotion of those requested at Fatima is the First Saturdays of Reparation. Our Lady at Fatima asked for the establishment of this devotion more than 100 years ago!

There is an urgent necessity of the First Saturdays of Reparation! We offer the following in time for you to plan to begin your First Saturdays from May  through September and then, in October, for thanksgiving for being able to offer them all!

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.”

FINAL PERSEVERANCE

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).

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 this pope pointedly ignored Sister Lúcia and her efforts to call the true message of Fatima to his attention.  His efforts to broker peace 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. 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!

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!

For more information on First Saturdays of Reparation, please see our earlier post: First Saturdays of Reparation.

Thank you for reading. Please encourage others to make the essential First Saturdays of Reparation between now and October 13.

This is a repost of our previous article. We have been posting on the urgent need for First Saturdays for five years now. If only Catholics would obey this simple request!

†  Pray the Rosary and confound the devil and all who serve him.

†  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!