First Saturdays Devotion

[1][2][3][4] The pious practice of honoring the Blessed Mother on Saturday is an ancient custom largely attributed to the Benedictine monk Alcuin (735-804), "Minister of Education" at the court of Charlemagne, who composed a Votive Mass formulary for each day of the week.

[5] The practice of reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on the First Saturday was initiated in Rovigo, Italy, by Maria Dolores Inglese, a Servite tertiary in 1889.

She and foundress Mother Mary Elisa Andreoli revised the rule, making propagation of Communion of Reparation on the First Saturday of each month the congregation's main apostolate.

When you shall see a night illuminated by an unknown light know that this is the great sign that God gives you that He is going to punish the world for its many crimes by means of war, hunger, and persecution of the Church and the Holy Father.

[1] In 1939, she also wrote: “Whether the world has war or peace depends on the practice of this devotion, along with the consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”[2] Four years later, Lúcia dos Santos was admitted at the age of 14 as a boarder to the school of the Sisters of Saint Dorothy in Vilar, near the city of Porto.

According to a document she wrote and as recorded in her book “Fatima in Lucia’s Own Words”, Sister Lúcia later reported that on 10 December 1925, the Virgin Mary appeared to her at the Dorothean convent in Pontevedra, and by her side on a luminous cloud was the Child Jesus.