....The element I want to particularly concentrate on in this article is the question of the Five First Saturdays devotion, which was fully revealed to Sr. Lucia by Our Lady in 1925, when she had become a postulant with the Sisters of St Dorothy in Spain. Thus the following events took place some years after the actual apparitions at Fatima in 1917-but they are a continuation of the original message, which Our Lady indicated to the children in the words she spoke in July 1917, just after they had seen the vision of hell:
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 pontificate 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 of 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 persecutions 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 and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.
(Fr. L. Kondor, Fatima in Lucia's own words, Postulation Center, Fatima, p. 162; cf. Fr.'s Antonio Martins & Robert Fox, Documents on Fatima & the Memoirs of Sister Lucia, Fatima Family Apostolate, 1992, p. 402).
The point to particularly note here is that the consecration of Russia to Mary's Immaculate Heart and the Five First Saturdays devotion of reparation are mentioned jointly, as the means by which manifold evils will be undone and peace brought to the world.
On Thursday 10 December 1925, the Blessed Virgin, accompanied by the Child Jesus on a little cloud, appeared to Sr. Lucia in her cell. In her memoirs, Lucia recounts that Mary rested her hand on her shoulder, while displaying her heart encircled by thorns in her other hand. The Child Jesus spoke first: "Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother. It is covered with the thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to remove them with an act of reparation."
Then the Blessed Mother said:
My daughter, look at My Heart surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You, at least, try to console me, and say that I promise to assist at the hour of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months go to confession and receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary and keep me company for a quarter of an hour while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me. (Fr. Robert Fox, Fatima Today, Christendom Publications, 1983, p. 217; cf. Martins & Fox, Documents on Fatima, pp. 241-42).
The Child Jesus appeared again to Lucia in February 1926 to encourage her to propagate this devotion, (Martins & Fox, Documents on Fatima, pp. 235-37, 242), and on 13 June 1929, Lucia was granted a further sublime apparition involving Mary, as she was making a Holy Hour in the convent chapel at Tuy in Spain, as was her custom on Thursday nights from eleven to twelve.
She was alone in the chapel, which was lit only by the sanctuary lamp, reciting the prayers that the Angel of Portugal had taught her and Jacinta and Francisco, when she saw an apparition of the Holy Trinity, in which the Son was represented as a man nailed to a cross, with the Father above him, and the Holy Spirit as a dove of light on Christ's breast. A chalice and Host were suspended to the side, and drops of blood from the crucified Christ's face and side fell into the chalice, while Our Lady was also present, holding her Immaculate Heart in her hand.
Lucia heard Mary say to her: "The moment has come in which God asks the Holy Father, in union with all the Bishops of the world, to make the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, promising to save it by this means. There are so many souls whom the Justice of God condemns for sins committed against me, that I have come to ask reparation: sacrifice yourself for this intention and pray."
Lucia repeated all this to her confessor who ordered her to write it down, and she also said that, later on, Jesus had spoken as follows to her: "They did not wish to heed My request. Like the king of France, they will repent and do it, but it will be late. Russia will have already spread her errors throughout the world, provoking wars and persecutions of the Church; the Holy Father will have much to suffer." (Fox, Fatima Today, pp. 221-22; cf. Martins & Fox, Documents on Fatima, pp. 355-56).
So we have two very important further apparitions here, which greatly enhance our understanding of the message of Fatima and it's critical importance for the Church. But while there has been much discussion of the collegial consecration of Russia, which was finally accomplished by Pope John Paul II, in union with a "moral totality" of the world's bishops in 1984, we have heard much less about the Five First Saturdays devotion.
Its significance comes out if we consider the correspondence Sr. Lucia had with her confessor, Fr. Gonzalves, in 1930, in which she reiterated the importance of the First Saturdays devotion of reparation and gave details of what was necessary to ensure the salvation of Russia.
"If I am not mistaken, Our Dear Lord God promises to end the persecution of Russia, if the Holy Father condescends to make, and likewise ordains the Bishops of the Catholic World to make, a solemn and public act of reparation and consecration of Russia to the Most Holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary. In response to the ending of this persecution, His Holiness is to promise to approve of and recommend the practice of the already mentioned devotion of reparation." (Martins & Fox, Documents on Fatima, p. 24).
This statement of Sr. Lucia's has to be understood in the light of the very strong statements which the Pope has made with regard to Fatima, and indeed with the words and actions of all the recent popes who have embraced its message. For example during his 1982 visit to the Portuguese shrine, John Paul II specifically described Fatima as a place "chosen" by Mary, thus indicating official confirmation of its status and intimating that we are to understand it as the major "prophecy" of the twentieth century. (cf. Joseph de Sainte-Marie, Reflections on the Act of Consecration, Augustine Publishing, 1983, pp. 1-4, 8).
During his homily the Pope made the following remarks:
If the Church has accepted the message of Fatima, it is above all because that message contains a truth and a call whose basic content is the truth and call of the Gospel itself. "Repent, and believe in the Gospel" (Mk. 1:15). These are the first words of the Messiah addressed to humanity. The message of Fatima is, in its basic nucleus, a call to conversion and repentance, as in the Gospel. This call was uttered at the beginning of the twentieth century, and it was thus addressed particularly to this present century. The Lady of the message seems to have read with special insight the "signs of the times," the signs of our time. (Timothy Tindal-Robertson, Fatima, Russia & Pope John Paul II, Gracewing Publishers, 1998, p. 243).
John Paul II also spoke during this homily in these significant terms: "The appeal of the Lady of the message of Fatima is so deeply rooted in the Gospel and the whole of Tradition that the Church feels that the message imposes a commitment on her." (Tindal-Robertson, Fatima, Russia & Pope John Paul II, p. 248).
In addition, the principle of devotion to Mary's Immaculate Heart is one which has deep roots in the Church, and is not just dependent on the 1925 vision. We find an allusion to it in the Gospels in Simeon's prediction of the sword of sorrow which would pierce her soul, (Lk 2:35), and certainly, since at least the medieval period, there is evidence of such devotion in the works of writers including St Anselm, St Bernard, Hugo of St Victor, and St Gertrude. Similarly, in the Counter Reformation era, St Francis de Sales, and particularly St John Eudes, were strong supporters of this devotion, with the latter composing a Mass and Office of the Heart of Mary. His approach finds parallels in the teachings of chapter 8 of Vatican II's Lumen Gentium. ( Francis Johnston, Fatima: The Great Sign, Augustine Publishing, 1980, pp. 112-119).
Honoring Mary's Immaculate Heart is really just another way of honoring Mary, as the person who was chosen to be the Mother of God, recognizing her extraordinary holiness and the immense love she bestowed on Jesus as his mother, the person who was called to share in and cooperate in his redemptive sufferings. The whole aim of this devotion is to unite mankind to God through Mary's heart, and this process involves the ideas of consecration and reparation. A person is consecrated to Mary's Immaculate Heart as a way of being completely devoted to God. This involves a total gift of self, something only ultimately possible with reference to God; but Mary is our intermediary in this process of consecration. She holds this position by reason of her dignity as Mother of God and her role as spiritual mother of all Christians. Because love and devotion shown to Mary are referred by her to God, it follows that acts of reparation for sin directed to her also apply to God, especially when we consider how closely united the hearts of Jesus and Mary were and are. (John F. Murphy, "The Immaculate Heart," in Mariology, Vol. 3, ed. Juniper B. Carol, The Bruce Publishing Company, 1961, pp. 168-178).
So, in sum, it seems fair to say that the Church upholds the principle of reparative devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
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Taken from: http://www.theotokos.org.uk/pages/articles/fatifive.html
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