(LifeSiteNews) — On December 10, we will have the 100th Anniversary of Our Lady of Fatima’s apparition to Sister Lucy, where she requested the establishment of the Five First Saturdays Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
This devotion is aimed at ending the time of confusion and suffering in the Church and in the world. But importantly, Our Lady also promises those who practice it the salvation of their individual souls. This is something that many parents will take into their hearts regarding their children.
LifeSiteNews is pleased to publish here an account of Robert Wyer, a Catholic teacher and scholar who was a student of Dr. John Senior’s Integrated Humanities Program at the University of Kansas and who currently teaches at La Salette Boys Academy in Georgetown, Illinois. He is a well-respected and deeply learned man of wisdom.
As a father, he, together with his wife, made sure that their children, after receiving their First Holy Communion, would right away practice both the devotion of Nine First Friday Communions, as well as the practice of the Five First Saturdays devotion, thus assuring, as much as is in their power, the salvation of the souls of their children.
READ: ‘War or peace depends on this’: Why the Five Saturdays Devotion is an urgent prayer for our times
Wyer is also relating a story to us on how that heavenly promise of salvation is proven to be true. I myself have heard a similar story of a young woman who in her last moments of life was blessed to be visited by a priest. That woman had fallen away from the faith, but since she had made the Five First Saturdays at some point in her life, God sent her a priest just in time for her to repent for her sins and receive sacramental absolution before she died. We as parents can give our children that safety net before they leave our homes and might venture, God forbid, away from the faith for a bit.
As a mother myself, I find this example of a family’s custom as presented to us by Mr. Wyer, very inspiring, and I am grateful that he agreed on writing this essay for LifeSiteNews.
LifeSiteNews has also just published a little guide by Father Martin Huber on how to best practice this Five First Saturdays devotion. In August of this year, LifeSite Editor-in-Chief John-Henry Westen also called upon all Catholics in the world to practice this devotion in light of its 100th anniversary.
May this essay help parents – and all Catholics – realize this great gift given to us by Heaven at a time of great crisis in the Church and the world. God knew this time would be difficult, and He so generously draws us to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
An incomparable gift
By Robert Wyer
It would be impossible to calculate all the immaterial benefits my wife has rendered me in the total gift of herself over nearly four decades. In her quiet, selfless way, she has demonstrated many truths, the natural ones quickened by grace. Many good things she received from her family – her parents found the traditional Mass, saw their children kept the faith by not attending the local parochial schools, made sure the rosary was prayed in their home, and enthroned the Sacred Heart as King of their family. She, in turn, shared these treasures with our own family after she and I married.
One practice stands out, a gift given to our children that remains, at the same time, a gift to us as parents: as soon as our children received First Holy Communion, we saw to it that they immediately made the Nine First Fridays and Five First Saturdays. This may be one of the greatest gifts that a parent can give their children and one of the greatest certain consolations a parent can secure in solicitous love.
The promises attached to these devotions come from Heaven, made in private revelations approved by the Church. The practices have become part of the Catholic life embraced by countless souls. During the years 1673-1675, Our Lord revealed His Sacred Heart to a Visitation nun in Paray-le-Monial, France. In 1675, during the Octave of Corpus Christi, Our Lord told St. Margaret Mary Alacoque:
I promise thee, in the excess of the mercy of My Heart, that Its all-powerful love will grant to all those who receive Communion on the First Friday of every month, for nine consecutive months, the grace of final penitence, and that they shall not die under My displeasure, nor without receiving the Sacraments, and My Heart shall be their secure refuge at that last hour.
READ: Bishop Eleganti: True ‘universal brotherhood’ is rooted in Jesus, not religious pluralism
On July 13, 1917, Our Lady appeared to the three children at Fatima, Portugal, as part of a series of apparitions from May through October of that eventful year. In this July apparition, after a vision of hell with souls suffering there, Our Lady offered hope of heaven’s remedy, “To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart.” The Blessed Virgin said, “I shall come to ask for the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays.” On December 10, 1925, in Pontevedra, Spain, Our Lady appeared with the Christ Child to Sister Lucy (at that time a novice with the sisters of St. Dorothy). She communicated this message:
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 15 minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation.
These are the twin promises afforded mankind in an era of great distress and error. The apparitions of the Sacred Heart occurred to counteract two evils: the neglect of the incomparable love lavished particularly in the Holy Eucharist and the threat posed by the harsh, rigorist tendencies of the Jansenists. The Immaculate Heart came in a time of war, in the year of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia which would spread its errors (and untold bloodshed) throughout the globe. God entered the world through His Mother; it only stands to reason that He would, in the extreme of mercy, afford humanity a last chance through the Mother of Mercy.
Neither of these promises of graces necessary for salvation and assistance in the hour of death represent a setting aside of the perennial Gospel truths about what salvation requires. Faith in Christ and sorrow for sins committed remain absolutely necessary. But, God is all-powerful and can give any gifts He chooses. He can bind Himself by promises; one need only read Scripture to find countless instances. He never abandons anyone who truly seeks Him.
If touching the hem of His garment can be the occasion of power going out from Him to heal, what will He not do for those who seek, in penitential friendship, to console Him and make reparation for offenses against Him? Jesus cured the palsied man, lowered through the roof by his friends, when He “had seen their faith” (Mark 2:5). One cannot set limits to God’s goodness and mercy that He does not.
We live in a wicked age, fraught with dire possibilities and soul-withering anxieties. Uncertainty is palpable. The Church herself is threatened with diabolical disorientation. Could this be the Great Apostasy predicted by Scripture? Regardless, we desire to save our souls, to experience the beatitude Our Lord came to bring. Those of us who are parents may lie awake at night, our hearts troubled for our children especially. We will likely leave this world before they do.
All of us sense that forces are at work that seek to devour the young and the innocent. We cannot hover and protect those whom we have raised; they are not ours but only entrusted to us for a time by God. Our love does not, however, have an expiration date. We can take advantage of these promises from heaven and abandon to God’s love our lives and the lives of those dear to us by making the Nine First Fridays and the Five First Saturdays.
READ: New book highlights the transformative power of the Rosary
Countless stories exist of God’s almost miraculous intervention in cases of those dying who wear the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel or Mary’s Miraculous Medal. A priest appears, and grace abounds. I will relate here only one such story, told by a Spanish priest I know.
Decades ago, shortly after his ordination, he was on holiday with his parents. At the end of the vacation, the morning came for him to set off for his first assignment. He left the place where his family was staying but realized some way into the drive that he had forgotten something he needed. So, he returned, and this delay caused his travel plans to alter. He retrieved the missing item and set out again.
The priest came upon a motorcycle accident. A young lady was seriously injured. He approached and told her he was a priest. “If you are sorry for your sins, squeeze my hand, and I will give you absolution.” She squeezed his hand. The girl died, and the good priest made a point to attend the funeral. After the Mass, he approached the girl’s grieving mother and related the events he had witnessed. The mother fainted. When she came to, he apologized for any shock he had caused her. She replied, “Oh no, Father. You see, my little girl had made some bad decisions. She was not living a good life. But when she was very young, she was not like that. She made her First Fridays, and I know that God made sure you were there for her.” If a good father would not give stones when his children ask for bread, would the heavenly Father do less good?
We are approaching the 100th anniversary of Our Lady’s request to Sr Lucy – December 10 will be 100 years since The Blessed Virgin promised “all the graces necessary for salvation” to those who make reparation and console her. Let us make a concerted effort to honor Our Lady’s request, beginning with ourselves. See that all those under your care make these First Saturdays and First Fridays. Encourage everyone you can to avail themselves of these offers from God’s infinite mercy.
Robert Wyer
