11/02/2021
When researching about my faith, I was reading on this page and it was there that I learned about the benefits of reparative devotion on the first Saturday of the month. The site is very inspirational, overall. I believe Marie-Julie Jahenny is not physically alive anymore, she died in 1941. However, the site is maintained and well alive, protected by Association Le Sanctuaire de Marie-Julie Jahenny. Feel free to go there if you're interested. Count your blessings.
http://www.marie-julie-jahenny.fr/devotion-reparatrice-aux-cinq-premiers-samedis-du-mois.htm
The apparitions of the Very Holy Virgin in Fatima in 1917 remain of a burning currentness.
We retain three very important aspects of these messages. They are such that we should remain in great fervor.
- The reminder of the existence of Hell where many souls fall
- The promise of salvation of a certain number of souls through the devotion to the Immaculate Heart and, in particular, the restorative devotion of the five first Saturdays of the month
- The assurance of eternal salvation for those who practice this devotion with fervor
I) Many souls fall into hell!
Men do not see what's happening in the afterlife. But the Very Holy Virgin comes to remove our illusions from us and to help us to recollect ourselves. In her fourth apparition, Our Lady says to those who see:
"Pray, pray a lot and make sacrifices for the sinners, for many souls go to hell..."
Sister Lucie writes to a young man tempted to quit the seminary:
"Don't be surprised if I talk to you so much about hell. It's a truth that has to be brought into memory often in the current times, because people forget: it's in the vortex that souls fall into hell..."
After the vision of hell, of July 1917, Lucie multiplies the prayers and the penitences saying: "There are so many people who fall into hell! So many people!"
Jacinthe confesses one day: "I think of the war that will come. So many people will die, and almost all go to hell!"
Let's finish with the dialogue between sister Lucie and Father Lombardi, on October 13th, 1953.
- My sister, do you truly believe that many will go to hell? I hope that God will save the bigger part of them!
Sister Lucie replies:
- Numerous are those who damn themselves!
The Father insists:
- It's certain that the world is a bilge of sins [...] But there is always a hope for salvation.
- No, Father, many lose themselves!
If the Very Holy Virgin appeared to the children of Fatima, it's also and above all to give us the means that God has chosen to save a good number of souls and yours in particular. This means is the devotion to the Immaculate Heart.
This devotion is expressed by the offering of our sacrifices in the spirit of reparation.
"Oh Jesus, it's through love for you, for the conversion of sinners and in reparation of sins committed against the Immaculate Heart."
July 13th, 1917
The Very Holy Virgin attaches equally great graces of mercy to a different practice.
II) The reparative devotion of the five first Saturdays of the month: means of personal salvation
On July 13th, 1917, the Very Holy Virgin confesses to the children:
"Jesus wants to establish in the world the devotion to my Immaculate Heart. To he who embraces this devotion, I promise salvation; these souls will be cherished by God..."
Some years later, Our Lady specifies what she expects from us. It is December 10th, 1925, Lucie is in Pontevedra in Spain to do her postulate of religious life.
The Very Holy Virgin appears to her and shows her her pained Heart:
"Behold, my daughter, my Heart surrounded by thorns that ingrate men push into it in every moment with their blasphemies and their ingratitudes. You, at least, search to console me and say to those who during five months, the first Saturday, will confess, will receive the holy Mass, will recite the rosary and give me company for fifteen minutes meditating the fifteen mysteries of the rosary in spirit of reparation, I promise to help them in the hour of death, with all the required graces for the salvation of their soul."
What promise! What grace!
Some months later, the Child Jesus appears to sister Lucie and specifies to her:
"The souls who do the five first Saturdays with fervor and with the aim to do reparation to the Heart of your Mother of heaven, please me more than those who do fifteen, lukewarm and indifferent."
To do this devotion with fervor, it is very useful to do it before the Immaculate Heart surrounded with thorns.
Why five first Saturdays?
The confessor of sister Lucie asks her this question. On May 29th, 1930, Our Lord appears to the sister and says to her:
"My daughter, the reason of this is simple. There are five types of offenses and of blasphemies that direct themselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
The blasphemies
- against the Immaculate Conception,
- against her virginity,
- against her holy maternity, refusing at the same time to acknowledge her as Mother of men.
The offenses
- of those who search publicly to put in the heart of children indifference, mistrust or even hatred towards this Immaculate Mother.
- of those who outrage her directly in her holy images.
Let's note that the three blasphemies to repair go against the dogmas of the faith.
III) The reparative devotion of the five first Saturdays of the month: means to obtain salvation of a certain number of souls
After the third apparition, on Friday, July 13th, 1917, Our Lady after having showed hell to the children told them:
"You have seen hell where the poor sinners will go. To save them, God wants to establish in the world the devotion to my Immaculate Heart; if it is done what I will tell you, many souls will save themselves... I will ask the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart and the reparative Mass of the first Saturdays of the month."
It is thus in Pontevedra, in 1925, that the Very Holy Virgin specified what she wanted. Four years later, on July 13th, 1929, Our Lady insists:
"They are so many the souls that the justice of God condemns for sins committed against me, that I come demanding reparation."
Our Lord, on May 29th, 1930, speaks in the same sense. After having revealed the five types of blasphemies and of offenses that one must repair, he adds:
"Voila, my daughter, the motif for which the Immaculate Heart of Mary inspired me to demand this small reparation, and in consideration of it, to provoke my mercy to pardon souls who have the misfortune to offend it."
Many Portuguese practice hence the five first Saturdays of the month in favor of relatives far from the road of salvation. And conversions are realized. Let us do the same!
IV) Five conditions to do well the five first Saturdays of the month
- Reparative intention
This is really the soul of this devotion. The four acts that follow must be done with the intention to repair and to console Our Lady. Sister Lucie brings them into memory in a letter from March 31st, 1929:
"It's about to implore pardon and mercy in favor of souls who blaspheme against Our Lady, because these souls, the divine mercy does not forgive without reparation."
- The confession in eight days
"One has to well formulate the intention to do reparation to the Immaculate Heart. Those who have forgotten will be able to formulate it at the next confession, profiting of the first occasion they will have to confess."
Our Lord to sister Lucie, on February 15th, 1926
- The Mass on the first Saturday
This is the essential act of the reparative devotion, because it means to unite with the reparation that the Immaculate Heart offers to his Father on our altars.
It is very much recommended to recite before and after the Mass, the prayer of the angel: "Most Holy Trinity..."
If one is unable to attend the Mass on the first Saturday, the whole of the devotion can be postponed to the Sunday that follows, on condition to thereof ask permission to a priest (cf. Our Lord to sister Lucie, May 29th, 1930).
- The rosary
At each of the six apparitions of 1917, Our Lady demanded that one recites the rosary every day. Since it's about to repair the offenses done to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, what other vocal prayer could be more agreeable to her!
- Keep company to Our Lady during fifteen minutes meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, in the spirit of reparation.
The meditation can focus simply on certain mysteries or on a virtue of all the mysteries.
"Who cannot pass fifteen minutes in these holy thoughts, close to the most tender of mothers!" Sister Lucie, 1927
N.B. It is strongly advised to do do this devotion to each of one's children.
http://www.marie-julie-jahenny.fr/devotion-reparatrice-aux-cinq-premiers-samedis-du-mois.htm
