Why 5 First Saturdays?

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

WHY FIVE SATURDAYS?

It is sometimes asked why Our Lady asked for Communions of reparation on five first Saturdays, instead of some other number. Our Blessed Lord answered that question when He appeared to Sr. Lucia May 29, 1930. He explained that it was because of five kinds of offenses and blasphemies against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, namely: blasphemies against her Immaculate Conception, against her perpetual virginity, against the divine and spiritual maternity of Mary, blasphemies involving the rejection and dishonoring of her images, and the neglect of implanting in the hearts of children a knowledge and love of this Immaculate Mother.

For those unfamiliar with this devotion of Five First Saturdays, please see HERE
It is the last blasphemy that I find is becoming more prevalent in our time:

…neglect of implanting in the hearts of children a knowledge and love of this Immaculate Mother.

Many “Catholic homes” and families are becoming indistinguishable from non Catholic homes and families and are are becoming – less devoted to the Eucharist and Mary – and more worldly, more secular, more politically correct and some even “practical atheists” living as if God and Mary do not exist! God help us!

How tragic to read statistics of many who no longer participate in Sunday Mass or pray the Rosary. Too many parents and grandparents of children do not give devout examples nor do they “implant in the hearts of children a knowledge of this Immaculate Mother.”

Please let us continue to love Mary and do all we can to make reparation on the First Saturday of each month especially but on every Saturday, (traditionally Mary’s Day) and every day, let us lovingly behold our Mother and Jesus in praying the Rosary.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us.
Jesus, we trust in You.
Come, Holy Spirit, enkindle in us the Fire of Your Love.

 

[Mumbles140]

All of my uncles have two middle names: A male saint’s name, and then Mary. I have been blessed with a wonderful family tradition of adoration and respect for Our Blessed Mother, but I, too, fear that this is not the norm in America, where Protestant ‘hesitancy’ about honoring Mary has seemed to creep into the American Catholic households…

 

[MariaChristi]

All of my uncles have two middle names: A male saint’s name, and then Mary. I have been blessed with a wonderful family tradition of adoration and respect for Our Blessed Mother, but I, too, fear that this is not the norm in America, where Protestant ‘hesitancy’ about honoring Mary has seemed to creep into the American Catholic households…

Dear Mumbles,

Thanks for your reply.

How wonderful to know of your family’s tradition of including Mary as a middle name for boys as well as girls! In our family it was “Joseph” for boys, but both names "Mary and “Joseph” are heard less and less these days, sad to say. Great saints like St. Louis Marie de Montfort and St. John Mary Vianney and others remain great examples of manly saints who carried Mary in their hearts as well as in their names.

You are quite right that many Americans who call themselves “Catholic” because they were baptized into Christ in the Catholic Church, have received little in the way of Faith Formation from many parents and from many Catholic teachers. I need to include clergy among some of the poor catechists who have neglected Mary in teaching through homilies, classrooms, and most of all by personal example. No wonder some Catholics sound and act like Protestants. Many do not know what they do! Yet they hurt themselves and our children by adding confusion to an already very confused culture today.

Let us continue to love our Mother, making reparation for all she suffers from all of us, and by God’s Grace resolve to do more to make her better known and loved that Jesus may be better known, loved and served in this our time. We were born for this time, and we need to do battle to overcome evil with good to become the saints we are called to be. We battle not against flesh and blood but against the prince of darkness who has enmity for our Mother and for us.

But God continues to work in His Church – He has done great things in Mary and desires to do great things in each of His children, by the power of His Holy Spirit. Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your Faithful; kindle in us the Fire of Your Love.

 

[Richard_White]

Dear MariaChristi,

The worst thing about people living in heresy and schism and outside of the Catholic Church is that they not only place themselves in danger, but they also raise their children never knowing the One, True Faith in Catholicism. Rather, they force their children to grow up practically hating what, in the words of Archbishop Sheen, they “perceive the Catholic Church to be.”

Let us pray that God bless the hearts of all those separated from His True Church and foster in them a great love for and devotion to Mary.

May God bless you and yours abundantly and forever!

 

[MariaChristi]

Dear MariaChristi,

The worst thing about people living in heresy and schism and outside of the Catholic Church is that they not only place themselves in danger, but they also raise their children never knowing the One, True Faith in Catholicism. Rather, they force their children to grow up practically hating what, in the words of Archbishop Sheen, they “perceive the Catholic Church to be.”

Let us pray that God bless the hearts of all those separated from His True Church and foster in them a great love for and devotion to Mary.

May God bless you and yours abundantly and forever!

Dear Richard,

Thanks for your reply. Yes, misunderstandings about the Church and especially misunderstands concerning The Church’s veneration of Mary, as Mother of God, get passed on from generation to generation. We cannot be surprised at the the lies of satan, which he sows on earth. What we can do is continue to speak the Truth lovingly, whenever and wherever God gives us opportunity. As you said, it is also important to pray for those who are separated from the Church for any reason, that they may cooperate with God’s Grace and that we may all be One as Jesus prayed in John 17.

We can also make reparation to the Immaculate Heart by loving her with Jesus’ Love. By God’s Grace we can pray the Rosary and spend time with her, especially on this First Saturday. I read a beautiful homily just now given by Cardinal Nichols, and will include some words on the icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help:

…There is, I think, a real sense of depth in this beautiful image of Mary and her child Jesus. The icon draws us into that depth.

To begin with, there is such a depth of compassion in the eyes of the Blessed Mother. She sees. She knows. She sees me. She knows me. She sees all the suffering of the world and gazes on it with such love and compassion. She sees my anxieties, my small sufferings, and helps me to see them in a true perspective. In the warmth of her compassion, I know I am not alone. I know I can bring my burden to her and, literally, leave it with her.

This is so because, in the icon, she is already carrying all the weight of the suffering of her Son. That suffering is already being shared between them. It seems as if it is their shared secret. They know what will come about. It causes distress in the child, but his mother calms and supports him for her gaze is always profoundly on the will of God. ‘Let it be done to me according to your word.’ There she finds her peace. There we learn to find ours too.

The icon, then, draws us into the presence of mystery of suffering in our lives and in our world, a suffering that is always seen by God, always embraced by God, just as we see in the death of his own beloved Son for our sake. Here we learn that no suffering is pointless because it is swept up into the divine Providence that shapes the life of each of us. There it becomes part of God’s redemptive plan.

In these ways, it seems to me, this icon opens for us something of the depth of God, something of the greatness of God. Here we see the angels, the messengers of God himself, bringing forward the symbols of the Lord’s passion and death. They bring them forward with dignity and majesty. This is not random evil, arbitrary pain, pointless suffering. No, they are being carried towards Jesus for his willing acceptance and his highest purpose. In their light we begin to glimpse that he is no ordinary child who will come to a sad end, but he is fully of God, uniquely one with the Father and the Holy Spirit in the divine nature. Yet is he also fully one of us. He is truly God and truly man and, through the instruments of his Passion, will transform our fallen mortal nature into an image of his own divine nature.

This icon, then, helps us to find our place in God’s great mystery of salvation. It draws us to see the almost incredible: that through our suffering and pain, whatever form it may take, we can become part of this great work of Jesus. We can unite our sufferings with his and offer them to the Father. They can become a moment, even a long moment, of deep achievement for through our suffering we can be shaped more deeply for God’s purpose, purified for his desire. And that desire, that purpose is that we will be drawn fully into his presence and totally filled with his light and joy. As we are emptied of self, we are ready to be filled with God.