the five first Saturdays
The observance of the First Saturday in honor of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is intended to console her Immaculate Heart, and to make, reparation to it for all the blasphemies and ingratitude of men. This devotion and the wonderful promises connected with it were revealed by the Blessed Virgin with these words recorded by Lucia, one of the three children to whom the Blessed Virgin appeared at Fatima, Portugal, in 1917:
“I promise to help at the hour of death, with the graces needed for salvation, whoever on the First Saturday of five consecutive months shall:
1. Confess and receive Holy Communion.
2. Recite five decades of the Rosary.
3. And keep me company for 15 minutes while meditating on one or more of the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.
All this is offered in the spirit of REPARATION for the sins of blasphemy and ingratitude
committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”
Act of Reparation
Most glorious Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and our mother, look with pity upon us poor sinners, who, afflicted with so many miseries surrounding us in this life, feel ourselves cut to the heart by the many horrible insults and blasphemies which we are often constrained to hear uttered against thee, O Immaculate Virgin. Oh, how these impious sayings offend the infinite Majesty of God, and Jesus Christ His only begotten Son! How they provoke His anger, and give us cause to fear the terrible effects of His vengeance! If the sacrifice of our lives could avail against such outrages and blasphemies, very willingly would we make it, for we desire, most holy Mother, to love and honor thee with all our hearts, such being the will of God. And just because we love thee, we will do whatever lies in our power to make thee loved and honored by all. And do thou, Mother of pity, supreme consoler of the afflicted, accept this act of reparation offered to thee, in our name and in the name of all our families, and on behalf of those who, not knowing what they say, impiously blaspheme thee; that so, by obtaining from God their conversion, thy glorious compassion, thy power, and thy great mercy may become more manifest, and they too may join with us in proclaiming thee blessed amongst women, the Immaculate Virgin, the most compassionate Mother of God. Amen. Hail Mary thrice.
300 day Indulgence, Leo XIII March 21, 1885.
Act of Consecration of the human race
to the Immaculate hEart of Mary
Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, Refuge of the Human Race, Victress in all God’s battles,
we humbly prostrate ourselves before thy throne, confident that we shall receive mercy, grace and bountiful assistance and protection in the present calamity, not through our own merits, but solely through the great goodness of thy Maternal Heart.
To thee, to thy Immaculate Heart in this tragic hour of human history, we confide, deliver, and consecrate ourselves in union not only with the Mystical Body of thy Son, Holy Mother Church, now in such suffering and agony in so many places and sorely tried in so many ways, but also with the entire world, torn by fierce strife, consumed in a fire of hate, victim of its own wickedness.
May the sight of the widespread material and moral destruction of the sorrows and anguish of countless fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, and innocent children of the great number of lives cut off in the flower of youth, of the bodies mangled in horrible slaughter, and of the tortured and agonized souls in danger of being lost eternally move thee to compassion.
O Mother of Mercy obtain peace for us from God, and, above all, procure for us those graces which prepare, establish and assure the peace.
Queen of Peace, pray for us and give to the world now at war, the peace for which all people are longing, peace in the truth, justice and charity of Christ. Give peace to the warring nations and to the souls of men, that in the tranquility of order the Kingdom of God may prevail.
Extend thy protection to the infidels and to all those still in the shadow of death give them peace and grant that on them, too, may shine the sun of truth that they may unite with us in proclaiming before the one and only Savior of the World: “Glory to God in the highest and peace to men of good will.”
Give peace to the people separated from us by error or by schism, and especially to those who profess such singular devotion to thee, and in whose homes an honored place was ever accorded thy venerated icon, today perhaps often kept hidden to await better days; bring them back to the one fold of Christ, under the one true Shepherd.
Obtain peace and complete freedom for the Holy Church of God, stay the spreading flood of modem paganism; enkindle in the faithful the love of purity, the practice of the Christian life and an apostolic zeal so that the servants of God may increase in merit and in number.
Lastly, as the Church and the entire human race were consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, so that in reposing all hope in Him, He might become for them the sign and pledge of Victory and salvation; so we, in like manner, consecrate ourselves forever also to thee and to thine Immaculate Heart, our Mother and Queen, that thy love and patronage may hasten the triumph of the Kingdom of God and that all nations, at peace with one another and with God may proclaim thee blessed and with thee may raise their voices to resound from pole to pole the chant of the everlasting Magnificat of glory, love and gratitude to the Heart of Jesus, where alone they can find truth and peace.
Pope Pius XII October 31, 1942.