First Sunday of Lent—1 March A.D. 2020
Ave Maria!
Ordinary of the Mass
Mass Text - Latin
Mass Text - English
Lenten Observance
We have moved our monthly “cleaning party” to the first Saturday of each month so that those who take part can obtain the graces promised by our Lady to those who receive Holy Communion in reparation to her Immaculate Heart for the sins of the world on five consecutive First Saturdays. The heart is said to be the seat of all human emotion, and it should be obvious that Mary’s Most Pure Heart has to be terribly offended by the sins of mankind—the sins which are, ultimately, responsible for the death of he beloved Son on the Cross.
You should know that Saturdays have been specially dedicated to the Blessed Mother since at least the eighth century, when, during the reign of Charlemagne, the Benedictine monk Alcuin (735-804) assembled a number of Mass texts for each day of the week, with two of them honoring our Lady on Saturday. The Tridentine Missal has five, depending upon the time of year. First Saturdays of each month are even more specially dedicated to our Lady. In 1905, Pope Pius X approved and granted indulgences for the practice of Communion on the First Saturdays of twelve consecutive months in honor of the Immaculate Conception.
Our Lady announced her intention to ask for the five Communions of reparation at Fatima, during the apparitions of 1917. In 1925 she appeared again, holding the child Jesus, at the Dorothean Sisters’ convent at Pontevedra in Spain. She promised that those who received Communion on five consecutive First Saturdays would gain her assistance at the hour of their death. The conditions are simple:
* Five consecutive First Saturday Communions (with genuine necessity, a confessor may allow substitution of another day, shortly before or after the Saturday).
* Confession within a week before or after the reception of Holy Communion. Of course you must be in the state of grace to receive Communion, but the Confession is required any way—you can confess a sin of your past—no need for new sins!
* Recitation of five decades of the Rosary on the Saturday—not just recitation, but also meditation on the five mysteries.
* Meditation for fifteen minutes on the Saturday of one or more of the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary. This seems to be in addition to the time spent in praying the five decades mentioned above, but would seem to be fulfilled by properly praying another five decades sometime that Saturday
* There must be at least an habitual intention of making reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for the sins of the world.
Whenever we pray the Hail Mary we ask for her prayers “ ... at the hour of our death.” The First Saturday Communions of Reparation insure that we will have her intercession at that most critical, final moment of life—a moment that may make the difference between Heaven and Hell.
Non-Catholics sometimes criticize such promises as being somehow “magical”—as though they were a way of controlling God Himself—they are not. God is always merciful, but He is also always perfectly just. No one is claiming that the First Saturday Communions are an absolute guarantee of salvation! Anyone serious about making reparation for the sins of the world will want to maximize grace and minimize sin, both before and after making the First Saturday Communions.
At any rate, next Saturday we will have our monthly “cleaning party” and you will have the opportunity to make the first of five Communions of Reparation—and, hopefully, many more. So please join us if you can. Join us as often as you can. Mary and Jesus welcome you!
