Dear Parishioners,
The Five First Saturdays’ devotion is one of the principal points of the Fatima message. It centers on the urgent need for mankind to offer reparation and expiate for the many injuries that the Immaculate Heart of Mary suffers from the hands of both impious and indifferent men.
On the First Saturday during 5 Consecutive Months, the Devotion consists of:
All this offered in REPARATION for the sins of blasphemy and ingratitude committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Why Five Saturdays? Sister Lucia’s confessor questioned her about the reason for the five Saturdays, asking why not seven or nine. She answered him in a letter dated June 12, 1930. In it she related a vision she had of Our Lord while staying in the convent chapel part of the night of the twenty-ninth to the thirtieth of the month of May 1930. The reasons Our Lord gave were:
The five first Saturdays correspond to the five kinds of offenses and blasphemies committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary which are:
Let us keep the above reasons firmly in our minds. Devotions have intentions attached to them and knowing them adds merit and weight to the practice.
It is for this reason that we have reinstated Saturday morning Masses at St. Thomas Aquinas Church, Dover. There is the possibility to have confession after Mass each Saturday Morning after Mass. There is the opportunity for Adoration before the Saturday Masses at Dover, to make up for the required 15 minutes meditation on the mysteries of the Rosary.
Please let make use of this and grow in our devotion to the Blessed Virgin, to do the reparation and as well advance in holiness of life.
Happy Sunday!