The First Saturdays Devotion, also called the Communion of Reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, is a Catholic devotion which, according to Lúcia dos Santos, was requested by the Virgin Mary during the apparitions of Our Lady of Fátima in Fátima, Portugal, on 13 May 1917, as well as during apparitions in Pontevedra, Spain, on 10 December 1925 and 15 February 1926.
The First Saturdays devotion was approved by José Alves Correia da Silva, the bishop of Leiria-Fátima, on 13 September 1939 in Fátima.
History
The pious custom of honoring the Virgin Mary on Saturday is an ancient one, largely attributed to the Benedictine monk Alcuin (735-804), "Minister of Education" at the court of Charlemagne. He composed a Votive Mass formulary for each day of the week, assigning two to Saturday in honor of Mary. The practice was quickly adopted by both clergy and laity.
The practice of reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on the First Saturday was initiated in Rovigo, Italy, by Maria Dolores Inglese, a Servite tertiary in 1889. She started among her friends the pious practice of "Communion in Reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary". The practice was endorsed by Bishop Antonio Polin of the Diocese of Adria and was taken up by sodalities throughout Italy and elsewhere. This practice greatly resembled the later reported request of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Pontevedra apparitions.
Inglese wished to establish a religious congregation dedicated to the apostolate of Marian reparation. Bishop Tommaso Pio Boggiani recommended she join the Servite sisters, known for their devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows. She joined the Servites as Sister Maria Dolores in 1911, and with foundress Mother Mary Elisa Andreoli revised their rule, making propagation of Communion of Reparation on the First Saturday of each month the congregation's main apostolate. They also changed the name of the group from "Servants of Mary" to "Servants of Mary of Reparation". The sisters subsequently published a monthly magazine that helped spread the devotion throughout Europe.
Fátima
thumb|A religious statue depicting the [[Immaculate Heart of Mary as it was revealed in the 1917 Marian apparitions which occurred at Fátima, Portugal.]]
At the age of 10, Lúcia dos Santos, one of the three Portuguese seers of the Marian apparitions of Our Lady of Fátima, reported in her 1941 memoir that Mary asked the following during the third apparition in Fátima on 13 July 1917.<blockquote>The war is going to end. But if people do not stop offending God, another, even worse one will begin in the reign of Pius XI. When you shall see a night illuminated by an unknown light know that this is the great sign that God gives you that He is going to punish the world for its many crimes by means of war, hunger, and persecution of the Church and the Holy Father. To prevent it, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart and the Communion of reparation on the first Saturdays.
Pontevedra
thumb|left|220px|Dorothean convent in [[Pontevedra, now known as the Sanctuary of the Apparitions, in which Sister Lúcia lived and received Marian apparitions.]]
Four years later on 17 June 1921, Lúcia dos Santos at the age of 14 was admitted as a boarder in the school of the Sisters of Saint Dorothy in Vilar, close to the city of Porto. On 24 October 1925, she entered the Institute of the Sisters of Saint Dorothy as a postulant in the convent in Tui, Spain, just across the northern Portuguese border.
According to a document she wrote, later recorded in her book “Fatima in Lucia’s Own Words”, Lúcia reported how on 10 December 1925, the Virgin Mary appeared to her at the Dorothean convent in Pontevedra, and by her side on a luminous cloud was the Child Jesus. According to Lúcia, Mary requested the institution of the Devotion of the Five First Saturdays in reparation to her Immaculate Heart and attached a personal promise to the devotion: He also expressed sorrow that "many souls begin them, but few finish them", and lamented the lack of fervor and spirit of reparation. Following this conversation, the Child Jesus eased the conditions of the devotion, as they are known today.
- Receive Holy Communion. It can be received at a Saturday daily mass or at a Saturday evening anticipatory Mass.