Dec 10, 1925 - The Forgotten Apparition that completes Fatima – 100 years – Communion of Reparation of the First Saturdays:
CENTENNIAL OF THE APPARITION OF OUR LADY OF FATIMA IN PONTEVEDRA, SPAIN
Courtesy: Vincent Łaszewski, Poland and Prof Americo Pablo Lopez Ortiz, ex President WAF International
The historical facts
On December 10th, 1925, the most holy Virgin appeared to 18 year old Sr Lucia, in the Convent of the Dorothean Sisters in Pontevedra Spain and by Our Lady’s side, elevated on a luminous cloud, was a Child. The most holy Virgin rested Her hand on Sr Lucia’s shoulder, and as She did so, She showed Her a heart encircled by thorns, which She was holding in Her other hand. At the same time, the Child said: “Have compassion on the Heart of your most holy Mother, covered with thorns, with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to make an act of reparation to remove them.”
Then the most holy Virgin said: “Look, my daughter, at my Heart, surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce me every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You at least try to console me and say that I PROMISE TO ASSIST AT THE HOUR OF DEATH, WITH THE GRACES NECESSARY FOR SALVATION, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, shall confess, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.” (Sister Lucia in her own words, Eng. ed., p. 194.)
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Child Jesus speaks only 37 Portuguese words, Mary said almost one hundred.
LESSONS FOR US:-
1. IMPORTANT MESSAGE WITH GOD’S AUTHORITY
Jesus is a boy and it is He who inaugurates the meeting here with Mary - He speaks first. Like in Fatima the Angels were preparing the scene, here Jesus Himself is preparing the meeting. Child with authority – is as He is surrounded by Divine light! Also, here is stressed the urgency of this request: Communion of reparation of the First Saturdays.
2. AN INVITATION TO CHOOSE GOD’S MERCY
Who is more important? The Mother. Even Jesus points at Her. Do you know that Jesus dependent on His Mother is according to theologians - a manifestation of Divine Mercy? God wants His Mercy to prevail over His Divine Wrath. In the third part of the Fatima secret, Mary - who “is all light” and “the light is God himself” (Sister Lucia) - puts out the flames. SHE IS A SIGN OF HOPE FOR MANKIND. He wants us to focus our eyes on Her, and be like Jesus – to be children. Why? Because She is the perfect way to Him.
3. BE UNITED TO OUR LADY
“Have compassion on the Heart of your most holy Mother, surrounded with thorns” - said the Child Jesus. Do you not see? He talked about his Mother as our Mother, the only true and fruitful relationship with Mary, namely our total child-like dependence on Her. Are we Her children in practice? Do we follow Her style of life, Her spirit and Her Heart? Like the Child Jesus did?
4. BECOME LITTLE CHILDREN
In Fatima, everything is concerned with children. The visionaries are children. The new generation, “the generation of the Immaculate Heart” consists of children - people with the spirit of a child. Sister Lucia teaches us: “Mary is the Mother of this new generation. St John Paul II in his beautiful homily during their beatification called them “new Moses” whose vocation was to take us to the new Promised Land. “Unless you turn and become like children you will never enter the Kingdom” - warns Jesus (Mt 18: 3).
We are invited to follow the life of the little shepherds and become children like they were. And to resign from our “adult way of thinking” - about our career (even in the Church), success, money, fame, and being someone instead of being no one, like Mary defined Herself in the Magnificat. “Categories of the world” are not Mary’s way of life and neither should they be Her children’s way of life!
5. A CALL TO LIVE IN NAZARETH
What about Jesus’ 30 years before His public ministry? And we know the answer: those years were His hidden life, which He lived in relationship with Mary His Mother. We are invited to imitate the whole Jesus: not only the Jesus of His public activity, that is to say 10% of Jesus! Who is called to teach, and teach with power? A few, but not me I am invited to live a hidden life in my own Nazareth in total dependency on Mother Mary, following Her style of a pure, humble and poor life, giving God room so that He will change the world. It is for Him to bring salvation, not me. If we live close to Her, Jesus is always present in our own life!
6. THE CHILD JESUS PRESENT IN OUR EVERYDAY LIFE
The actual vision was captured in the embrace of two encounters, with a little boy, and with a poor street child, who at the end reveals his identity: he turned out to be the Child Jesus. Sr Lucia: “I was very busy at my work (…) I went to throw out a panful of rubbish (…) I met a child. I asked him if he knew the Hail Mary (…). But as he remained silent and was unable to say the Hail Mary alone, I asked him if he knew where the Church of Santa Maria was, to which he replied that he did. I told him to go there every day and to say this: «O my heavenly Mother, give me your Child Jesus!». I taught him this, and then left him.”
And then… Two months after the apparition Sister Lucia sees the same boy she met in the autumn of the previous year. As she explains
“On the 15th (of February 1926), I was very busy at my work, and was not thinking of this at all [of spreading First Saturday Devotion]. I went to throw out a panful of rubbish beyond the vegetable garden, in the same place where, some months earlier, I had met a child. Going there as usual, I found a child who seemed to me to be the same one whom I had previously met, so I questioned him:
“Did you ask our heavenly Mother for the Child Jesus?”
The child turned to me and said:
“And have you spread through the world what our heavenly Mother requested of you?”
With that, he was transformed into a resplendent Child. I knew then that it was Jesus…”
Recognizing then that it was Jesus, I said to Him:
‘My Jesus! You know very well what my confessor said to me in the letter I read to you. He said that this vision had to be repeated, there had to be facts permitting us to believe it, and that the Mother Superior alone could not spread this devotion.’
‘It is true that the Mother Superior, alone, can do nothing, but with My grace, she can do anything. It is enough that your confessor gives you permission, and that your Superior announces this for it to be believed by the people, even if they do not know who it was revealed to.’
‘But my confessor said in his letter that this devotion already exists in the world, because many souls receive Thee every first Saturday of the month, in honor of Our Lady and the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary.’
‘It is true, My daughter, that many souls begin, but few persevere to the very end, and those who persevere do it to receive the graces promised. The souls who make the five first Saturdays with fervor and to make reparation to the Heart of your Heavenly Mother, please Me more than those who make fifteen, but are lukewarm and indifferent.’
‘My Jesus! Many souls find it difficult to confess on Saturday. Will You allow a confession within eight days to be valid?’
‘Yes. It can even be made later on, provided that the souls are in the state of grace when they receive Me on the first Saturday, and that they had the intention of making reparation to the Sacred Heart of Mary.’
‘My Jesus! And those who forget to form this intention?’
‘They can form it at the next confession, taking advantage of their first opportunity to go to confession.’
After that the Child Jesus disappeared without saying anything more.
Something similar happens to us. Any person we meet can be a hidden messenger from heaven. (I do not know, but maybe one of you is a hidden Jesus?) Will our gesture of love towards an ordinary man we met turn out to be a gesture made to Jesus himself? Yes, it will turn out like that, because Christ said clearly: "What you did to one of the least of these my brethren, you did to me" (Mt 25:40).
In this convent, the International Blue Army (I.B.A.) was founded in a General Assembly presided by H.E. Mons. João Venâncio, Bishop of Leiria-Fatima and first International President of the I.B.A., the convent was acquired from the Dorothean Sisters for the Blue Army. The Blue Army, after many years, would transform into a new public association of the faithful of pontifical right, the World Apostolate of Fatima International, extended to 120 countries. The place captivated Pope Saint John Paul II, the Great, and the Fatima Pope, who declared it a Pontifical Shrine. The Spanish Bishop’s Conference, is taking steps, so that the Message of Pontevedra, is fully valued as a call from God through the Immaculate Heart of His Most Holy Mother
MEANING OF THE LOGO
A heart designed with lines in two colors, blue and red. Blue is the symbol and liturgical colour of Our Lady. Red is the symbol of the pain that the Most Blessed Virgin feels in Her heart for the sins committed by humanity.
The heart ends with a cross, evocative of the Rosary. At the right side, part of the heart’s line is made of five small circumferences, which represent the blasphemies that offend Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart.
Inside the heart is the image of the Our Lady and the Child Jesus, recalling the apparitions in Pontevedra.
In the lower right margin appears the title: Centennial of the Apparition of Our Lady in Pontevedra. (@ WAF Spain)
PRIVILEGES OF THE COMMUNION OF REPARATION OF THE FIRST SATURDAYS known as the Great Promise of the Immaculate Heart of Mary for consoling Our Lady:-
(1) Grace of final perseverance;
(2) conversion of many sinners;
(3) salvation of many souls;
(4) peace of the world;
(5) unity and strength of the Universal Church against inner dissentions
(6) Plenary Indulgence by Pope Pius X
WILL YOU CONSOLE OUR LADY BY LIVING AND SPREADING THE COMMUNION OF REPARATION OF THE FIRST SATURDAYS?
CLICK HERE for Communion of Reparation of Five First Saturdays
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