Our Lady of Fatima

by Father Nicholas Gruner

The promise which the Mother of God makes in establishing the devotion of the Five First Saturdays is among the most powerful ever made. With the full assent and cooperation of Her Divine Son, Our Lady offers all Her children on Earth the absolute certainty of salvation and a place in Heaven for all eternity!
It is indeed a measure of Our Lady's celestial influence and a monument to Her Heart overflowing with love that She asks so little of us in return for fulfilling this great promise of salvation. To those who piously perform this holy devotion of Reparation, She solemnly pledges the gift of Heaven, saying in clear and certain terms: 'I promise salvation.'

But the Queen of Heaven promises us even more! While the justice of God condemns many souls to Hell because of their sins against the Immaculate Heart of His Mother, Our Lady further pledges that our acts of Reparation to Her Heart (and most especially, the Five First Saturdays) will be instrumental and efficacious in saving the souls of many, many others.

While we will only know in Heaven how many souls our acts of Reparation to the Immaculate Heart have saved, there can be no question that our devotion and charity will mightily increase the everlasting happiness and glory which God has prepared for His elect.

The Masterpiece

In my opinion, the booklet which you can order. see below, on the Five First Saturdays is the best short explanation of Our Lady's Fatima devotion of Reparation ever published anywhere and in any language. It is truly a joy to read and reread. Even after reading it many times, I still find more marvelous graces each time I pick it up again.

Never before has Our Blessed Mother's promise been so simply, beautifully and compellingly explained. Never before have we had so convenient and complete a description of both the practice and the promise of the Five First Saturdays!

It is a terrible tragedy that so few Catholics know the wonderful promise that God's Mother has made for their salvation and that of their loved ones. For many years, I have hoped and prayed to make this holy devotion better known. And indeed, this new booklet truly is a Godsend in our effort to bring this part of Our Lady's Fatima Message to millions of souls! Deo Gratias!

Our Lady's Unique Role in Our Salvation

I have no doubt that, after you read this wonderful booklet, you will agree that it should be read and pondered by millions of souls. Our Blessed Mother has done so much for us. She has suffered so much for you and me and each one of Her children. Indeed, no one, not even the greatest Martyr, suffered more than She did at the foot of the Cross,  sorrowfully beholding the terrible torments of Her Divine Son as He shed His life's blood for our salvation. Yet stood there She did, to console Him and to cooperate with Him in the great Act of Redemption.

It is through the Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ that Heaven was reopened to us and the graces necessary for our salvation were won through the sufferings and sacrifices of Jesus. Yet without Mary's cooperation, Jesus would not and could not have offered up this awesome sacrifice of Himself on the Cross which assured our salvation. It was only through Her "YES" at the moment of the Annunciation that Jesus, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, became man and dwelt amongst us. Only through the free consent of Mary could and did Our Lord assume His human nature in Her womb: "Fiat" "Let it be done to Me according to Thy word" (Luke 1 :38). Only at these words of Mary (and not before) did Jesus take on the human body necessary for His sacrifice on the Cross for our salvation. "There is no remission without the shedding of blood" (Hebrews 9:22).

Without the necessary cooperation and assent of Mary, we would not have had a Savior to open the gates of Heaven for us. Our destiny as children of God and inheritors of Heaven would literally have been impossible without Her. Blessed be the name of Mary, the great Mother of God!

Mary's Great Love for All Her Children

Our Blessed Lady's cooperation with God's great plan for our redemption did not stop at the Annunciation or at Bethlehem. As Pope Pius XII taught, God the Father would not have permitted the Crucifixion had not, at the foot of the Cross, Our Lady been willing to surrender Her rights as the Mother of Her Divine Son. And indeed, She did freely, if sorrowfully, give up those rights so that our salvation could be effected and countless millions of souls be saved.
When you consider Her sorrow and grief at the sight of Her beloved Son dying in great agony on the Cross, only then can you truly understand how much Our Lady has suffered for our sake and out of true maternal love for the whole human race. As Simeon said in Luke 2:35, Her Heart was pierced with a sword as She watched Her Son die on the Cross. It would have been far, far easier for Mary, His Mother and our Mother, to die in place of Her Son, Whom She loved so tenderly, both as Her Child and as Her God.

Yet out of love for God and out of Her love for us, Her Immaculate Heart allowed Itself to be transfixed with this sword --- so that you and I might gain Heaven and avoid the torments of Hell for all eternity!

Our Lady's Immaculate Heart and YOU!

How Our Lady loves us! And how much She yearns for us to love Her in return! Her Immaculate Heart remains forever open wide to each one of Her beloved children. It is precisely because She loves us so much that She grants us the power to freely console and comfort Her through making Reparation to Her Immaculate Heart. The tremendous power of the Five First Saturdays is proof positive of Our Heavenly Mother's love and concern for us.

As you will read in this booklet, Our Lord Jesus Christ has declared that His Blessed Mother's sufferings did not end with His Crucifixion, but continue unabated today through the ingratitude, indifference and outright enmity of people in the world. As hard as it may be for us to accept, there are people who actually hate Our Lady and who work actively to promote that hatred amongst other souls. We can see the dreadful evidence of this enmity (whose roots are satanic) in the flood of blasphemous films, books and television programs that threaten to engulf our civilization as well as in the tragic decline in Marian devotion within the Church itself.

Our Lady has told Sister Lucy that Her Immaculate Heart (the wellspring of so much selfless love and the source of so much mercy) is bitterly and cruelly pierced by the blasphemies and sins of ungrateful men and women. In this new booklet, you will read the actual words of Our Lord concerning the suffering of His Mother and His righteous anger at those who would demean Her Holy Name through indifference or ingratitude.

I believe it is important to note here that the great and abiding love which Our Lady has for each one of us is not merely a tremendous gift, but also a stupendous opportunity for us to win eternal merit in Heaven through consoling and comforting Her Immaculate Heart. The great "secret" of the devotion of the Five First Saturdays is how our sacrifices (as embodied in the Sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion) can actually remove the thorns that pierce and torment Her Most Immaculate and Pure Heart!

The Eternal Destiny of Many Souls in Your Hands!

Almighty God leaves the decision to cooperate with Heaven's plan for our salvation and peace in the world to each and every one of us. When, at Fatima, Our Lady showed the three child seers the horrific vision of hell, it was not to frighten them, but rather to encourage and inspire them and us to work, pray and sacrifice all we could for the salvation of souls. She reminded them (and us) that many souls go to hell because they have no one to pray and sacrifice for them.

It is because I believe this small booklet has the power to change many lives and to save many souls that I want to urge you to help distribute it to as many people as possible. Your prayers (especially every Rosary you say) and your financial sacrifices are critically important in this effort. There are millions upon millions of our fellow Catholics who need to know about the great promise that Our Lady has given us in the devotion of the Five First Saturdays. I pray that the words in this little booklet will inspire you always to ever greater love and devotion to Our Blessed Mother's Immaculate Heart and encourage you to redouble your efforts in the struggle to bring Her Fatima Message to the world.

  ----------------------  Final Note  ----------------------

This magnificent booklet has been awarded the Imprimatur of Bishop Benedict To Varpin, Archbishop of Madang, on June 5, 1995.

I hope this little introduction to The Magnificent Promise for the Five First Saturdays will encourage you and thousands of others to read and re-read, and get others to read it. It is a beautiful full color 32 page booklet.

Ask for your own copy and for extra copies to distribute by contacting us at:

The Fatima Center:
In U.S.A: Route 30 Box 281, Constable NY 12926
In Canada: 452 Kraft Rd., Fort Erie ON L2A 4M7

Late afternoon March sky, Winthrop, Maine, photo for the background by Catholic Tradition. I noticed a very pretty cloud pattern in the sky above our back lawn. I dashed in to get the camera and when I came out to snap the image, the large billowy white puffs had already vanished, so I moved to the west and the dazzling sun was just right to capture. The image is as I took it, minus the telephone line, which I brushed out.  The tree is almost a hundred years old and it still yields its little jewels, cinnamon colored cones in bundles that are scattered throughout the lawn as thick as a carpet some seasons.

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