The Five First Saturdays of Reparation devotion is connected with Mary’s apparitions at Fatima, Portugal in 1917. In 1925, eight years after the initial apparitions, the Blessed Mother again appeared to the principal seer, Lucia dos Santos, at the convent at Pontevedra, Spain and said: “I promised 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, recited five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the all the mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.”

Later, inn an apparition of Christ, Lucia was told that the confession could be made any time during the eight days before, or the eight days after, the First Saturday. “It could be longer still,” Christ told her, “provided that when the receive me, they are in the state of grace and have the intention of making reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”

• Share this video on the First Saturday devotion.
• Review the ways to practice the First Saturday devotion.
• Assign students to contact local parishes and ask if they do anything special to commemorate the First Saturdays.
• Provide or suggest opportunities for Confession in the weeks before and after the First Saturdays of each month.
• Encourage students to practice the First Saturdays of Reparation devotion.