First Saturday Devotions

Our Blessed Mother has asked us to make reparation for sins to her Immaculate Heart. She told the little children at Fatima that Jesus wants her to be known and loved and that we should have a special devotion to her Immaculate Heart. Our Blessed Mother also told the little Fatima children, “I promise to help at the hour of death, with the graces needed for salvation, whoever on the First Saturday of five consecutive months shall: go to confession, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary.   We can continue our practice of keeping the Blessed mother company.  Here are some points to ponder, a brief meditation and a prayer to help you in your Devotional practice. 

This month’s focus is on the Third Glorious Mystery, The Descent of the Holy Spirit

“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” Acts 2: 1-4

Meditation-

Our God is a burning fire, inviting, inflaming, bestowing the charismatic countenance of the Spirit upon each of the Chruch’s embered members. The Spirit is the force of “ecclesia,” calling people out of themselves through baptism, confirmation, and the Eucharis to live united in faith, hope, and love.  The Spirit frees us for self-giving.  We share ourselves in the manner of the Trinity, giving and receiving in such manner that no one is diminished or dominated.  We cling, but do not crush.  We console, encourage, and challenge one another to deeper conversion” we do not overwhelm, alienate, or subjugate.  The Spirit bestows a new identity upon us: we are adopted sons and daughters in Christ.  The Spirit deals death to the parts of the soul that would suffocate itself.  The Sprit inspires us t step beyond pretense and unswervingly to dedicate ourselves to God in the face of the distractions and dead ends the world posed to us. The Spirit does not diminish our uniqueness but raises individual responsibility in relief.

Points to ponder

• The Holy Spirit turned the apostles into world conquerors. He will transform us, too, if we will say yes and embrace His calling in our lives.
• Pentecost reveals the face of the Church as a family gathered with Mary, enlivened by the powerful outpouring of the Spirit and ready for the mission of evangelization.
• The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Gal. 5 22-23) Are these fruits found in our daily lives? Would others describe us as a person with these qualities? If not, why not?

Glorious Mysteries and the virtues or fruits

1. Resurrection – Faith
2. Ascencion into Heaven – Hope, Desire for Heaven
3. Descent of the Holy Spirit – Wisdom, Love of God
4. Assumption – Devotion to Mary
5. Crowning of Our Blessed Lady as Queen of Heaven – Eternal Happiness

Concluding prayer,

Jesus, You fulfilled the promise that You had made to the disciples when the Holy Spirit came upon them in the form of tongues of fire. Help us to live the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit so that, in every thought, desire, word, and action, our lives may witness to the power of God active in the world.

Pray the Rosary every day!

Pray every day!