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PREFACE

How to Make the First Saturday Reparatory Devotions

by Father Nicholas Gruner, S.T.L., S.T.D. (Cand.)*

Most important in our First Saturday devotions is the fervor with which we perform them,
specifically as acts of reparation for sins against the Immaculate  Heart of Mary.

Our Lady of Fatima summed up the motive of all of Her apparitions and requests with these
poignant words: "So numerous are the souls. which the justice of God condemns for sins
committed against Me, that I come to ask for reparation:" This is the very heart of the First
Saturday devotions Our Lady's urgent and heart rending plea that we make reparation on behalf of
sinners who will otherwise be lost,,

Nowhere is this plea more movingly expressed than in Our Lady's formal request for the promulgation
of the Five First Saturdays devotion.

It was December 10, 1925. Lucy was then an 18 year old postulant in a Dorothean convent. Having
returned to her cell that evening after supper, she suddenly saw Our Lady standing close by her,
in the presence also of the Child Jesus, Who was standing on a little cloud.

At first Our Lady did not say anything. It was as if She could not speak, being overwhelmed with
sorrow. She held Her Immaculate Heart in Her hand for Lucy to see, pierced all around by terrible thorns,
 and She placed Her other hand on Lucy's shoulder, as if to communicate a most familiar
and loving appeal. It seems almost as if, in anguish, She sought to lean for support on Lucy's
shoulder.

We might each try to picture ourselves kneeling there before Our Lady as She places Her hand on our
shoulder, reaching out to us with a

* Father Gruner's plans for the present booklet were interrupted by his untimely death in
April 2015. The above Preface is taken from his correspondence of 2014.