Mother.

5. The offenses of those who outrage Her directly in Her holy images.

"See, My daughter, the motive for which the Immaculate Heart of Mary inspired Me to ask for this
little reparation, and in consideration of it, to move My mercy to pardon souls who have had the
misfortune of offending Her. As for you, always seek byyour prayers and sacrifices to move My mercy
to pity for these poor souls."

In the same vein, in a 1929 letter to her confessor, Lucy summed

up precisely why we must attach such great importance to this
devotion:

"Our Good Lord in His infinite Mercy asked me ... to make reparation to the Immaculate Heart of
Mary, and to implore pardon and mercy in favor of souls who blaspheme against Her, because the
Divine Mercy does not pardon these souls without reparation."

So we see that above all, the First Saturday devotions are to be performed as fervent acts of
reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. But how exactly are we to do this? The three children
of Fatima, who were instructed by Our Lady Herself, are our best guides. Sister Lucy has left us a
number of priceless examples of their manner of making such offerings.

Lucy recalls the days following Our Lady's first apparition:

"Ever since the day Our Lady taught us to offer our sacrifices to Jesus, any time we had something
to suffer, or agreed to make a sacrifice, Jacinta asked: 'Did you already tell Jesus that it's for
love of Him?' If I said I hadn't, she answered: 'Then I'll tell Him.' And joining her hands, she
raised her eyes to Heaven and said: 'O Jesus, it is for love of Thee, and for the conversion of
sinners!'"

A simple prayer such as this, even if said silently, will transform any act or sacrifice into a
special offering of reparation.

We notice in the above example that at that early time in the history of the apparitions, the
children were not yet aware of Our Lord's desire that such sacrifices be made as acts of
reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. When they later understood this, they added the
necessary words to their prayer to make their sacrifices into formal acts of reparation to the
Immaculate Heart, as we see in this example from the time of their imprisonment :

"After being separated for a while, we were reunited in one of the other rooms of the prison. When
they told us they were coming soon to take us away to be fried alive, Jacinta went aside and stood
by a window overlooking the cattle market. I thought at first that she was trying to distract her
thoughts with the view, but I soon realized that she was crying. I went over and drew her close to
me, asking her why she was crying. 'Because we are going to die; she replied, 'without ever seeing
our parents again  not even our mothers!' With tears