News: Summer has arrived and I hope the hot weather has not stifled your plans for enjoying the outdoors. I associate summer with barbecues, beaches, vacation, and sunshine. It is with this in mind that we would like to invite you to our first annual cookout or barbecue at the Fatima shrine following the First Saturday Mass and rosary on July 5th. Instead of just coffee and doughnuts we will include hotdogs & hamburgers and some side dishes and salads. We hope you can join us as we celebrate the nation’s birthday on the First Saturday in July. Bring the kids and extended family! There is another anniversary that we will be celebrating later in the year that I would like to bring to your attention. The 100th anniversary of the First Saturday devotions. If you recall it was during the July 13th apparition that Our Lady explained: “To prevent war, I will come to ask for the Consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparations on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted and there will be peace.” The formula for world peace is the First Saturdays. This is the means that God wished to establish devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Our Lady appeared to Sr. Lucia on December 10th, 1925 in the convent at Pontevedra to ask for the Consecration of Russia and the First Saturday devotions as she said on July 13th, 1917. If people listen to her request Russia will be converted. In 1946, when asked what was necessary for this to occur and for peace, Lucia promptly answered that the principal request of Our Lady was contained in Her very first request: “Will you be willing to accept whatever God will send you and to offer it up in reparation for sin and for the conversion of sinners?” Lucia went on to explain that the daily Rosary was important because in meditating upon its mysteries and using the power of its prayer, we were able to strengthen ourselves to respond affirmatively to this all important request. For the same reason it was important that we be consecrated to Our Lady and wear the Scapular, which is the sign of that Consecration. The First Saturdays are also important because in making the First Saturdays, examining our consciences, confessing, receiving Communion, and spending fifteen minutes meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, we purify and strengthen ourselves to continue our response to Our Lady’s primary request; To sanctify our daily duty for yet another month. This is what led to a “pledge” to include the essential request of Our Lady: 1) To sanctify one’s daily duty begin by making the Morning offering and remembering it in moments of temptation: 2) To wear the Brown Scapular as a sign of consecration to Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart, imitating the virtues it signifies: 3) To say the Rosary daily (5 decades) with attention to the mysteries: 4) To renew our purpose monthly, by devotion of the Five First Saturdays. When the formula known as the Blue Army Pledge was prepared under the direction of Lucia in July 1946, and presented to the Bishop of Leiria/Fatima for his approval, the Bishop responded in these words: “You may promulgate this as coming from me.” It was Lucia herself who, in the parlor of the Dorothean Convent on the outskirts of Porto in 1946 spelled out precisely the fundamental request of Our Lady which must be fulfilled to bring about the triumph of her Immaculate Heart. ** “Her Own Words in a Nuclear Age; by John Haffert.
July 5th: First Saturday Devotion at the shrine, starting at 9:00a.m with Holy Mass, Rosary, Confessions. Followed by a cookout, come and enjoy hamburgers and hotdogs. Rev. Ron Tacelli S.J. will preside.
July 13th: Candlelight procession: With Exposition, Candlelight Rosary procession, and Benediction. I hope you can join us. Rev. Philip Dabney CsSR will give a talk and lead us. We start at 8pm.
July 19th: The Pro-life Mass at 10:30 am. Following Mass there will be a pro-life rosary followed by a talk.
