The Apparitions at
Pontevedra
(1925 - 1926)
After fostering for some time
the wish to become a religious, in 1925 eighteen-year-old Lucy joined the
Dorothean Sisters. She became a postulant at the Order’s convent at
Pontevedra, Spain where Our Lady, as She promised in 1917, came to reveal to
Lucy the first part of God’s plan for the salvation of sinners in our time
of revolt against God: the reparatory Communion of the First Saturdays of the
month.
Lucy, referring to herself in
the third person, describes the encounter:
On December 10, 1925, the Most Holy Virgin Herself appeared, and
beside Her, borne by a luminous cloud, the Child Jesus. The Most Holy Virgin
put Her hand on her shoulder and showed her, at the same time, a Heart
surrounded by thorns which She held in the other hand. At that same moment, the
Child said to her:
‘Have compassion on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother,
covered with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce It at every moment, and
there is no one to make an act of reparation to remove them.’
Then the Most Holy Virgin said:
‘Look, My daughter, at My Heart, surrounded with thorns with
which ungrateful men pierce Me at every moment by their blasphemies and
ingratitude. You at least try to console Me and announce in My name that I
promise to assist at the moment of death, with all the graces necessary for
salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months
shall receive the sacrament of Confession, receive Holy Communion, recite five
decades of the Rosary, and keep Me company for fifteen minutes while meditating
on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation
to My Immaculate Heart.’
Lucy then did what she could
to make known this new request from Our Lady. She told her Mother Superior, her
confessor at the convent, and even wrote to her earlier confessor. Both of her
confessors had reservations and advised waiting.
Despite the reservations of
her confessors, Lucy was soon urged to continue working to make this request
known. She says,
On the 15th [of February 1926], I was very busy with my
chores, and I scarcely thought of it [the apparition of the preceding December
10]. I was about to empty the garbage can outside the garden. At the same
place, several months previously, I had met a child whom I had asked if he knew
the Hail Mary. He had replied yes, and I had asked him to say it for me, in
order to hear him. But as he would not say it alone, I had recited it three
times with him.
At the end of the three Hail Mary’s, I asked him to say it alone.
As he remained silent and did not appear capable of saying it alone, I asked
him if he knew the church of Saint Mary. He answered yes. I then told him to go
there every day and to pray thus: ‘Oh my Heavenly Mother, give me Your
Child Jesus!’ I taught him that prayer and departed. Then on February 15,
while returning as usual [to empty a garbage can outside of the garden], I
found there a child who appeared to me to be the same (as previously), and I
then asked him: ‘Have you asked Our Heavenly Mother for the Child
Jesus?’ The Child turned to me and said: ‘And have you revealed to
the world what the Heavenly Mother has asked you?’ And saying that, He
transformed Himself into a resplendent Child. Recognizing then that it was
Jesus, I said to Him:
‘My Jesus! You know very well what my confessor said to me in the
letter I read to you. He said that this vision had to be repeated, there had to
be facts permitting us to believe it, and that the Mother Superior alone could
not spread this devotion.’
‘It is true that the Mother Superior, alone, can do nothing,
but with My grace, she can do anything. It is enough that your confessor gives
you permission, and that your Superior announces this for it to be believed by
the people, even if they do not know who it was revealed to.’
‘But my confessor said in his letter that this devotion already
exists in the world, because many souls receive Thee every first Saturday of
the month, in honor of Our Lady and the fifteen mysteries of the
Rosary.’
‘It is true, My daughter, that many souls begin, but few
persevere to the very end, and those who persevere do it to receive the graces
promised. The souls who make the five first Saturdays with fervor and to make
reparation to the Heart of your Heavenly Mother, please Me more than those who
make fifteen, but are lukewarm and indifferent.’
‘My Jesus! Many souls find it difficult to confess on Saturday.
Will You allow a confession within eight days to be valid?’
‘Yes. It can even be made later on, provided that the souls
are in the state of grace when they receive Me on the first Saturday, and that
they had the intention of making reparation to the Sacred Heart of
Mary.’
‘My Jesus! And those who forget to form this intention?’
‘They can form it at the next confession, taking advantage of
their first opportunity to go to confession.’
After that the Child Jesus
disappeared without saying anything more.
The most striking part of the
first apparition at Pontevedra is the incomparable promise made by Our Lady: to
all those who make the Five First Saturdays reparatory devotion, under the
requested conditions, "I promise to assist them at the hour of death with all
the graces necessary for the salvation of their souls." This amazing grace,
which even the holiest souls are not assured of, is promised unconditionally to
those who make this devotion. It serves as an indication of the great power of
intercession that God has granted to the Blessed Virgin for the salvation of
souls.
Lucy’s confessor later
gave her a series of questions about the apparitions at Pontevedra. One of the
questions was: "Why five Saturdays and not nine or seven, in honor of the
Sorrows of Our Lady?" Upon receiving the questions, she prayed to Our Lord to
enlighten her with the answer, which a few days later she gave to her
confessor. This is what she wrote:
As I was in the chapel with Our Lord part of the night of May 29-30,
1930, and speaking to Our Lord about questions four and five, I suddenly found
myself more intimately possessed by the Divine Presence, and if I am not
mistaken, here is what was revealed to me:
‘My daughter, the reason is simple. There are five kinds of
offenses and blasphemies uttered against the Immaculate Heart of Mary:
- Blasphemies against the Immaculate Conception.
- Blasphemies against Her perpetual Virginity.
- Blasphemies against Her divine Maternity, while refusing at
the same time to recognize Her as Mother of men.
- The blasphemies of those who publicly seek to place in the
hearts of children indifference or scorn, or even hatred towards this
Immaculate Mother.
- The offenses of those who outrage Her directly in Her holy
images.
‘There My daughter, is the reason why the Immaculate Heart of
Mary asked Me to request this small act of reparation, and in consideration of
it, to move My mercy to forgive souls who have had the misfortune to offend
Her. As for you, seek unceasingly, through your prayers and sacrifices, to move
My mercy with regard to these poor souls.’
We have in this communication
from Our Lord one of the most important ideas in the Message of Fatima: since
God decided to manifest His plan of love, which is to grant His graces to men
through the mediation of the Immaculate Virgin, it seems that their refusal to
submit with docility to that Divine Will is a sin which particularly wounds His
Heart and for which He no longer finds in Himself any inclination to forgive.
That sin appears unpardonable, for there is not, as far as Our Savior is
concerned, any crime more unpardonable than to scorn His Most Holy Mother and
to outrage Her Immaculate Heart, which is the sanctuary of the Holy Ghost.
In 1929, when Our Lady
appeared at Tuy, She confirmed the necessity of this devotion She requested at
Pontevedra with these words: "Souls are so numerous whom the justice of God
condemns for sins committed against Me that I come to request reparation.
Sacrifice yourself for this intention and pray." Our Lady affirms with sadness
that many souls are lost because of their scorn and blasphemies toward Her. Yet
it is She who intervenes for them, asking our cooperation, through the small
reparatory devotion of the Five First Saturdays.
Our Lord makes this devotion,
according to the wish of His Holy Mother, a sure and easy means for converting
souls who are in danger of being lost eternally, and of consoling the wounded
Heart of the Immaculate Virgin. By performing this devotion, we participate in
the mystery of the Communion of Saints: it makes the salvation of souls really
depend on our own generosity because the Blessed Virgin Mary, constituted by
Her Son as Mediatrix of all Graces, cannot act alone. She needs us to lovingly
make "small devotions" of reparation in order to save souls from hell. The
salvation of souls is thus one of the great purposes for the practice of the
Five First Saturdays’ devotion. Our Lady had already introduced this
intention to the three shepherds, during Her August 19, 1917 apparition, when
She asked them to pray and make sacrifices for sinners.
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