Senior prelates, including Cardinals Raymond Burke and Robert Sarah, have been fully supporting this year’s Jubilee initiative, aimed at encouraging the faithful across the world to take part this year and beyond.
Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris will be celebrating a First Saturday devotion this coming Saturday — the first time the famous cathedral will be hosting the devotion since its reconstruction following the great fire that almost destroyed it in 2019.
The event is being organized as part of the “First Saturdays of Fatima Jubilee 2025” initiative, which has been taking place all year at numerous shrines around the world.
The Marian devotion, which began after Our Lady and the Child Jesus appeared to Venerable Lúcia dos Santos in Pontevedra, Spain, 100 years ago this Dec. 10, is centered on making reparation for offenses and blasphemies against Mary’s Immaculate Heart, including denying her perpetual virginity and the Immaculate Conception.
For those who take part in the First Saturdays observance with true devotion and repentance, Our Lady promises two immense graces: the Blessed Mother’s assistance at the hour of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, and peace on earth.
The Jubilee initiative’s objective is primarily to make people aware of Our Lady’s request to carry out the devotion and to obtain the conversion of the world, resulting in peace that will come through the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Senior prelates, including Cardinals Raymond Burke and Robert Sarah, have been fully supporting this year’s Jubilee initiative, aimed at encouraging the faithful across the world to take part this year and beyond.
According to Venerable Lúcia, who received the apparition in 1925, the Blessed Virgin asks for four acts of devotion on the first Saturday of five consecutive months: confession within about eight days before or after Saturday, with the intention of reparation (some say it can be within 20 days during this Jubilee year); Holy Communion (preferably on the first Saturday, but allowed within a day if necessary); praying five decades of the Rosary; and, in addition to the recitation, meditating for 15 minutes on one or more mysteries of the Rosary.
Régis de Lassus, chief coordinator of the French-based Jubilee initiative, told the Register in August that the devotion “has been forgotten and must be fulfilled as soon as possible because the spiritual and geopolitical situation in the world is catastrophic, and heaven has been waiting for almost a hundred years.”
In June this year, Cardinal Burke underscored the importance of the devotion, saying that Our Lady’s “insistence on the devotion of the First Saturdays is a wonderful expression of her unfailing maternal love.”
Recalling a second Pontevedra vision Lúcia received in February 1926 related to the First Saturday devotion, Cardinal Burke relayed how the Child Jesus said it would please him more if the faithful prayed the five decades of the Rosary “with fervor and with the intention of making reparation to the Heart of their heavenly Mother than if they did 15 decades in a tepid and indifferent manner.”
The cardinal stressed that the devotion “is not an isolated act but expresses a way of life, namely, daily conversion of heart to Christ’s Most Sacred Heart, under the maternal guidance and care of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.”
He also said that although Our Lady made clear the great suffering that results from a failure to take up devotion to her Immaculate Heart, she also gave words of hope by stressing that “in the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph.”
Notre Dame Schedule
At the Cathedral of Notre-Dame on Saturday, the faithful are invited to gather before the Virgin of the Pillar at 10:45 a.m. A short instruction will be given about the essence and meaning of the First Saturday devotion, followed by the recitation of the Joyful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary at 11 a.m.
A meditation on the Eucharist will follow, which can be found on the initiative website. Participants will then have free time to visit the cathedral before concluding the activities with the Angelus and Mass at noon.
Notre Dame Cathedral has long been a center for Marian devotion, including May devotions, Marian feast days and processions, all aimed at fostering love for the Mother of God.
The Jubilee initiative to promote the First Saturday devotion is coordinated by Salve-Corde, an umbrella group of Marian associations, which is inviting individuals to carry out the devotion independently or to join or create a “First Saturday Group” in their own countries.
The organization says that, in November, First Saturday devotions will be organized at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico, along with many other sacred places in Latin America and Spain. In December, a special First Saturday devotion event will take place at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima.