Meditations on the 1st Saturday of the month

At the beginning of February, we continue the liturgical year by celebrating the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. This feast brings the Christmas cycle to a close, and joins the Easter cycle. In mystical terms, the Presentation in the Temple links the Old and New Testaments through the figure of Saint Simeon. Let’s begin by rereading the beginning of this passage from Saint Luke’s Gospel:

Now there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon. He was a righteous, religious man who was waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. He had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he had seen Christ, the Messiah of the Lord. Under the influence of the Spirit, Simeon came to the Temple. As the parents were presenting the child Jesus to comply with the rite of the Law concerning him, Simeon received the child in his arms, and blessed God, saying:

“Now, O sovereign Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word. For my eyes have seen the salvation you are preparing in the face of the peoples: light that reveals itself to the nations and gives glory to your people Israel.”

Saint Simeon here represents the wait for the Messiah since Adam and Eve, the wait lived by Men of Good Will, made up of patience, piety and trust despite the trials and vicissitudes experienced by the chosen people. Saint Simeon completes the great cycle of Old Testament prophets, Abraham, Moses, David and all the others. He closes the wait for the Savior and echoes the Christmas carol: a Savior is born to us. The promise of God our Father is here, ushering in a new era for mankind, who, thanks to Jesus, will be reconciled with the God of Love whom they had rejected since Adam and Eve. The joy expressed by Saint Simeon as he takes the infant Jesus in his arms should light up our souls and prepare us for the joy of receiving our Savior on the^1st Saturday of the month.

St. Luke’s Gospel continues: Simeon blessed them, then said to Mary his mother: “Behold, this child will cause the fall and rise of many in Israel. He will be a sign of contradiction, and your soul will be pierced by a sword.” (Luke 2, 22-35). With these words, Saint Simeon announces the New Covenant through two prophecies. First, he foretells the battle between those who will recognize the Messiah and those who will reject him. For although Jesus Christ is gentleness itself, although he loves all mankind without exception, although he has given his all to ensure the salvation of all, unbelievably, there are still those who will refuse his coming. Faced with his words of love, some will respond with hatred. Faced with his gentleness, some will respond with violence. Faced with his message of peace, some will respond with war. Let us pray on this^1st Saturday of February 2025 that this will change. Let us pray that weapons will finally fall silent before the majestic example of a God who comes to put himself within our reach and give his life out of love for us.

Saint Simeon’s second prophecy concerns the Blessed Virgin. He foretells that her Immaculate Heart will be pierced by a sword of pain. He sees that Our Lady will be associated with the passion of her Son to the very end, and even beyond, since on Holy Saturday she will agonize with pain, while maintaining her faith in the future resurrection of her Divine Son. That’s why Holy Saturday is Our Lady’s day. Oh Our Lady, when you heard these words, you so gentle, so tender, so motherly, so happy to have Jesus in your arms at last, how these words must have made you shudder. How you must have gasped. And yet, as at the Annunciation, a new Fiat resounded in your soul: you accepted the trial announced by Saint Simeon, for such is God’s will.

Today, this sword continues to thrust itself into your Immaculate Heart. Certain men insult you, outrage you, overwhelm you. But such treatment of the Mother of God is intolerable in the eyes of Our Lord. There is no greater offense to Jesus Christ than to touch his Mother. It is this unheard-of sin that makes Our Lady of Fatima say that she can no longer hold back her Son’s arm…. So, in her maternal kindness, to spare us the threat of punishment, she has given us this ultimate means of making reparation in God’s eyes for the attacks on her Immaculate Heart: reparation on the 1st Saturdays of the month. Every time just one person fervently makes reparation on the first Saturday of the month, they console our heavenly Mother, they console her Son, and while they ward off divine chastisement, they bring us closer to the triumph of Mary’s Heart promised at Fatima.

After Saint Simeon, let’s now look at Saint Joseph and the Blessed Virgin. They knew there was no need for Jesus to be offered according to human custom, for they knew that Jesus was God himself. So why did they do it? Inspired by the Holy Spirit, they deemed it necessary to make this act of obedience and humility in order to be in the midst of all men. In so doing, they were paving the way for their Son Jesus, who would be obedient all his life, and obedient even to the death of the Cross. They were thus beginning Christ’s future teaching on obedience to God’s will. This obedience is often forgotten in today’s spiritual life. Some of the faithful have the impression that to love God, all we have to do is sing and call out to Jesus. Praise of the Lord is certainly important, but to be content with that is to forget His great Gospel lesson: “Not everyone who says, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father in heaven.” (Mat 7: 21-23)

Loving God and wanting to please him require both prayer and obedience. You can’t have one without the other.

But this is not sterile obedience. It’s the mark of a true love for Him that completes our prayer, and nothing pleases Him more. Why is this so? Because God is perfect, the Creator of all things, and it is right that we, His imperfect creatures, should follow His will. By our acts of obedience we praise His greatness better than in any prayer. We truly acknowledge that He is all-powerful. We prove our trust in Him, for He knows everything… and we know nothing. And if sometimes His will seems difficult, we remember that in return He will shower us with His love and blessings in His paradise for all eternity. Saint Augustine said: “God’s reward is God Himself. Ask for something else if you can find something better.”

This^1st Saturday of February, the second of Jubilee 2025, is particularly highlighted in Lebanon, at the shrine ofMaghdouche,which bears the name Notre Dame de l‘attente(Our Lady ofWaiting), because this is the place where the Blessed Virgin waited for Jesus when he preached. Isn’t Notre Dame de l’attente an apt name today? Indeed, the world – and Lebanon in particular – is plunged into a crisis unique in history, and humanly speaking, things seem lost. So, just as Saint Simeon awaited the Messiah announced by the prophets, today we await the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary announced at Fatima. But the difference is that the time of our present waiting is in our hands. We can hasten the triumph of the Blessed Virgin because, in order to intervene, she’s just waiting for us to carry out her requests, in particular to extend the 1st Saturdays of the month throughout the Church. So what are we waiting for?

We know that Benedict XVI recalled in 2010 that Fatima’s prophetic mission was not over. But another event is little known. In 2005, before his death, Carlos Acutis saw Sister Lucia in a dream. The Fatima seer told him that the practice of the five 1st Saturdays of the month could change the destiny of the world (The secret of my son Carlos Acutis p252). Will we remain deaf to such a reminder from Heaven? Saint Jacinta of Fatima said: “It’s never too late to recapture the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.Saving the world is therefore well within our grasp, even now. If we act in this year of 2025, the 100th anniversary of the ^1stSaturdayof the month, then just as Saint Simeon saw the Savior, we will see the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Alliance ^1st Saturdays of Fatima for Peace

She also asked for a minimum of five consecutive^1st Saturdays of the month. For those who do, a special grace has been granted:

“All those who, for five months, on the first Saturday, will confess, receive Holy Communion, recite a rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, in a spirit of reparation, I promise to assist them at the hour of death with all the graces necessary for the salvation of their souls.”

Our Lady to Sister Lucia (of Fatima), December 10, 1925.

Alliance ^1st Saturdays of Fatima