What is First Saturday Devotion?

Meditation Set #1:  (Month of April)

Joyful Mysteries [The Church]



1. The Annunciation: “Of His kingdom there shall be no end.” “The Lord is with thee.” Mary was the Mother of God. Surely that was enough for now; let Gabriel tell it, and quietly go away. Her Son, “Son of the Most High” ... leave Mary be! But Gabriel had more to tell; Mary was to hear everything at once. A windfall of wonders: God, her Son; she, the Virgin Mother; David’s throne, His; Jacob’s house, forever His; His empire, His Church, unshatterable. From the dawn of her Motherhood, she was to think of Jesus and the Church together, because Jesus and the Church are One. Mary had conceived a kingdom. Jesus and the Catholic Church form the “whole Christ.” Mary is my Mother, and she loves me with the love she has for Jesus. She wants all of mine.
2. The Visitation: “When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary ... the babe in her womb leapt for joy.” The Incarnation was not the mere placing of an event; it was a prophecy, the flower’s foretelling. The Incarnation prophesied Pentecost; the angel spoke to Mary emphatically of the Church, and the Holy Spirit descended upon her. The Visitation caught up this Pentecostal theme. Elizabeth was already six months with child, the angel had said; and Mary hurried off to attend her. Mary was to do more than she realized. She spoke, and John was filled with sanctifying grace. Mary, Apostle to her Son’s Precursor! Mary has one desire in Heaven: that the Catholic Church - the “whole Christ” - should grow on earth. Her heart is an apostle’s heart. Is mine?
3. The Nativity: “We have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.” Envying the Magi must have been an easy vice. In a land that worshipped wisdom, they were wisest. Wealth was theirs, and, what the East covets more, the respectability of virtue. But the Magi were not happy men. They were too wise to rest content with merely human wisdom; death would spend their money in a moment; virtue was not its own reward. That is why they went out of the East to Bethlehem. They had “everything under the sun”; but they needed what was under their star. They needed Jesus Christ. Every non-Catholic I meet needs Jesus Christ - the “whole Christ.” My good example will make them wonder what they are missing - and go in search of it.
4. The Presentation in the Temple: “... thy salvation, which thou has prepared before the face of all peoples.” Mary and Joseph went unnoticed past the Doctors of the Law, seated in well-attended groups along the Temple colonnade. Professedly champions of the Law and Prophets, many of them peddled only the jots and tittles of a petty legalism. They preached the Chosen Race and ignored the Gentiles for whose sake the Race was chosen. Provincializing the Prophets, they had conjured up a Savior whose mission was revenge on Rome. That is why Mary and Joseph did not stop along the colonnade, but gave the Child Jesus into the arms of Simeon, a quiet old man with a world-vision. A Catholic without “world vision” is a contradiction. “Catholic” means “worldwide.” Prayer is a world-wide apostolate; can’t I find time for a daily Rosary for non-Catholics?
5. The Finding of Jesus in the Temple: “They found Him in the temple, in the midst of the teachers.” Half a thousand times had the Prophets spoken directly of the Christ to come. His personality, life, teaching, death, kingdom - nothing escaped their inspired vision. The Savior would have to prove His claim “according to the Prophets.” Without this self-vindication, He deserved no hearing. That is why, even as a boy of twelve, Jesus introduced Himself to the Temple savants, listening intently, suggesting possibilities, giving soul to the Law, synthesizing the Prophets. Jesus had begun to vindicate the Christ. Faith is a gift of God, but a gift wrapped in reason. Non-Catholics have a right to know why I believe in the “whole Christ” - Jesus and the Church. Do I “have a reason for the faith that is in me?”

Sorrowful Mysteries (The Pharisees)

1. The Agony: “What is that to us?” Ironically, the man who forced the Pharisees to admit their malice was not Jesus, but Judas. The conspirators were still in the Temple arranging the morning trial, when an utterly broken Judas, so different from the shrewd, business-like traitor of an hour before, appeared before them. “I have betrayed innocent blood!” he cried. Perhaps he expected a word of consolation from His partners-in-crime: “No, no, you did the right thing, Judas. God will bless you for it.” Instead, he hears a frank confession of their deliberate blind hatred: “Innocent blood? What is that to us?” The Pharisees tried to hide their guilt from Jesus, but made light of it before Judas. There is some of that duplicity in all of us. For a Catholic, frequent confession is the antidote for hypocrisy.
2. The Scourging: “They would not enter the palace, lest they incur a legal stain.” If that sentence had not been written under God’s inspiration, we would not believe such hypocrisy possible. This was the state of the Pharisees’ hearts: they knew Jesus was what He claimed to be - the innocent Son of God; deliberately, in the bright daylight of this unwelcome conviction, they were proceeding to kill Him; yet, to avoid a purely legal defilement, they demanded that His trial be conducted outside the heathen Pilate’s palace. Deicide was an easy crime for them, but for nothing in the world would they break a rubric of the Law. The Pharisees were fussy about trifles, but they didn’t mind crucifying Christ. Am I altogether free from self-deception?
3. The Crowning: “We have no king but Caesar.” No form of malice was beneath the Pharisees on Good Friday. They had bought Christ for cash, then judged Him worthy of death at their monstrous proceedings. Now, before Pilate, they spat out lie after lie about their prisoner. Jesus had once declared publicly, “I have come to save Israel’s lost sheep”; and the Pharisees tell Pilate, “We find Him perverting our nation.” Jesus had once commanded, “Give to Caesar the things of Caesar”; and the Pharisees tell Pilate, “He forbade us to pay Caesar tribute.” Then these proud Jewish leaders who detested their Roman conquerors, crowned their case against Christ their King with a supreme lie, “We have no king but Caesar.” A hypocrite is, at bottom, a liar. Am I truthful with others, and with myself?
4. The Way of the Cross: “His blood be on us and our children!” The Jewish leaders knew exactly what they were doing when they crucified Christ, but the Jewish people did not. They were fickle folk, easily carried away by their emotions. Five days before, they had sung Hosannas around the kingly figure of Christ; now, reduced to a worm and no man, Jesus heard them shout for His death. The Jewish people certainly sinned, but they sinned (like Peter) more through fear than malice. Unjustly, the Jewish people still suffer because of Christ’s death. Anti-Semitism is a terrible crime for a Christian. As a Catholic, I ought to reverence the Jews more than they esteem themselves. I adore a God Who, in becoming man, was born a Jew of a Jewish maiden, Mary.
5. The Crucifixion: “Come down from the Cross!” The world’s most beautiful poetry was written by the Jewish prophets. Besides their lavish descriptions of the coming kingdom of the Messiah, the ancient land flowing with milk and honey - even Eden itself - seemed a desert by comparison. And the Pharisees, poring over the prophets’ lyrical lines, took their imagery literally. That is why Jesus was a stumbling-block to the Jews. They wanted a Savior who would make earth a Heaven; and they crucified Christ when He said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” “If you are the Son of God, come off the cross!” say the Pharisees. “If you are the sons of God, take up the cross,” says Jesus. The cross I carry is my key to the kingdom of God.

Glorious Mysteries [Heaven]

1. The Resurrection: “I am the resurrection and the life.” Jesus Christ came to earth to show men the way to God. “Learn of Me,” He commanded those who wished to live holy lives. But Jesus did not only point out the way. He is the Way. Jesus is our Road to God, and all our strength for the journey comes from Him. Said God the Father to the Jews, “Walk before Me and be perfect.” Says God the Son to me, “Walk upon Me and be perfect.” And when we have reached the end of this divine Path, we shall find our eternal reward; and the reward, too, is Jesus. “I am the Life.” The more I love Jesus Christ now, the more I realize what Heaven is like. Jesus is my Heaven.
2. The Ascension: “I am thy reward exceedingly great.” The Apostle Paul, who has told us so much about our Faith, made no attempt to describe Heaven. “What God has prepared for those who love Him - well, eye hath not seen the like...” We cannot have an adequate idea of Heaven. In Heaven, the three divine Persons will fill our hearts and minds with Themselves. Mere ideas about God, which must content us on earth, will not come between God and ourselves in Heaven. We shall know and love God as He knows and loves Himself. Just as God dwells gloriously in the Saints, He lives in my soul now, hidden under the veil of Faith. Keeping Him prayerful company is to make a Heaven of the way to Heaven.
3. Pentecost: “The Lord dealeth patiently.” Think of God’s patience! Nothing disturbs Him, nothing provokes Him, nothing excites Him. He has been sinned against a million times, yet only once, as a reminder that sin does offend Him, did He flood the earth with the torrent of His wrath. Why is He so long-suffering? Because He sees us, not only as we are, but as we shall be. God was patient with the ancient Jews because He saw them, as it were, already redeemed by Christ. He was patient with the dull-witted, blustery Apostles because, on Good Friday, Pentecost was before His eyes. And He is patient with me, and will be until I die, because He sees me already perfect in Heaven. In Heaven, I will be perfect, and perfectly happy, forever. If that fact makes God patient with me, it should make me patient with myself and with others.
4. The Assumption: “Thou shalt not let Thy Holy One suffer decay.” Mary is in Heaven, body and soul. But on the Day of Judgement all the Saints will share in her favor. Every soul in Heaven will be reunited to its body - and what splendor will adorn our flesh! The light of glory that now fills the soul will pour out over the body, transforming it, doing away with the heaviness, the sluggishness, the defects of sickness and death that had made the body such a burden on earth. Instead it will shine as the sun; it will move quickly as thought; and all our senses, spiritualized and refined, will have their eternal fill of delight. Our bodies will return to the dust, so it is unwise to pamper them. But they will rise again in glory, so it is wrong to neglect them.
5. The Coronation: “I heard countless voices in Heaven.” Mary was very quiet, humble, modest - but she was never aloof. When she heard that Elizabeth would bear a child, “she went with haste” to attend her cousin’s needs. Mary would have stayed with the crowd in the Bethlehem inn, but “there was no room.” She went to Jerusalem with her neighbors. Everyone knew her: “Is not this the carpenter’s Son, whose Mother is Mary?” She made the Way of the Cross with the crowd, and stood on Calvary with her sister and John and the Magdalene. She was with the Apostles on Pentecost; she mothered the infant Church. In Heaven, too, she enjoys the company of all the angels and saints. Heaven is a perfect society. God is the Father, Mary the Mother, of a family of numberless souls.