What is First Saturday Devotion?

Meditation Set #1:  (Month of January)

Joyful Mysteries [The Eucharist]



1. The Annunciation: “Thou shalt conceive in thy womb and shalt bring forth a son - Jesus.” Few scenes are as familiar to us as the Annunciation; master artists have seen to that. Yet the important thing in their portrait of an angel and a girl is altogether hidden; Jesus incarnate in the womb of Mary. This hidden, intimate union of the Son of God with a child of man is, as it were, the world’s First Holy Communion. It was much more than that, of course: God-made-man, Redemption’s first stirring, Mary’s divine Motherhood. But it was also Mary’s Lord in her humble heart, pouring His grace down upon the lovely pastures of her soul. My soul is meant to grow in grace. Christ feeds it with Himself, cultivating His divine life in me. Daily Communion is my soul’s daily bread, sanctity’s open secret.
2. The Visitation: “He has filled the hungry with good things.” In the very first days of her long “Communion,” Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth’s home. There it was that she sang “Magnificat.” In this sudden song of the praise of God, she tells me a secret about my soul’s food: “God fills the hungry.” Mary wanted God, hungered after Him, as no one else ever would; and God became her Son. Her soul felt not only emptiness, but insatiable hunger. So God heaped “good things” on the table of her heart - Himself. Jesus, “The fruit of her womb,” was divine fruit for her soul. Christ in the Eucharist is my soul’s food. I communicate whenever I can, if I am hungry for God.
3. The Nativity: “She brought forth her firstborn son.” The “good news” of Christmas was this: God had come into His world. Good news, indeed, but Mary herself would never have known without an angel’s foretelling. Jesus in her arms in the cold cave of Bethlehem was a very human Baby. No thunder down from Sinai, His thin little cry! This tiny hand - does it hold stars in place? This Infant - infinite? See, the cattle in the cave bend no knee; the air is not suddenly fragrant; no Heavenly lights mellow the hard, unfriendly darkness. Very human, Mary’s Child. But with all that said, still He was God of very God! Humanity and divinity - the Eucharist hides both. Still, it is God of very God. That is the “good news” of my Communion, too.
4. The Presentation in the Temple: “They took Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord ... and (Simeon) also received Him in His arms.” The Eucharist is not without prophets. Miraculous manna sustaining the Israelites in their wanderings; hearth cakes of Elias, who “walked in the strength of that food forty days.” Now, in the Mystery of the Presentation, another quiet foreshadowing. Two, rather. Mary gives her Son to the priest; the priest offers Him to the Father - Mass of the Infant Jesus! Mary gives her Son to Simeon, who “received Him and blessed God.” Longed-for “Communion,” fervent thanksgiving - prophets of the secret of the saints! It was Mary who gave Jesus to the priest and to Simeon. Every grace I receive in Communion comes through her.
5. The Finding of Jesus in the Temple: “And it came to pass after three days, that they found Him in the temple.” Mary and Joseph took their sorrow into the Temple. There they found Jesus. And that is why this is a joyful Mystery. They had come to their kinsfolk and acquaintances, sorrowing; and sorrowing they went away. They returned to the city, dumb with grief. A hundred inquiries and a hundred crushing disappointments; false leads and heavier hearts; kind suggestions and cruel failures, until they took their sorrow into the Temple, where they found Jesus, and “rejoiced over the Lamb that was lost.” Worry, petty annoyances, discouragement, fear of the future - I’m no stranger to any of them. Jesus Christ wants to hear about them, to ease my mind. I’ll find Him in the chapel, the tabernacle, in Communion.

Sorrowful Mysteries [The Devil]

1. The Agony: “This is the hour when darkness has its way.” Satan had found Adam and Eve easy prey to His wily hatred. Adorned with a brilliant variety of graces and perfection, they forfeited all of them at a single suggestion from the father of lies. But Satan had no such success with Jesus in the desert. Thrice tempting and thrice rebuked, “The Devil fled from Him, and angels came to serve Him.” Now, in the Garden of Olives, when Christ’s angel departs from Him, the demon reappears with innumerable spirits more wicked than himself. Twelve legions of angels are Christ’s for the asking, but He is content to let the demons, whose name is also Legion, do as they will with Him. Christ’s death was plotted in Hell. My soul’s ruin is also being planned there. Satan is stronger than I, but prayer gives me the strength of God.
2. The Scourging: “Simon, Simon, Satan desires to sift you like wheat.” Peter was a puzzle to the demon. Weak, precipitous Peter, all His courage in His tongue; yet, “you are the Rock,” Jesus had said to him, “and upon you, the Rock, I will raise up My Church, and Hell itself shall not withstand it!” Salt on Satan’s wounded pride - this country braggart, who couldn’t catch fish without Jesus’ help, whose faith survived just five steps upon the waters, whom Jesus Himself had often rebuked for “not savoring the things of God”; this the Rock that will survive the storms of Hell? Satan must do more than kill Christ; he must sift the Rock as wheat. Satan helped Peter to deny Christ. He wants me to deny him, as well - by mortal sin. “Watch and pray,” Jesus warns.
3. The Crowning: “They snatched the scepter from His hand and beat His head with it.” Satan’s temptation ruined Adam and Eve; but pride had first ruined Satan. Placed among the highest angelic spirits, destined to be light-bearer before the throne of God, he nonetheless threw the whole of His mighty will into a single act of disobedience, too calculated for repentance. Perhaps the mystery of the coming Incarnation was revealed to him, and he could not bear to worship a God in lowly human form. If so, Hell had its one moment of vengeance during the brutal ceremonial in Pilate’s praetorium, when men “venerated” the Incarnate God as devils do. Satan’s power in the world is not a fiction. He hates men because God became one of us. He waits for me behind occasions of sin.
4. The Way of the Cross: “If the green tree is treated so, what will be done to the dry wood?” Hell had exhausted its malice, seemingly, when it did Jesus to death. Satan led Judas to His betrayal, Peter to His denial; then came the hour of the powers of darkness: false accusations, unjust trials, mockings, scourging then the cross. Even Satan can do no more, we would say. But Jesus knew better. Once He had told His surprised disciples, “Greater works than Mine shall you do.” Now, on the way to Calvary, He seems to warn the women who weep over His plight, “Greater sufferings than Mine shall you endure.” Today, good people are suffering as they have never suffered before. Satan is afflicting the human race. At Fatima, Mary asked me to say the Rosary daily for her triumph over Hell.
5. The Crucifixion: “There was darkness over all the earth.” For three hours, Satan contemplated His masterpiece, the dying Jesus. How easy it had been, after all! Years before, Satan had borne Jesus to the temple roof, and challenged Him: “Cast Thyself hence!” Jesus had overcome him with a refusal to presume upon His Father’s power. Now, borne high on Calvary, Jesus is again challenged: “Cast Thyself hence! Come down from the Cross!” He refuses, and Satan claims the victory. But then Jesus dies, and the centurion cries aloud: “This is God’s Son”; the temple curtain is ripped in two, the dead rise from their graves, Heaven’s gates open wide, and Jesus triumphantly leads a repentant thief into Paradise. Jesus’ refusal to come down from the cross was His greatest victory over Satan. By accepting my life’s crosses patiently, prayerfully, I overcome Hell.

Glorious Mysteries [The Sacraments]

1. The Resurrection: “With Christ, all shall be brought back to life.” For a night and a day and another night, the Body of Jesus Christ lay dead in the tomb, a great stone at the door sealing in the darkness. The pale limbs were washed and wrapped in linen; a white cloth covered His face, a winding sheet with aromatic spices encircled His Body. Bloodless, lifeless, unpleasant to see or think about ... Then, quick as thought, the frail grey body was alive again, and rose bright as a dozen suns! Through Baptism, our souls, dead in the tomb of Original Sin, radiate divine grace. Just as “Christ rose and appeared to many, “so should I appear to the world as a follower of Christ, radiating virtue.
2. The Ascension: “You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” John the Baptist was not merely the prophet of Christ; His life was a preview of Christ’s. His birth was foretold by an angel; His father was troubled, His mother gave thanks; he was born without sin. He lived a hidden life. His first words in public - “Do penance, the kingdom of God is at hand” - were Christ’s as well. He was hated by the Pharisees. Human respect led Herod to order His death, just as Pilate condemned Jesus for fear of the people. And John’s baptism, through a mere symbol of repentance, foreshadowed Christ’s sacrament, which makes us temples of God, and His sons. By Baptism, God lives in us; by a life of fidelity to grace we shall live forever in Him.
3. Pentecost: “Tongues of fire rested on them.” The Apostles had thought it great virtue to protest their valor - as long as Jesus was a popular hero. “Let us go to Jerusalem and die with Him! Lord, we have been casting out devils! Master, shall we call down fire from Heaven to destroy them? We can drink of Thy Chalice! I would die before disowning Thee!” But when the storm of hatred and revenge burst over Christ’s head, the Apostles, after one wild stroke of the sword in His defense, fled like frightened deer. But after Pentecost - Confirmation Day - they begin to be glad to suffer for Christ. Confirmation is the forgotten Sacrament. Do I really realize that, in Confirmation, I was given the grace to be a zealous, courageous Catholic?
4. The Assumption: “Take and eat; this is my Body.” Loving Jesus was the sum-total of Mary’s spirituality. God united her heart to His in every conceivable way. All through childhood she longed and prayed for the Savior’s coming. She bore Him - Body, Soul, Divinity - beneath her heart for nine months. For thirty-three years, He was her heart’s preoccupation. On Calvary, Jesus and Mary were united, bleeding heart and soul, in a spiritual communion unimaginably intense. Then, until she was borne away to “the kingdom of her Son,” Mary’s love for Jesus grew ever deeper as she received her Son’s Body and Blood in Sacramental Communion. Jesus was Mary’s Heaven, and Holy Communion was her Heaven on earth. If I really love Christ, I’ll receive Him in Holy Communion as often as I can.
5. The Coronation: “My son was dead, but has come to life.” Amid the fiery splendor of all the glorious seraphim, Mary was crowned Queen of Heaven’s Angels and Saints. But she is the Immaculate Queen of earthly sinners as well. The world is full of her prodigal sons who scorn their Mother’s house and waste their substance in riotous living, feeding their souls on the husks of sin. Meanwhile their Mother “watched from afar off,” praying endlessly for their repentance. If they take but one step only towards her, she runs the rest of the way to meet them. The grace of repentance, which Jesus won for sinners, is given to them through Mary. Habits of sin can be broken in Confession - if I have real sorrow. I should ask Mary for it often.