What is First Saturday Devotion?

Meditation Set #1:  (Month of June)

Joyful Mysteries [Sin]



1. The Annunciation: “The Lord is with thee!” What delicacy on the part of God is Gabriel’s message to Mary! This was the first day of the world’s “second spring”; and for Mary, “greetings of the season” - words of unalloyed joy, alone. “Full of grace! Mother of God by God’s overshadowing! The Son of the Most High is come! David’s Lord, King of the world without end!” The birth of Jesus - the Alpha and Omega of redemption. But not a syllable about that grim, gray thing - the crucifying of the God-man. The salvation from all sin through the greatest crime of all. Savior from sin; Gabriel did not mention that. But Jesus became incarnate to undo the world’s sins and to help me repent of mine.
2. The Visitation: “The babe in my womb leapt for joy.” Rightly are the Mysteries of the divine babyhood called joyful. Adam’s sin had begotten mankind’s weakness; weakness and pride sired world-wide sin; from personal sin came the world’s collective gloom. Hope held one pinched foot at the threshold of Heaven - God had promised a Savior, but sin had a hundred feet on earth. That is why the world was sad, until Mary visited Elizabeth. Her greeting baptized the Baptist, so to speak, freeing him from original sin, filling His soul with grace. John leapt in the womb, with the world’s first taste of joy. Our world has little joy, because it sins so much. It needs “Mary’s greeting.” My daily Rosary gains grace and happiness for sinners.
3. The Nativity: “There was no room.” Jesus was going to win pardon for the world in a very remarkable way. The men He came to save would turn upon Him. Their hatred would crucify Him. Then it was done - the world was saved. He could have saved the world in any other way; smiling at His Mother would have been enough. But no, there should be no redemption until men had rejected the Redeemer. Of this, the manner of His birth was a quiet prophecy. He must be born at Bethlehem; yet in Bethlehem there was no room; and He was born, as He would die, “outside the walls,” where Bethlehem’s shepherds found Him. Jesus has been rejected enough. I should reject sin by keeping away from sin’s occasions.
4. The Presentation in the Temple: “Thy own soul a sword shall pierce.” Forty days after the birth of Jesus, Mary presented Him to His Father in the Temple. Joseph gave the priest two turtle doves and Jesus was bought back - “redeemed.” It was a striking preparation for what was to follow; this was a day of two redemptions - one of fulfillment and one of prophecy. The Holy Family approached the Temple gate. An old man stopped them and asked for the Child, then filled their ears with prophecy. This Child would redeem the world, but not by a legal fiction, not by offering turtle doves. He was set for contradiction, and Mary was set for a sword. Sin put a lance through the heart of Jesus, and a sword through Mary’s soul. At Fatima Mary asked for my daily Rosary in reparation for sin.
5. The Finding of Jesus in the Temple: “In sorrow Thy father and I have been seeking Thee.” Sin causes deep discontent of soul. Always. We cannot tell ourselves otherwise. And Mary’s anguish at the loss of her Son reflects this unhappiness born of sin. But there is a more obvious moral to the Mystery: not all sorrow comes from personal sin. Trials are not always punishments; Mary’s certainly was not. Inner conflict does not always signify estrangement from God; Mary never offended Him. Mary’s faith, her love for God, fed upon sorrow; she pleased God as much in her three-day agony as she had in her joy at His birth. To give up, to lose confidence in God when things go wrong - what a temptation! But Mary didn’t. I shouldn’t. Trials are seven-league steps to Heaven.

Sorrowful Mysteries [Pilate]

1. The Agony: “Do not interfere with this innocent Man.” While Jesus was in torments in Gethsemane, Pilate’s wife asleep in her palace had a dream. She saw Jesus, and learned that He was altogether sinless; and she saw herself suffering much on account of Him. Claudia Procula spent a restless morning; and her anxiety became acute when she heard that Jesus of Nazareth was on trial for His life before her husband. Immediately she sent a message to Pilate: “This Man is innocent; let Him be.” Pilate knew Christ was guiltless, and His wife’s remarkable message proved it. Even so, he crucified Christ. Such is the power I also have to oppose the grace of God. I should pray every day for the grace not to resist grace.
2. The Scourging: “Pilate scourged Jesus.” Pilate was disturbed by the meek majesty of His Prisoner. He turned abruptly and disappeared into His palace, then had Jesus brought before him - to remind Christ that He was only a prisoner, nothing more. “What is your crime?” asked Pilate, hiding His interest beneath a mask of official boredom. Jesus replied, “My kingdom is not of this world.” That was indeed His crime in the eyes of His accusers; their kingdom was very much of this world. Pilate knew that Jesus was no criminal; but Pilate was a worldling, like the Pharisees. So he sent Jesus to be scourged. God so loved the world as to die for it. Pilate so loved the world as to crucify Christ. Do I love the world as Christ did - or as Pilate loved it?
3. The Crowning: “Thy own lips have called me King.” On Christ’s own testimony, Pilate sinned less that Caiphas and the Pharisees. “The one who delivered Me to you has the greater Sin.” The Pharisees had seen Jesus heal on the Sabbath; saw Him dispossess devils with a word; stood by the tomb as Lazarus came forth; heard Christ preach the kingdom of God, His own Kingdom; then with superb malice plotted His death. Pilate spoke with Jesus for just a few minutes; saw no miracles; knew nothing of His teaching. But Pilate did know that Jesus was a King; and part of His sin was to allow the Savior’s bloody coronation. Pilate sinned through cowardice, not through malice. But he sinned mortally. Fortitude to resist temptation is a gift of God, mine for the asking.
4. The Way of the Cross: “Thereupon Pilate gave Jesus up.” God is no respecter of persons, but man is. When the Magi spoke of the Savior’s birth “all Jerusalem was troubled” - but only because Herod was troubled. And another Herod had not wanted to kill John the Baptist; he consented only “out of respect for His guests.” The whole purpose of life, thought the Pharisees, was to impress people with a show of piety. Human respect led Peter to deny Christ. And human respect led Pilate to condemn Him to death. When the crowd shouted, “If you free Him, you’re no friend of Caesar,” Pilate’s resistance gave way, and he left Jesus to their mercy. Human respect - fearing what others will think about our actions - often generates sin, and robs even virtue of its merit. Do I act to please God - or men?
5. The Crucifixion: “What I have written, I have written.” The soldiers, followed by the crowd, led Jesus away to Calvary. Pilate was alone in the palace, intensely angry with himself and with the Pharisees. He played the coward; and far worse, he realized that the Jews had used His cowardice to gain their purpose - the death of Jesus. Pilate had retaliated, as cowards will; he had a placard nailed to the top of the Cross, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” The Pharisees were indignant, but Pilate stood His ground. “What I have written, I have written. There was much of the Pharisee in Pilate. He gave in on the great issue, Christ’s death; but he was adamant in the petty wrangle about the placard. Do I fuss over trifles, and neglect things vital to my soul?

Glorious Mysteries [Mary and Jesus]

1. The Resurrection: “Mary, do not be afraid, thou has found favor with God.” “God’s ways are beyond us.” I think of that, Mary, when I meditate upon the Annunciation scene. The desires of your pure heart were inconceivably grand; you longed for the Messiah with an intensity that awed the Seraphim; still even you, Mary, never suspected what was in God’s mind. You dreamt of being the Savior’s servant girl; God wanted you to be His own Mother. You consented to be His Mother as you proclaimed yourself His servant. “Behold the handmaid of the Lord.” At that moment you conceived Jesus, of the Holy Spirit. Jesus, whose Heavenly life began in a tomb, began His earthly life in your womb. Hail, Mary! Blessed is the Fruit of thy womb, Jesus!
2. The Ascension: “Blessing them, He rose out of sight.” You must have been on Olivet with the Apostles, Mary, when your Son blessed them and rose out of sight. And it must have been you who caught the last loving glance from His eyes. Perhaps the white cloud that gathered about His glorious Body reminded you of the swaddling-clothes you wrapped the Infant Jesus in. Perhaps, beholding Him for the last time on earth, you remembered the first time you saw Him, the divine Babe-in-arms. When the new-born Christ offered Himself to His Father - “I have come to do Thy will, O God!” - He did so in the chalice of your arms. You saw Jesus first, Mary, and you saw Him last. Grant that I may see Him forever.
3. Pentecost: “They were filled with the Holy Spirit.” On Pentecost, Mary, the Holy Spirit descended upon you for the second time. The first time, many years before in your home at Nazareth, He fashioned Jesus in your virginal body. What was His gift to you on Pentecost? It must have been far superior to the graces accorded the Apostles on that astonishing day. I think His gift must have been very much like His first Gift to you. The Holy Spirit is “the Spirit of Jesus.” On Pentecost, you loved Jesus as you never had loved Him before. The Holy Spirit lives in my soul, to make me “another Christ.” Do I ever remember God’s real presence in my heart?
4. The Assumption: “Glorify me with Thyself.” A very holy woman, to whom Jesus had often appeared, once said: “Meliked no other Heaven than Jesus.” That artless medieval expression is an echo of the single thought that must have filled your heart, Mary, as you rose up to Heaven. “I am going to Jesus, Who is my Heaven!” Jesus was everything to you. If anyone had asked you, “Why did God make you?”, you would have answered, “For Jesus.” Your soul was a compass-needle that pointed only to your Son. And when you went to Heaven, you might have spoken to Jesus the words He once addressed to His Father: “Now glorify Me with Thyself.” Mary loved Jesus, and everything else for Him. When that can be said of me, I will be ready for Heaven.
5. The Coronation: “A wonder appeared in Heaven: a woman crowned.” I have been meditating Mary, on the joy that filled your heart as you soared toward Jesus. But your happiness in being with Him once again, and forever, met more than its match in the delight that filled the Sacred Heart of your Son. Yours was the vast heart of a Mother; His was the heart of God. Your divine Son “had possessed you from the beginning of His ways.” He had will nigh exhausted His omnipotence in devising privileges and perfections for His Mother. Long before you were crowned Queen of Heaven, you were made Queen-Mother of the Prince of Peace. You are a Queen in Heaven, Mary, because you had been a Queen on earth. I will be a saint in Heaven only if I become a saint on earth.