"Would You Keep Me Company?"

As I write this, we have just finished our fifth First Saturday of 2025. Each year, here at St. Michael Church in Atlantic City, NJ, we host the First Saturday Devotion for five consecutive first Saturdays, usually from January through May. Our Lady of Fatima herself, asked for this devotion. The five elements are:

1.      Go to Confession

2.      Receive Holy Communion

3.      Recite five decades of the Rosary

4.      Keep Our Lady company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary

5.      Have the intention to make reparation for offenses committed against Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart

I must admit that, back in January, I didn’t know much about this devotion, nor much about the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1917 to Lucia dos Santos (10), Francisco (9) and Jacinta (7) Marto in Fatima, Portugal. Sure, I had heard bits and pieces, like how the children had seen a vision of hell and how the sun danced in the sky before thousands of people at the last apparition. But I knew very little of the message and requests of Our Lady to the children. In these months of observing the First Saturday Devotions here at St. Michael’s, I have become intrigued in a particular way by the fourth element, that Mary is asking us to keep her company while meditating on the mysteries of the rosary. It’s such a personal, intimate request – to keep someone company. Like sitting at the bedside of someone who is ill, holding the hand of a person grieving, sharing in the silent waiting of someone who is worried or anxious. You do that for your friends and family. But Our Lady? She wants me to keep her company? Really? Excuse me, but doesn’t she have the angels and saints for this kind of thing? What good am I to her? Doesn’t she realize I get distracted easily and may not be the best companion for this?  As I sat in the Church each of these five Saturdays, trying to picture myself next to Our Lady, listening to meditations on the mysteries of the Rosary and pondering them, I began to discover two things. First, that as I attempted to turn my attention to Mary, and wonder what these moments were like for her to live through, I realized she was there waiting for me. And that as she revealed glimpses of the mysteries from her perspective, she was keeping me company. Second, the effect of these moments began to fuel my desire to fulfill the last element of the devotion – to make reparation for the offenses committing against Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart. But how?

And so, I began to read Fatima for Today, by our founder, Fr. Andrew Apostoli, CFR. And I couldn’t put it down. Why didn’t I read this sooner? The children are so open and vulnerable and spontaneous in their responses to Our Lady. And there’s so much in the messages and requests that are applicable to us today. Here are a few reflections on things that have provoked me to a deeper conversion.

Prior to the apparitions of Our Lady, an angel, known as the Angel of Peace, appears three times to the children – in some way, to prepare them for the apparitions of Our Lady. First the angel teaches them the Pardon Prayer:

“My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love You! I ask pardon of You for those who do not believe,

do not adore, do not hope and do not love You.”

The angel then tells the children, “Pray thus. The Hearts of Jesus and Mary are attentive to the voice of your supplication.” What?! Jesus and Mary are attentive to the voice of their supplication? The angel’s words make me want to say this prayer. If it moves the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, why wouldn’t we want to say it? We all have friends, family, loved ones who do not believe, do not adore, have no hope and no love for God – right? And we worry about them and their souls. Pray this prayer, with fervor, for them. And in those moments when we feel as if we are only saying the words, and not praying them, that is when we pray with the man who said to Jesus, “I do believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24)

Both the angel and Our Lady of Fatima speak to the children of how to obtain peace. The second time the angel appears, he reminds the children to pray and says:

“Pray! Pray very much! The Hearts of Jesus and Mary have designs of mercy on you.

Offer prayers and sacrifices constantly to the Most High … You will thus draw down peace upon your country.”

Again, the Hearts of Jesus and Mary are involved – how can we not want to respond?

And to draw down peace on our country? the world? our homes? Who doesn’t want that? Who doesn’t need that? And so, we take up the words of St. Paul, to “pray constantly” (1 Thessalonians 5:17), and to make everything a sacrifice to God. That’s right. The fact that your spouse finished the milk without telling you. Drink your coffee black and embrace it as a sacrifice. Just got a flat tire. Smile, change it (or call Triple A!), and embrace it as a sacrifice. If you begin to offer up the little and big things of your day to God, it becomes easier to pray constantly.

And Our Lady, at all six of her apparitions to the children, tells them:

“Pray the Rosary every day to obtain peace for the world, and the end of the war.”

It seems so simple, we could almost miss it.

Pray the Rosary. Every day. Obtain peace. For the world.

I am very moved by Lucia’s question to Our Lady at each of the apparitions. The first thing Lucia says each time is, “What do you want of me?” Not, “Please give me this or that,” but “What do you want of me?” She is docile, open, listening, attentive to hear Our Lady’s desires and requests of her. Isn’t that truly prayer? Isn’t that the disposition we should have not only with Our Lady, but with God? Indeed, isn’t that Mary’s disposition toward God? “Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38) At 10 years old, Lucia has this disposition. How much would it change each of us if this is how we approached God?

After the initial apparitions in 1917, Our Lady appeared again to Lucia in 1925, this time with the Christ child, when she was a postulant with the Congregation of the Dorothean Sisters in Spain. As I read about this apparition, I was again stirred to practice the fifth element of the First Saturday Devotion – to make reparation for the offenses committed against Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart. This is how Lucia describes the apparition:

The most holy Virgin rested her hand on [Sister Lucia’s] shoulder, and as she did so, she showed her a heart encircled by thorns, which she was holding in her other hand. At the same time, the [Christ] Child said: “Have compassion on the Heart of your most holy Mother, covered with thorns, with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to make an act of reparation to remove them.” Then the most holy Virgin said: “Look, my daughter, at my Heart, surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful man pierce me at every moment by their

blasphemies and ingratitude. You at least try to console me...”

You at least try to console me. I can do that. I can try to do that. I can try to keep company with you, Mary. I can sit with you and try to console you. I can pray the Rosary every day. I can offer up things in my day, both big and small, as a sacrifice of reparation for the offenses against you.

And now I find myself praying to Venerable Lucia and Saints Francisco and Jacinta. I ask them to intercede for me. That I may be as open, docile and vulnerable as they were. That I might have a portion of their courage to suffer and to sacrifice. That I may be faithful to my daily Rosary. That the Hearts of Jesus and Mary might be attentive to the voice of my supplication. But most of all, as I try to console Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart by keeping her company, that she would console mine by the gift of hers.

-Sr. Monica, CFR