More than 800 people gathered at Knock Shrine to mark the centenary of the first Saturday devotion, commemorating the apparition received by Sr Lucia at Fatima on December 10, 1925. Amid escalating global unrest, the gathering focused on the promises of peace made by Our Lady.
Guest speaker Antonia Moffat stressed the urgency of the Fatima message, citing the recent abduction of 300 children from St Mary’s School in Nigeria as “a wound on the Immaculate Heart of Mary”. “Heaven’s peace plan is the daily Rosary and the First Saturdays each month,” she said.
Bishop John Keenan of Paisley urged Catholics to embrace the devotion more widely, describing it as a mother’s instinctive desire “to save and to protect”. “We need to respond to Our Lady not with half-measures,” he said.
Fr Marius O’Reilly, who convened the gathering, warned that the First Saturdays remain the “forgotten part” of the Fatima message. Speaking recently to EWTN Ireland, he noted that the devotion is beginning to rise again, adding: “If we do what Our Lady asks, many souls will be saved and there will be peace.”
