ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 10, 2025 / 16:22 pm
Today, Dec. 10, marks the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to Sister Lucia of Fatima in Pontevedra province in Spain, where the devotion of the Five First Saturdays of the month was revealed.
After the apparitions of the Angel of Portugal in 1916, the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to three shepherd children — Francisco, Jacinta, and Lucia — occurred in Fatima the following year.
After the deaths of her two cousins in 1919 and 1920, Lucia was placed under the protection of the bishop of Leiria, who sent her incognito to study at a school run by the Dorothean Sisters in Porto, Portugal, under the pseudonym of Dolores.
When she turned 18, she expressed the desire to enter the Discalced Carmelite order, but the Dorothean Sisters persuaded her to go to their novitiate located in Tuy, a town in Spain's Galicia region north of Portugal.
Since her identity could not be revealed, the sisters were unable to certify the studies required for her to enter the novitiate, so they sent her to Pontevedra to perform manual labor at the Dorothean Sisters' house there.
The Virgin Mary asks her to reveal the devotion of the First Saturdays
Feeling discouraged by the situation, and thinking that becoming a Carmelite nun was increasingly a distant possibility, on Dec. 10, 1925, Lucia’s cell was illuminated with a supernatural light.
"Our Lady, as if wanting to instill courage in me, gently placed her motherly hand on my right shoulder, showing me at the same time Her Immaculate Heart, which she held in her other hand, surrounded by thorns," the visionary later wrote.
At that moment, the Child Jesus, who was also present, addressed her, saying, "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."
The Virgin Mary then asked Lucia to reveal the devotion of the Five First Saturdays, about which she had already spoken to her, along with Jacinta and Francisco, eight years earlier in Fatima:
“I promise to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, shall confess, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the rosary, and keep me company for 15 minutes while meditating on the 15 mysteries of the rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.”
‘And have you revealed to the world what the Heavenly Mother has asked you?’
Five days later, on Dec. 15, 1925, according to the testimony of Lucia, who eventually became a Carmelite in 1949, while performing her assigned duties, she encountered a boy to whom she wanted to teach the Hail Mary and urged him to go to a chapel to recite a short prayer.
Several weeks passed and in February 1926, Sister Lucia said she met the boy again and asked him if he had prayed to the Virgin Mary as she had suggested. The boy turned to her and said, "And have you revealed to the world what the Heavenly Mother has asked you?”
At that moment, the boy transformed "into a resplendent child," with whom Sister Lucia continued to speak. The little boy insisted that she spread devotion to the First Saturdays because "many souls begin, but few persevere to the very end, and those who persevere do it to receive the graces promised.”
“The souls who make the five First Saturdays with fervor and to make reparation to the Heart of your Heavenly Mother, please me more than those who make fifteen, but are lukewarm and indifferent,” said the child, who confirmed that confession did not have to be immediate, provided that Communion was received in a state of grace and with the intention of making reparation.
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All these events were recounted by Sister Lucia in 1927, after she went to the tabernacle on Dec. 17 to ask how to reveal this devotion if it was part of the secret communicated at Fatima.
Sister Lucia said that Jesus told her unequivocally: "My daughter, write what they ask of you; and everything that the Blessed Virgin revealed in the apparition in which she spoke of this devotion, write that down as well. As for the rest of the secret, continue to keep silent."
Sister Lucia’s time in Spain
Sister Lucia resided in Spain from 1925 to 1946. During her stay in the country, she wrote her memoirs. When the Second Republic was proclaimed in 1931, and given its anti-religious character, dressed in civilian clothes she took refuge in Rianxo, a port town also in Galicia, at the home of the sister of the superior of the Dorothean Sisters in Tuy.
She also spent a month on the island of La Toja, located off the coast, where she was advised to go because she was ill. In 1945, she traveled to Santiago de Compostela for the Holy Year.
Popular devotion
The Virgin Mary's apparitions to Sister Lucia in Pontevedra have not received official recognition from the Vatican. However, like other phenomena of the same nature, they sparked popular devotion from their very beginnings.
In the 1930s, but especially in the 1940s, after the Spanish Civil War, devotional acts and pilgrimages to the site of the apparitions multiplied, and in the following decades, associations and parish projects were established.
In the last third of the 20th century, the place became known as the Shrine of the Apparitions, yet at the beginning of the 21st century it was in danger of ruin, to the point that the Spanish Bishops’ Conference acquired the site in 2021 from the World Apostolate of Fatima association in Spain and began restoration work.
Holy Year in Pontevedra
To mark this centenary, the Holy See has granted the celebration of a jubilee year with the theme "Mary kept all these things in her heart," taken from the Gospel according to St. Luke.
The Apostolic Penitentiary has granted the apostolic blessing and a plenary indulgence, under the usual conditions, to pilgrims who visit the Shrine of the Apparitions in Pontevedra until Dec. 10, 2026.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
