(PerMariam) — Editor’s note: The following is the full text of a talk given by Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke on September 6, 2026. Delivered in the Netherlands as part of a weekend of liturgies and conferences, the speech is notable due to its prominent defence of the traditional teaching on Mary as Co-Redemptrix, in light of the November 2025 publication of Mater Populi Fidelis. (See Per Mariam’s archive of the topic here)
The full text sent by His Eminence to Per Mariam, is found below. {To read a Catholic Herald summary report on the speech, click here}
The First Saturdays Devotion: The Efficacious Response to the Present Crisis in the Church and the World
Thank you for the kind introduction. I thank, in a special way, His Excellency, The Most Reverend Johannes Willibrordus Maria Hendriks, Bishop of Haarlem-Amsterdam, for his most warm welcome to the Diocese and his invitation to offer, this morning, the Pontifical Mass in your most beautiful Cathedral Basilica of Saint Bavo. I am likewise deeply grateful to all who have labored to make possible my visit to the Diocese of Haarlem-Amsterdam, yesterday and today. I have prayed, especially in the offering of the Holy Mass, that God will bless the Diocese with a new flowering of the Catholic faith as it is so magnificently manifested in the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Bavo.
Conscious, with you, of the most serious challenges which the Church confronts in a totally secularized society and which each of us faces in our personal lives, I wish to speak with you about the First Saturdays Devotion, repeatedly requested by Our Lady of Fatima, as the efficacious response to the present crisis in the Church and in the world. I will also speak briefly about the devotion to Saint Peregrine Laziosi as a powerful means of obtaining divine grace in confronting the grave illness of cancer, which is the Black Plague of our time.
On December 10, 1925, the Blessed Virgin Mary, with the Infant Jesus at her side and resting on a bright cloud, appeared to the Servant of God Lucia dos Santos, the surviving shepherd child of Fatima who was at the time a Postulant with the Sisters of Saint Dorothy in Pontevedra, Spain. Our Lady rested one of her hands on the shoulder of Lucia and with the other hand showed Lucia her Immaculate Heart encircled with thorns. The Child Jesus then spoke to Lucia these words: “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.” (1)
After these words of the Infant Jesus, Our Lady spoke:
Look, my daughter, at my Heart surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce me every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You at least try to console me and say that I promise to assist at the hour of death, with all 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 fifteen minutes while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me. (2)
The words of Our Lady referred to the second part of the Secret or Message of Fatima revealed to the shepherd children of Fatima on July 13, 1917, the third of her six apparitions from May to October of that year.
At the conclusion of the apparition on July 13th, Our Lady showed the three shepherd children, Saints Francisco and Jacinta Marto, and the Servant of God Lucia dos Santos, an understandably terrifying vision of Hell and spoke to them with these words:
You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that He is about to punish the world for its crimes by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father. (3)
The vision of Hell is the first part of the Secret or Message.
Our Lady then made clear that the devotion to her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart is a devotion of reparation for the many and grievous sins which offend the Most Sacred Heart of her Divine Son and, therefore, offend her Heart perfectly united to His Most Sacred Heart. The reparation made to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary for the grievous offense caused by our sins thus rescues souls from eternal death.
Our Lady then made known what Our Lord was asking through her apparition. She declared:
To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated. (4)
While making clear the great suffering which results from a failure to practice devotion to her Immaculate Heart, Our Lady also gave words of hope:
In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world. In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved, etc. (5)
Our Lady’s words on devotion to her Immaculate Heart are the second part of the Secret or Message.
There is also a third part of the Secret or Message, which the Servant of God Lucia only committed to writing on January 3, 1944. She wrote:
At the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendor that Our Lady radiated toward him from her hand. Pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: “Penance, Penance, Penance!” (6)
The Secret or Message speaks about the practical apostasy of our time, that is, the going away from Christ by many in the Church and the violence and death which are its fruit. Many, while they may not directly espouse heretical teachings, in practice reject the truth and love which flows unceasingly and immeasurably from the glorious-pierced Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Instead, they embrace the confusion, lies and violence of contemporary culture. Their lives contradict the most fundamental truths of the faith.
It is helpful to distinguish two kinds of “exterior manifestation” of apostasy, as they are set forth in the Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique. Apostasy can be manifested externally in an explicit and formal manner, “if the member of the faithful makes known by a categorical declaration or by acts which are equivalent to a declaration, that he renounces the Catholic faith.” (7) Such would be the case of a baptized Catholic who embraces Judaism or Islam or who, by declarations, writings and other means, announces himself to be a free thinker of atheist, or to belong to those who are creating a so-called new church which has broken with the Apostolic Tradition or to those who are notoriously hostile to the Catholic faith like the Freemasons.
Apostasy can also manifest itself in an implicit and interpretative manner “when a Christian without formally signifying that he renounces his faith, pretending even to treasure the title of Christian, conducts himself in such a way that one can surely conclude that he has become a stranger to the faith.” (8) Examples are those who applaud the attacks of impiety against religion, who mock the pastors of the Church, who deride the institutions of the Church, above all, her sacred rites, or who propose or support legislation contrary to divine law or against the Church. “There is in these exterior manifestations, when they are conscious and above all repeated, the proof that the faith has disappeared from the hearts of those who make themselves culpable for them. It is implicit apostasy.” (9)
In short, “[a]postasy is a sin against the faith, since it rejects revealed doctrine; against religion, because it denies to God true worship; against justice, since it violates the promises of the Christian.” (10) Referring to a modern author, Jean-François Badet, who calls apostasy “spiritual suicide,” the Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique declares: “This ‘spiritual suicide’ is, after the hatred of God, the most grave of sins, for it more completely and definitively than the faults simply opposed to the moral virtues separates the powers of the human soul, intelligence and will, from God.” (11) It is clear that apostasy, either explicit or implicit, leads hearts away from the Immaculate Heart of Mary and, thus, from the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the only font of our salvation. In that regard, as the Message of Fatima makes, the pastors of the Church, who in some way cooperate with apostasy, also by their silence, bear a most heavy burden of responsibility.
The third part of the Secret or Message described the martyrdom of those remaining true to Our Lord, those of one heart, in Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart, with His Most Sacred Heart. The Servant of God Lucia writes that beneath the two arms of “a big cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork tree with the bark … there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in their hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.” (12) As is clear from Our Lady’s message, only the Faith, which places man in the relationship of unity of heart with the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, through the mediation of her Immaculate Heart, can save man from the chastisements which rebellion against God necessarily brings upon its perpetrators and upon the whole of society. It is also clear that living the Faith in a totally secularized culture means readiness to accept indifference, ridicule, misunderstanding, persecution, exile and even death, in order to remain one with Christ in the Church under the maternal protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Through the call for reparation and penance, Our Lady shows the way to salvation from eternal death, the fruit of mortal sin.
Regarding the Devotion of the First Saturdays, the Servant of God Lucia received a second vision of the Child Jesus on February 15, 1926, just some two months after the vision of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, with the Infant Jesus at her side on a bright cloud. In the vision of February 15, 1926, when the Servant of God observed to the Child Jesus that her confessor had declared that the devotion of the First Saturdays was not lacking in the world, He replied:
It is true, my daughter, that many souls begin them, but few finish them, and those who do finish them, do so to receive the graces that are promised. It would please me more if they did five decades with fervor and with the intention of making reparation to the Heart of their heavenly Mother, than if they did fifteen decades in a tepid and indifferent manner. (13)
In both the apparitions of December 10, 1925, and of February 15, 1926, Our Lady made clear the substance of the devotion of the First Saturdays: 1) a profound realization of how sin offends Our Lord and His Immaculate Mother, 2) a humble and contrite heart which strives to make reparation for sins committed and the offense they cause to Our Lord and His Immaculate Mother, and 3) trust in the promise which accompanies the devotion, that is, Our Lady’s promise to assist at the hour of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, those who observe the First Saturdays with true repentance and desire of reparation. The devotion is not an isolated act but expresses a way of life, namely, daily conversion of heart to Christ’s Most Sacred Heart, under the maternal guidance and care of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
Our Lady’s insistence on the devotion of the First Saturdays is a wonderful expression of her unfailing maternal love. She appeared at Fatima to the three shepherd children and at Pontevedra to the Servant of God Lucia dos Santos to show her children the way to freedom from the rebellion before God, which is grievous sin with its fruit, eternal death.
Through the devotion to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, especially the devotion of the First Saturdays, the promise of Our Lord made through the Prophet Isaiah is realized: “For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.” (14) It was fulfilled, first of all and most perfectly of all, in the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary by her irreplaceable cooperation in the Mystery of the Redemptive Incarnation. It is to be fulfilled in each of our lives as co-workers, with the Virgin Mother of God in her Divine Son’s work of the Redemption. As Saint Paul wrote at the beginning of the Letter to the Colossians:
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church, of which I became a minister according to the divine office which was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now made manifest to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man mature in Christ. (15)
It is not that the Sacrifice of Our Lord is in any way defective. It is perfect and procures divine grace and eternal life for all who unite themselves to Our Lord in His Sacrifice. All that is lacking is our wholehearted participation in Our Lord’s Sacrifice, our daily taking up the Cross and following Him. (16)
Even as Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, participates in the work of the Redemptive Incarnation in an altogether unique manner, that is, by conceiving God the Son in her Immaculate Womb by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, so we are called to be co-workers with Christ in the truth. (17) Each of us, in accord with our vocation and with the particular gifts with which God has called to life, is called to cooperate with divine grace and so to give glory to God and to work for the salvation of the world. The Blessed Virgin Mary is Co-Redemptrix, that is, she participates in Our Lord’s saving work, in a unique way. We are, in virtue of Baptism and Confirmation, co-redeemers, that is, we participate in Our Lord’s saving work by sanctifying the portion of His vineyard, which He has entrusted into our care.
“The Blessed Virgin Mary is Co-Redemptrix, that is, she participates in Our Lord’s saving work, in a unique way.”
As the account of the Finding of Our Lord in the Temple teaches us, the Virgin Mother of God was always treasuring the mystery of the Redemptive Incarnation in her heart. (18) She maternally draws our hearts to her Immaculate Heart, so that we may place our hearts ever more perfectly into the Sacred Heart of Jesus, treasuring in our hearts the great mystery of Christ alive within us through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Thus, we, under the maternal care of Our Lady, will give powerful witness in the world to Christ, to His divine truth and divine love, even at the cost of indifference, ridicule, misunderstanding, persecution, and death. Thus, by God’s grace, through the intercession of the Mother of God, Saint Joseph, her most chaste spouse, and all the saints, the evils of the present time will be overcome and the world will be prepared to welcome the Bridegroom at His coming on the Last Day. (19)
Following the question-and-answer period after my presentation, you will have the opportunity to venerate a relic from the bones of Saint Peregrine Laziosi. Born of a wealthy family at Forli, Italy, in 1260, Saint Peregrine, as a youth, was an active member of the anti-papal party. During a political demonstration, to which Saint Philip Benizi was sent as a mediator by the Pope, Peregrine struck Saint Phil0ip on the0 face. Following the incident, Peregrine repented, converted to Catholicism, and eventually entered the religious order of Servants of Mary or Servites. Ordained a priest, he was known for the excellence of his preaching and for his goodness as a confessor.
One of the special penances he imposed on himself was to stand whenever it was not necessary to sit. When tired, he would support himself on a choir stall. At the age of 60, he developed a cancerous infection in his right leg. His condition deteriorated to the point that the physician decided to amputate his leg. The night before the operation, Saint Peregrine prayed before a fresco of the Crucifixion in the chapter room of the monastery. He fell into a deep sleep during which he seemed to see Jesus descend from the cross to touch his leg. The following day, when the doctor was going to do the amputation, he could find no sign of the cancer. He died of a fever on May 1, 1345, at the age of 84. At the time of his death and burial, and to the present, many healings have been associated with his intercession. He was canonized a saint by Pope Benedict XIII in 1726. He is the patron of cancer patients.
The plague of cancer seems to spread more and more in our time. Let us invoke the intercession of Saint Peregrine Laziosi, venerating the relic from his bones, on behalf of the many who suffer with cancer. Let us ask Saint Peregrine to protect us from all forms of cancer and to guide physicians and other healthcare workers in their care of the victims of cancer. May our veneration of the relic of Saint Peregrine Laziosi bring many blessings to those whom we are remembering as wed venerate his relic.
Let us, with hearts united to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, lift up to Lord the love which inspires the devotion of the First Saturdays in reparation of the offense which our sins give to His Most Sacred Heart and to the Immaculate Heart of His Virgin Mother. Let us commit ourselves to the devotion of the First Saturdays and the way of life, the way of divine love, which it expresses. Let us trust that through the confession of our sins and Holy Communion – the most perfect communion of our hearts with the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus – , and through the meditation on the mysteries of the Holy Rosary, the mysteries of our communion with the Lord – the Mystery of Faith – , we will be purified of sin and confirmed in grace to be His faithful “fellow workers in the truth” (20) for the salvation of the world.
Thank you for your kind attention. May God bless you and your homes.
Raymond Leo Cardinal BURKE
Footnotes:
1 “… tem pena do Coração da Tua Mãe Santíssima, que está coberto de espinhos que os homens ingratos a todos os momentos Lhe cravam, sem haver quem faça um ato de reparação para os tirar.” Carmelo de Coimbra, Um caminho sob o olhar de Maria. Biografia da Irmã Maria Lúcia de Jesus e do Coração Imaculado (Marco de Canaveses: Edições Carmelo, 2013), p. 168. [Hereafter, Carmelo]. English translation: Carmel of Coimbra, A Pathway Under the Gaze of Mary: Biography of Sister Maria Lucia of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart, O.C.D., tr. James A. Colson (Washington, NJ: World Apostolate of Fatima, USA, 2015), p. 158. [Hereafter, CarmeloEng].
2 “Olha minha filha, o Meu Coração Cercado de espinhos, que os homens ingratos a todos os momentos me cravam com blasfémias e ingratidões. Tu ao menos procura consolar-me e diz a todos aqueles que durante cinco meses, no primeiro sábado, se confessarem, recebendo a Sagrada Comunhão, rezando um terço e me fizerem quinze minutos de companhia, meditando nos mistérios do Rosário, com o fim de me desagravarem, que eu prometo assistir-lhes na hora da morte com todas as graças necessárias para a salvação das suas almas.” Carmelo, p. 168. English translation: CarmeloEng, p. 158.
3 “Vistes o inferno, para onde vão as almas dos pobres pecadores; para as salvar, Deus quer estabelecer no mundo a devoção a Meu Imaculado Coração. Se fizerem o que Eu vos disser, salvar-se-ão muitas almas e terão paz. A guerra vai acabar. Mas, se não deixarem de ofender a Deus, no reinado de Pio XI começará outra pior. Quando virdes uma noite alumiada por uma luz desconhecida, sabei que é o grande sinal que Deus vos dá de que vai a punir o mundo de seus crimes, por meio da guerra, da fome e de perseguições à Igreja e ao Santo Padre.” Carmelo, p. 63. English translation: CarmeloEng, p. 68.
4 “Para a impedir, virei pedir a consagração da Rússia a Meu Imaculado Coração e a Comunhão reparadora nos primeiros sábados. Se atenderem a Meus pedidos, a Rússia se converterá e terão paz; se não, espalhará seus erros pelo mundo, promovendo guerras e perseguições à Igreja. Os bons serão martirizados, o Santo Padre terá muito que sofrer, várias nações serão aniquiladas.” Carmelo, p. 63. English translation: CarmeloEng, pp. 68-69.
5 “Por fim, o Meu Imaculado Coração triunfará. O Santo Padre consagrar-Me-á a Rússia que se converterá e será concedido ao mundo algum tempo de paz. Em Portugal se conservará sempre o dogma da Fé, etc.” Carmelo, p. 64. English translation: CarmeloEng, p. 69.
6 “Vimos ao lado esquerdo de Nossa Senhora um pouco mais alto um Anjo com uma espada de fogo em a mão esquerda; ao cintilar, despedia chamas que parecia iam incendiar o mundo; mas apagavam-se como o contacto do brilho que da mão direita expedia Nossa Senhora ao seu encontro: O Anjo apontando com a mão direita para a terra, com voz forte disse: Penitência, Penitência, Penitência!” Carmelo, p. 64. English translation: CarmeloEng, p. 69.
7 “… le fidèle fait connaitre par une déclaration catégorique ou par des actes qui équivalent à une déclaration, qu’il renonce à la foi catholique.” Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, Tome premier (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1903), col. 1603. [Hereafter, DTC]. English translation by author.
8 “… quand un chrétien, sans signifier formellement qu’il renonce à sa croyance, prétendant même garder son titre de chrétien, se conduit de telle sorte qu’on peut conclure sûrement qu’il est devenu éstranger à la foi.” DTC, col. 1603. English translation by author.
9 “Il y a dans ces manifestations extérieures, quand elles sont réfléchies et surtout répétées, la preuve que la foi a disparu des cœurs qui s’en rendent coupables.” DTC, col. 1603. English translation by author.
10 “L’apostasie est un péché contre la foi, puisqu’elle rejette la doctrine révélée ; contra la religion, puisqu’elle refuse à Dieu le culte vrai ; contre la justice, puisqu’elle foule aux pieds les promesses du chrétien.” DTC, col. 1604. English translation by author.
11 “Ce « suicide religieux » est, après la haine de Dieu, le plus grave des péchés, parce que plus complètement et plus définitivement que les fautes simplement opposées aux vertus morales, il sépare de Dieu le puissances de l’âme humaine, intelligence et volonté.” DTC, col. 1604. English translation by author.
12 “… una grande Cruz de troncos toscos como se fora de sobreiro com a casca … estavam dois Anjos cada um com um regador de cristal em a mão, neles recolhiam o sangue dos Mártires e com ele regavam as almas que se aproximavam de Deus.” Carmelo, p. 64. English translation: CarmeloEng, p. 69.
13 “É verdade, minha filha, que muitas almas os começam, mas poucas os acabam e as que os terminam é com o fim de receberem as graças que aí estão prometidas; e me agradam mais as que fizerem os 5 com fervor e com o fim de desgravar o Coração da Tua Mãe de Céu, que as que fizerem os 15, tíbios e indiferentes.” Carmelo, p. 171. English translation: CarmeloEng, p. 160.
14 Is 61, 10-11.
15 Col 1, 24-28.
16 Cf. Lk 9, 23-24.
17 Cf. 3 Jn 8.
18 Lk 2, 51.
19 Cf. Mt 25, 13.
20 Cf. 3 Jn 8.