The Five First Saturdays in plain words: what Catholics hold the devotion to be, the conditions as they are commonly given, the promises as they are reported, and how a person keeps it around an ordinary week.
Catholics hold the First Saturday devotion, often called the Five First Saturdays, to be a way of honouring the Immaculate Heart of Mary through a fixed prayer practice. In its common form, a person receives Holy Communion on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, with the whole practice offered in reparation. It is a devotional practice, not a liturgical one: the Mass attended is the ordinary Saturday Mass, and what makes a given day a First Saturday is the intention the person brings to it. No special ceremony is required, and it can be kept privately or together with a parish.
Catholics associate the devotion with the events reported at Fatima, Portugal, in 1917, where three shepherd children said they saw the Virgin Mary. The accounts report that in a later apparition at Pontevedra in 1925, a request was made for the five first Saturdays, offered in reparation to the Immaculate Heart. Catholics hold these events to be private revelations accepted by the Church for devotion; they are not proposed as articles of faith, and no one is required to believe them. What the reader will find taught about the devotion is the practice itself, which the Church permits and encourages, rather than a claim that the apparitions are proven history.
The conditions are commonly given as five. Go to confession. Receive Holy Communion. Pray five decades of the Rosary. Spend fifteen minutes in meditation on the mysteries. Do all of it in reparation, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, with the intent to complete the set. Confession is the condition with the most pastoral flexibility: it may be made within a period of days before or after the first Saturday, and is often treated as satisfying the requirement when made near the day. Where any condition cannot be met as written, a priest can advise on what is possible in that person's situation.
The accounts connected with the devotion report a set of promises said to have been given for those who complete the five first Saturdays. They are commonly described as assistance at the hour of death and the graces needed for salvation, attached to the practice rather than to the person. Catholics hold that these assurances were given in the reported apparitions. The Church permits the devotion without requiring anyone to accept the promises as doctrine. This page states the promises only as what the accounts report; nothing here is a promise to the reader, and no particular outcome is guaranteed to anyone.
Keeping it with a normal schedule comes down to five Saturdays and a plan for each. Check the parish bulletin for Saturday Mass times and confession times; many parishes offer both on the first Saturday morning. If a person cannot get to Communion on a given first Saturday but still wishes to keep the day, they can pray the five decades at home and keep the meditation, then speak to a priest about how to complete the set. The Rosary itself can be prayed anywhere. An app helps the Rosary part not slip: Rosaria shows the day's mysteries and counts the decades, so the fifteen minutes of meditation has a place to sit.
This page is devotional and describes what Catholics commonly hold and what the accounts report; it is not proof of anything and not a substitute for guidance. If you are unsure whether a condition is met or how to begin, ask your priest.