What are the first Fridays of the month?

A "first Friday" is the first Friday of the month and is often marked by a special devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. As Jesus died for us and won our salvation on Friday. Every Friday of the year, and not just the Fridays of Lent, is a special day of penance as stipulated in the Code of Canon Law. “The days and times of penitence in the universal Church are all Fridays throughout the year and the time of Lent“ (Canon 1250).

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690) reported visions of Jesus Christ that guided her to promote devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. For consecutive in reparation for sins and to show love to Jesus. In exchange for this act of devotion , which usually includes mass, communion, confession. Even an hour of Eucharistic adoration on the eve of the first Friday of the month. Our blessed Savior would have promised St. Margaret Mary the following blessings:

"In the excess of mercy of my Heart, I promise you that my almighty love will grant all those who receive Communion on the first Fridays, for nine consecutive months, the grace of final repentance: they will not die in my sorrow, nor without receiving the sacraments; and my Heart will be their safe refuge in that last hour “.

La devotion is officially sanctioned, but in the beginning it was not so. Indeed, Santa Margherita Maria met resistance and disbelief from the very beginning in her own religious community. Only 75 years after his death was devotion to the Sacred Heart officially recognized. Almost 240 years after his death, Pope Pius XI claims that Jesus appeared to Santa Margherita Maria. In her encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor (1928), eight years after she was formally canonized as a saint by Pope Benedict XV.