The Vatican has granted Our Lady of Guadalupe, Star of the New Evangelization Parish in Columbus, Ohio, official designation as a pilgrimage site for the 100th anniversary of the first Pontevedra apparitions to Sister Lucia dos Santos. The designation took effect this week and runs through December 2026. Anyone attending Mass at the parish on the first Saturday of five consecutive months during that window can receive a plenary indulgence under the standard conditions of confession, communion within a month, and prayer for the pope's intentions. The Diocese of Columbus is one of a small number of US sites approved this Jubilee year, and the bishop is treating it as a Marian moment for the entire region.
The First Saturday devotion itself dates back to 1925, when Sister Lucia reported that the Virgin Mary appeared to her in Pontevedra, Spain, asking for reparation through five consecutive First Saturdays of confession, communion, the rosary, and 15 minutes of meditation on its mysteries. For nearly a century the practice quietly persisted in parishes around the world, but the Jubilee year has brought a noticeable uptick in attendance. Pastors in Columbus reported between 240 and 380 people attending First Saturday Mass in March and April, a sharp increase from the 60 to 90 who attended the same liturgies a year ago.
Today is the second First Saturday of May, falling on May 2, 2026, and parishes across the country are reporting heavier attendance than usual. Saint Henry Cathedral in Nashville added a 6 a.m. Holy Hour, a noon high Mass with exposition, and a 7 p.m. bilingual English and Creole rosary. Father Fye told staff Friday afternoon that registration for the day had crossed 480 people, more than double the previous First Saturday in April. The cathedral added a second confession line at 5:30 a.m. to handle the volume.
Diocesan offices around the country are catching up to a Marian uptick they did not expect this fast. The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, based at Georgetown, reported that perpetual adoration chapels in the United States have grown from 762 in 2023 to 1,274 today, a 67 percent jump. Confession participation is up 42 percent in parishes that track sacramental data. Catholics under 35 represent 41 percent of new adoration sign-ups, up from 17 percent two years ago. Researchers had projected steady growth through the Jubilee but underestimated the speed.
Some of the lift is coming from media that did not exist five years ago. The Hallow prayer app crossed 28 million downloads this spring, up from 17 million a year ago. The Knights of Columbus distributed 1.4 million bilingual First Saturday booklets and went back to print for a second run after the first sold out within nine weeks. Word on Fire's Marian content series pulled 47,000 downloads in nine days last month. Pope Leo's April 22 Vatican audience on Marian devotion drew his largest weekday crowd of the year, and the Diocese of Lake Charles streamed its First Saturday devotion live this morning to 11,400 viewers across 47 states.
The Columbus designation matters beyond the parish itself because it formalizes what pastors have been seeing since Christmas. Marian devotion is no longer a quiet practice tucked into the calendar of older parishioners. Bishop Earl Fernandes of Columbus said in his decree that the parish was selected because of its evangelization focus and its strong record with younger Catholics. The parish runs four Spanish Masses each weekend, hosts a monthly young adult holy hour that draws 120 to 180 people, and houses a school that has expanded enrollment three years running. The pilgrimage designation is expected to bring travelers from neighboring states throughout the summer.
For Catholics outside Columbus, the standard First Saturday devotion still carries weight, and most diocesan websites now publish a list of nearby parishes offering the full sequence of confession, Mass, rosary, and 15 minutes of meditation. The Diocese of Nashville lists nine parishes as of this week. Saint Henry Cathedral, Cathedral of the Incarnation, Christ the King in Belle Meade, and Our Lady of Lourdes in Donelson all run morning options, and Saint Edward and Saint Mary of the Seven Sorrows downtown anchor the evening windows. Parking lots that used to clear by 9 a.m. are now full into the late morning.
Ask pastors what changed and you get the same answer in different words. The cultural noise outside the church got loud enough that quiet practices started looking attractive. The Marian Jubilee gave people a reason to start. Families that had drifted from regular sacraments are showing up with kids in tow. Whether the trend holds past December is the question diocesan offices are watching, but for now the chapels are full and the booklets keep selling out.