St. Thomas Aquinas - Confessor, Doctor
J.M.J.
DEVOTION TO THE HOLY FACE OF JESUS
MID 19th CENTURY: Sister Mary of Saint Peter and the Venerable Leo Dupont
In the mid-19th century, in Tours, France, a Carmelite nun named Sister Marie de Saint Pierre (1816-1848) received a private revelation from Our Lord that "Those who will contemplate the wounds on My Face here on earth, shall contemplate it radiant in heaven." In her vision, she was transported to the road to Calvary and saw St.
Veronica wiping away the spit and mud from His Holy Face with her veil. Sister realized that the taking of the Name of God in vain and all the other sacrilegious and blasphemous acts that men do fall on the Lord's Face like that spit and mud that St. Veronica so lovingly wiped away. Jesus revealed to Sister that He desired devotion to His Holy Face in reparation for sacrilege, the profanation of Sundays, and blasphemy, which He described to her as being like a "poisoned arrow." To her He dictated the prayer which has become known as "The Golden Arrow" and which honors His Holy Name:
THE GOLDEN ARROW
May the most Holy, most Sacred, most Adorable, Most Incomprehensible and Ineffable Name of God Be always Praised, Blessed, Loved, Adored and Glorified, In Heaven, on Earth and under the Earth, By all the Creatures of God, And by the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ, In the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Amen.
At around the time Sister was receiving her visions, into Tours from Martinique moved the saintly Monsieur Leo Dupont (1797-1876), a man whose young wife had died and whose daughter God also took in this interesting way: she'd begun moving about in "fashionable circles"
and taking on a worldly air that caused M. Dupont to worry about her eternal welfare, so much so that he prayed, "My God, if You foresee that my daughter will part from You, I ask you to take her with You so that she will not be separated from You." His daughter soon died of typhoid. Though tormented by his temporal loss, he kept his faith in God and nurtured it.
He soon heard of Sr. Mary of St. Peter's efforts to spread devotion to the Holy Face and, inspired by the Holy Ghost through her example, decided to dedicate his life to this work. He kept an oil lamp burning continuously before an image of the Holy Face, and his home became a center of pilgrimage when people began to gather to pray before the image, with many receiving miraculous cures through the application of his lamp's oil to their skin. He went on to establish the Archconfraternity of the Holy Face, and was later recognized by the Church as a "Venerable." He is now known familiarly as "The Holy Man of Tours."
[Attesting to the truth and power of this devotion, Pope Leo XIII, by papal brief, formally erected the Archconfraternity of the Holy Face in Tours in 1885 and, contrary to custom, immediately established it for the entire world. ]
LATE 19th CENTURY: St. Therese of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face
About the picture she venerated -- a picture based on the image of St. Veronica's Veil -- St. Therese said, "How well Our Lord did to lower His eyes when He gave us His portrait! Since the eyes are the mirror of the soul, if we had seen His soul, we would have died from joy."
In yet another sense, devotion to the Holy Face inspires us to know how to imitate Him best, teaches us how to "put on Christ." What did people see when they saw Our Blessed Lord? The Prophet Isaias tells
us:
ISAIAS 52:14, 53:2-3
"As many have been astonished at thee, so shall His Visage be inglorious among men, and His form among the sons of men... And He shall grow up as a tender plant before Him, and as a root out of a thirsty ground: there is no beauty in Him, nor comeliness: and we have seen Him, and there was no sightliness, that we should be desirous of him: Despised, and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity: and His look was as it were hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed Him not."
It is this sense of the Holy Face devotion -- meditating on the despised, suffering Countenance that hid His Divinity from those who had no eyes to see -- that inspired the spirituality of St. Therese of Lisieux, "The Little Flower" whose religious name was "St. Therese of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face." Contemplating His "hiddenness" and the Mystery of His having humbled Himself as He did by becoming a Child and by suffering for us is the source of St.
Therese's "Little Way" -- her method of spiritual discipline that teaches us we don't need to be great in the world's terms in order to become a Saint. No matter where we are, no matter our talents or intellect, we can love. Hidden away herself, in her Norman convent, she wrote of the Prophet's words
These words of Isias: "He was without splendor, without beauty, His Face was hidden, as it were, and His person was not acknowledged"; "one finds in them the whole foundation of my devotion to the Holy Face, or to say it better, the foundation of all my piety. I also desire myself to be without splendor, without beauty, to tread alone the wine in the press, unknown by every creature."
And later:
"Jesus set the book of nature before me and I saw that all the flowers He has created are lovely. The splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not rob the little violet of its scent nor the daisy of its simple charm. I realized that if every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness and there would be no wildflowers to make the meadows gay."
"It is just the same in the world of souls -- which is the garden of Jesus. He has created the great saints who are like the lilies and the roses, but He has also created much lesser saints and they must be content to be the daisies or the violets which rejoice his eyes whenever He glances down. Perfection consists in doing His will, in being that which He wants us to be."
St. Therese did no one particular thing that one would point at and say, "See? Clearly she is a great Saint!" Her greatness was not in what she did so much as how she did it: with humility, with acceptance of suffering, and all for the love of Christ. She died of tuberculosis at the age of 24, telling a Sister a few months before her death that she would spend her Heaven doing good upon the earth, and that it will be like "a shower of roses." She left behind her autobiography ("Story of a Soul") and poetry and prayers, among which are her Canticle and Prayer to the Holy Face . . .
ST. THERESE'S PRAYER TO THE HOLY FACE
O Jesus, Who in Thy bitter Passion didst become "the most abject of men, a man of sorrows," I venerate Thy Sacred Face whereon there once did shine the beauty and sweetness of the Godhead ... but now it has become for me as if it were the Face of a leper! Nevertheless, under those disfigured features, I recognize Thy Infinite Love and I am consumed with the desire to love Thee and make Thee loved by all men.
The tears which well up abundantly in Thy Sacred Eyes appear to me as so many precious pearls that I love to gather up, in order to purchase the souls of poor sinners by means of their infinite value. O Jesus, Whose adorable Face ravished my heart, I implore Thee to fix deep within me Thy Divine Image and to set me on fire with Thy Love, that I may be found worthy to come to the contemplation of Thy glorious Face in Heaven. Amen.
EARLY 20th CENTURY:
Sister Maria Pierina De Micheli
Sister Maria Pierina was inspired through visions of Our Lord and Lady to take up the work of spreading devotion to the Holy Face. Lord Christ told her, "I will that My Face, which reflects the intimate pains of my Spirit, the suffering and the love of My Heart, be more honoured. He who meditates upon Me, consoles Me."
An image of a scapular bearing the likeness of the Face on the Holy Shroud was revealed to her by Our Lady, who told her, "This Scapular is an armour of defense, a shield of strength, a token of the love and mercy which Jesus wishes to give the world in these times of lust and hatred against God and His Church. Diabolical nets are thrown to wrench the Faith from hearts, evils abound, true apostles are few, and the remedy is the Holy Face of Jesus." Our Lady said that all those who piously wear the image, make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament every Tuesday, if possible, to make reparation for the assaults against the Holy Face, and receive the Holy Eucharist every day will have a happy death under the loving gaze of her Son.
Sister Pierina set about to cast the image in the form of a medal, and after some struggle in gaining permission, found she had no money to have the medals cast. This last problem was remedied apparently
miraculously: she found an envelope with the exact sum of money needed on her desk, seemingly from nowhere. After the medals were cast, the Evil One made known his displeasure. How could he not despise an image of the image left behind when Jesus walked away from His burial shroud? Enraged, Evil Spirit flung the medals around the room, and physically assaulted Sister Pierina. But he was defeated, and the practice of wearing the medals spread all over the world.
The obverse side of the medal bears the image of the Holy Face, as revealed by the Shroud of Turin. Surrounding it are the words of Psalm 66:2, "Illumina Domine Vultum Tuum super nos" ("Shew the light of Thy countenance, O Lord, upon us."). On the back of the medal is a Sacred Host inscribed with the monogram of the Holy Name ("IHS"), surrounded by rays and the words, "Mane nobiscum Domine" ("Stay with us, O Lord").
Sister Pierina died in 1945, a few years after having written in her diary, "I feel a deep longing to live always united to Jesus, to love Him intensely because my death can only be a transport of love with my Spouse, Jesus."
From http://www.fisheaters.com/holyface.html
OUR LORD TO MOTHER PIERINA -- 1938
"See how I suffer. Nevertheless, I am understood by so few. What gratitude on the part of those who say they love me. I have given My Heart as a sensible object of My great love for man and I give My Face as a sensible object of My Sorrow for the sins of man. I desire that it be honoured by a special feast on Tuesday in Quinquagesima (Shrove Tuesday -- the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday). The feast will be preceded by a novena in which the faithful make reparation with Me uniting themselves with my sorrow."
The first medal of the Holy Face was offered to His Holiness Pope Pius XII who approved the devotion and the medal. On April 17th, 1958, he confirmed the Feast of the Holy Face of Jesus on Shrove Tuesday (Tuesday before Ash Wednesday) for all the dioceses and religious orders who would ask for the Indult from Rome in order to celebrate it.
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OUR LORD TO SR. MARY OF ST. PETER
concerning reparation to His Holy
Face:
. . . This devotion is to have the twofold purpose of reparation for BLASPHEMY and reparation for the PROFANATION OF SUNDAY and Holy Days of Obligation, the two principal sins which in modern times are provoking the anger of God. Sr. Mary said, "He then made me see that this frightful sin wounds His Divine Heart more grievously than all other sins, showing me how by BLASPHEMY the sinner curses Him to His Face, attacks Him publicly, nullifies His Redemption, and pronounces his own judgment and condemnation & The Savior made me understand that His justice was greatly irritated against mankind for its sins but particularly for those that directly outrage the Majesty of God -- that is, Communism, Atheism, cursing, and the desecration of Sundays and the Holy Days. He said, "The executioners crucified me on Friday,
CHRISTIANS CRUCIFY ME ON SUNDAY".
PROMISES OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST
to Sr. Mary of St. Peter in favor of those who honor His Holy Face.
1. By offering My Face to My Eternal Father, nothing will be refused, and the conversion of many sinners will be obtained.
2. By My Holy Face, they will work wonders, appease the anger of God and draw down mercy on sinners.
3. All those who honor My Face in a spirit of reparation will by so doing perform the office of the pious Veronica.
4. According to the care they take in making reparation to My Face, disfigured by blasphemers, so will I take care of their souls which have been disfigured by sin. My Face is the Seal of the Divinity, which has the virtue of reproducing in souls the image of God.
5. Those who by words, prayers or writing defend My cause in the Work of Reparation, especially My priests, I will defend before My Father, and will give them My Kingdom.
6. As in a kingdom they can procure all that is desired with a coin stamped with the King's effigy, so in the Kingdom of Heaven they will obtain all they desire with the precious coin of My Holy Face.
7. Those who on earth contemplate the wounds of My Face shall in Heaven behold it radiant with glory.
8. They will receive in their souls a bright and constant irradiation of My Divinity, that by their likeness to My Face they shall shine with particular splendor in Heaven.
9. I will defend them, I will preserve them and I assure them of Final Perseverance.
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