Apostles of the Holy Face
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Sr. Mary of Saint Peter -
Venerable Leo Dupont -
Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face -
My only treasure is Thy Face,
No other do I ask to see,
There shall I find my hiding place
Till, Jesus, I resemble Thee.
- Saint Therese, Canticle to the Holy Face, 1895 -
Blessed Maria Pierina de Michelli -
"I desire that My Face, which shows My Soul’s deepest anguish, my Heart’s sorrow and love, may be more honored.
Whoever contemplates me, consoles me."
- Our Lord to Blessed Maria Pierina, First Friday of Lent 1936 -
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Sr. Marie de St. Pierre, OCD
Sr. Marie de St. Pierre was born in Rennes in Brittany on October 4, 1816. She was rather sickly as child and not at all pious. In fact, she describes herself as stubborn and easily roused to anger. After making her 1st confession at the age of 6 years, she began to seriously work on overcoming herself and about this same time, her parents instilled into her a devotion to the Most Blessed Virgin. After making her First Communion at the age of 10 years, she progressed most rapidly in virtue to the amazement of all those who knew her. She received many graces in prayer and began to understand that Our Lord was calling her to consecrate herself to Him in religion. With the direction of a wise and holy confessor who tried her in virtue for 5 years and prepared her for the religious life, she finally entered the Carmelite Monastery in Tours, France on November 13.
Revelations of the Holy Face Devotion: the Work of Reparation
As a novice, she continued receiving extraordinary favors in prayer. She submitted all of these interior communications of Our Lord to her Superiors and waited upon their consent before she could offer herself completely to Our Lord as He had been asking. Once permission was obtained, Our Lord began communicating with her about the need for reparation, adoration and supplication, by means of devotion to His adorable Face. Our Lord first spoke to her of the need to make reparation for the sins of Blasphemy and also the profanation of Sundays and Holy Days. “My name is everywhere blasphemed!” Our Lord exclaimed to Sr. Marie de St. Pierre, who relates...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. Our Lord then made me visualize the act of blasphemy as a poisoned arrow continually wounding His divine Heart. After that He revealed to me that He wanted to give me a ‘Golden Arrow’ which would have the power of wounding Him delightfully, and which would also heal those other wounds inflicted by the malice of sinners.” (August 26, 1843)
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 in the hells, by all the creatures of God and by the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
- The Golden Arrow PrayerOur Lord told Sr. Marie de St. Pierre, “Oh, if you only knew what merit you acquire by saying even once, ‘Admirable is the Name of God’ in a spirit of reparation.” Our Lord explained that reparation for blasphemies also included all attacks against Religion and Holy Church; that is all heretical attacks (which are so numerous in our times, even from within the Church). Our Lord said that only Reparation could disarm the Justice of God because the guilt of men had provoked His anger. On October 4th, 1846 Sr. Marie was given to know that in the future, “God’s justice would use as the instrument of punishment, ‘the malice of revolutionary men-that is the Communists’.” This was the first revelation from Heaven concerning Communism. It is interesting to note that Communism was still at its beginning stages at this time, and that Karl Marx had not even published his Communist Manifesto until 1848, and these Revolutionaries were not even calling themselves “Communists” in 1846. Our Lord ordered Sr. Marie to wage war against the enemies of the Church, the Communists, through prayers and devotion to His Holy Face and the instruments of His Passion which would be her only weapons against them and the devil himself. Thus Devotion to the Holy Face is a sister devotion to Fatima.
Adoration of the Holy Face
Our Lord also told Sr. Marie de St. Pierre, “I seek Veronicas to wipe and venerate my Divine Face which has but few adorers.” On another occasion our Lord also revealed His desire for adoration, as described by the holy Carmelite of Tours, “Drawing me strongly to the contemplation of His adorable Face, our Divine Savior made me see through a ray of light issuing from His august Countenance that the Holy Face which He presented to mankind for their adoration, was indeed the mirror of those unutterable Divine Perfections comprised and contained in the Most Holy Name of God.... I saw that by thus honoring and venerating this Sacred Countenance covered anew with outrages, we could atone for blasphemers who attack the Divinity of which this Holy Face is the figure, the mirror and the expression.” Sr. Marie de St. Pierre also emphasized the importance of the Holy Eucharist in connection with the Holy Face Devotion. “Yes, it is through this august Sacrament that Jesus, our Savior, desires to impart to souls the rare virtue emanating from His most Holy Face, for indeed there in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar His adorable Face is more dazzling than the sun. He then once more promised me to imprint His Divine likeness upon the souls of those who honor the features of His Face." Our Lord Himself called devotion to His Holy Face, “The most beautiful work under the sun”.
Our Lord Himself dictated many prayers of the Holy Face to Sr. Marie de St. Pierre and others she composed with His approval. Our Lord desired that these prayers be printed and circulated. A holy man of Tours, Leo Dupont, a friend of the Carmel of Tours, took up the prayers and devotion to the Holy Face, and arranged to have the prayers dictated by our Lord to Sr. Marie of St. Pierre, printed and circulated, calling the pamphlet, “The Work of Reparation” against the sins of the profanation of Sundays, and blasphemy. Venerable Leo Dupont, was called by Pope Leo XIII, the “wonder worker” on account of the many miracles which came about through the use of oil from a lamp which he burned perpetually in front of an image of the Holy Face. Shortly before his death, devotion to the Holy Face was officially approved by the Church, and in 1885 Pope Leo XIII established the Archconfraternity of the Holy Face in his public oratory, which is still a place of pilgrimage to this day.
Supplication through the offering of the Holy Face of Jesus
Nothing that you ask in virtue of this offering will be refused you! Ah! If you did but know how pleasing is the sight of My Face to My Father
- Promise of Our Lord to Sr. Marie de St. PierreOur Lord Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life, our way and mediator with the Father, True God and True Man, who has reconciled us through His death with the Father, making peace through the Blood of His cross, calls us to come to Him, in a particular way, though devotion to His Most Holy Face. For devotion to our Lord’s Holy Face, is devotion to the Person of Jesus Christ. Our Lord, so greatly desiring the salvation of all mankind, gave many prayers and promises to Sr. Marie de St. Pierre, for our own sanctification and that of all mankind.
Promises of Our Lord Jesus Christ
to those who practice devotion to his Holy Face
- By offering My Face to my Eternal Father, nothing will be refused, and the conversion of many sinners will be obtained.
- By my Holy Face, they will work wonders, appease the anger of God and draw down mercy upon sinners.
- All those who honor My Face in a spirit of reparation will by so doing perform the office of the pious Veronica.
- 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.
- Those who, by words, prayers or writings defend my cause in the Work of Reparation, especially my Priests, I will defend before My Father, and will give them My Kingdom.
- 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.
- Those who on earth contemplate the wounds of my Face, shall in Heaven behold it radiant with glory.
- They will receive in their souls a bright and constant radiation of my Divinity, that by their likeness to My Face they shall shine with particular splendor in Heaven.
- I will defend them, I will preserve them and I assure them of Final Perseverence.
For additional information about Sr. Mary of St. Peter see the book published by TAN called
The Golden Arrow edited by Dorothy Scallan and translated by Fr. Emeric Scallan STB.
Venerable Leo Dupont
Leo was born in the 19th century. From childhood he was very devout and thought that God was possibly calling him to become a priest. He was unable to gain admittance to the seminary however because of a physical defect on his hand. Instead, he studied law. He became a very good and honest lawyer, always remaining true to his Faith. He married and had one daughter. After the early death of his wife, he moved to Tours, France. Leo’s heart was pierced with sorrow when he saw the unhappy condition to which the French villages had been reduced on account of the atheism of the French Revolution. He entreated Our Lord to show him how to repair these outrages. He began by becoming more fervent in his own faith, praying more and practicing mortification. He also became a defender of the Holy Name of God, seeking to instruct people about what they were really doing when they used the name of the Lord in vain.
Leo had become acquainted with the Carmelite Monastery in Tours and not only offered his services as a legal advisor but was also a friend and benefactor. In 1843, he was told by the Mother Prioress that a certain Sister, Mary of St. Peter, then a novice, had received a special and important mission from Our Lord. Our Lord desired that reparation be made for the terrible sin of blasphemy. Leo agreed wholeheartedly that the work of Reparation should be begun. Following further revelations of Our Lord to the humble Carmelite, Leo became actively involved and asked the Bishop of Tours to print the prayers that Our Lord had dictated in order to propagate the devotion; but he was refused. However, Our Lord continued to make known to Sr. Mary of St. Peter His wishes in regard to this work, telling her that the sensible object of this devotion would be His Holy Face since it is the mirror and expression of the Divinity.
Following these revelations, Leo and the Prioress and a few other friends compiled an Abridgment of Facts, which contained Sr. Mary of St. Peter’s revelations, and submitted it to the Archbishop. His Excellency agreed to allow 50 copies to be distributed, which Leo promptly did. Unfortunately, the pamphlet angered some of the politicians, who complained to the Diocese, whereupon the Archbishop commanded the Carmel and Leo to maintain complete silence on the work.
After the death of Sr. Mary of St. Peter in 1848, to the surprise of Leo, the Archbishop of Tours placed an interdict on her writings. No one was allowed to write or speak about the revelations she had received. Our Lord’s words to the humble nun had indeed come true: “I shall permit the demon to cross My Work, thereby to test the confidence of my servants.”
In January, 1849, His Holiness Pope Pius IX, ordered that public prayers be offered in all the Churches of Rome to ask for God’s mercy upon the pontifical states. This order was given in Gaeta where the Holy Father had been forced to flee, because of revolutions. The Relic of Veronica’s Veil was exposed for public veneration. On the third day, “through another veil of silk which covers the true relic of Veronica’s Veil, and absolutely prevents the features from being distinguished, the Divine Face appeared distinctly, as if living, and was illumined by a soft light; the features assumed a death-like hue, and the eyes, deep-sunken, wore an expression of great pain.” Copies of the True Image were made and distributed. Some were given to the Prioress of the Benedictines at Arras. She, knowing of the revelations to Sr. Mary of St. Peter, sent a few copies of the Image to the Carmel of Tours. Upon receiving them, the Prioress immediately sent two of them to Leo Dupont. His reaction was one of hope that the Devotion to the Holy Face as given to Sr. Mary of St. Peter would be able to spread. The picture was a very striking one, for in looking at the picture, we can get a true idea what our sins and malice cost the Divine Redeemer. But even more than this, one realizes that it is not the spittle and the bruises that made His agony so fierce. This picture shows the shame and the confusion He endured at being so inhumanly insulted. Here is revealed the Savior’s mental agony. Indeed, one is irresistibly drawn to love and console Our Sweet Savior when we contemplate His Face. For He sought for one to comfort Him and not one could He find.
Leo hung the Image in His parlor and lit a lamp in front of it because it was Holy Week. Little did he know that the Image would show forth its miraculous character time and again and that his humble lamp would burn continuously to the end of his days.Only a couple of days after Leo had hung up the Image a client came to see him. Leo asked her to wait a few minutes while he finished some other business and noticed that she was frequently rubbing her eyes. She told him that they caused her great pain and didn’t know how to lessen it. He suggested that she should pray before the Holy Face and ask Our Lord to help her, after Leo finished his previous business, he then joined her in prayer. He also suggested that she anoint her eyes with oil from the lamp. “The oil has no curative powers,” he said. “The anointing simply expresses exterior faith, and is an act of piety.” When the young woman anointed her eyes she was instantaneously cured. Thus began a stream of pilgrims to this private study where hung the Image of the Holy Face. By the end of the year, Leo could no longer keep track of how many people had been cured after praying the Litany to the Holy Face and being anointed with the oil. Even though there was no indication that the interdict on the revelations of Sr. Mary of St. Peter would be lifted so that he could publicly propagate the devotion, Leo nevertheless continued to open His house to all those who sought healing of body, mind or spirit. It was not until Leo was on his deathbed that he had the consolation of seeing the interdict lifted by the newly appointed archbishop. “The most beautiful work under the sun” truly was going to be established and it was Leo Dupont, the Holy Man of Tours, who had kept the devotion alive in his humble parlor on Rue St. Etienne.
All quotations are from The Holy Man of Tours: The Life of Leo Dupont by Dorothy Scallan published by TAN.
St. Therese of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face
St. Therese of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face is most commonly known as the Little Flower. Her way of spiritual childhood has been an inspiration and a means for countless souls to attain to the heights of sanctity. Having been proclaimed a doctor of the Church in 1997 by Pope John Paul II, her doctrine is authorized by the Church for universal propagation. Though today she is one of the most popular saints, her short life was passed in the seclusion of a Carmelite Monastery where she prayed to remain hidden and unknown. As a child, she was enrolled, along with the other members of her family in the Confraternity of the Holy Face at Tours. And her devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus only deepened with her entrance into Carmel when her older sister Pauline (Mother Agnes) who had preceded her into the Carmel, introduced her to the wealth of treasure that lay hidden in it. Her burning desire was to imitate Our Lord’s meekness and humility in his suffering. She wanted and she prayed, “Make me resemble You, Jesus.” This short prayer she wrote out on a piece of paper and wore day and night over her heart. She taught this devotion to her novices, over whom she had charge, and she writes of it in her Autobiography, which has reached the entire world. She wrote, “Until my coming to Carmel, I had never fathomed the depths of the treasures hidden in the Holy Face…Ah! I desired that, like the Face of Jesus, my face be truly hidden, and that no one on earth would know me. I thirsted after suffering and I longed to be forgotten.” At the beatification process of St. Therese, her sister, Mother Agnes of Jesus testified that: “Devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus was the Servant of God’s special attraction. As tender as was her devotion to the Child Jesus, it cannot be compared to her devotion to the Holy Face.Look at His Face, look at His glazed eyes, look at His wounds, look Jesus in the Face. There you will see how He loves us.
- St. Therese of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face
Blessed Maria Pierina de MichelliIn spite of Our Lord’s revelations to Sr. Marie de St. Pierre and His earnest plea for reparation and supplication to prevent the errors of Communism from spreading and to repair for the sins of basphemy and profanation of Sundays, this devotion was not fully realized in the manner which our Lord desired, in great part because of the lack of cooperation of the Bishop of Tours. However, Our Lord is most patient with us, and once again in the 20th century, our Lord revealed His desire for an increase of devotion to His Holy Face to a chosen soul, Sr. Maria Pierina De Micheli, a Daughter of the Immaculate Conception, who has been beatified by Pope Benedict XVI. As a young girl of 12, while attending Good Friday Services, she heard interiorly, “Will no one give Me a kiss of love on My Face, to make reparation for the kiss of Judas?” She then proceeded to kiss the crucifix on the Face. Years later as a religious, Our Lord continued to speak to Bd. Pierina, revealing His desire that His Face be more honored, and He promised her, “Everytime that anyone gazes at My Face, I will pour My Love into hearts and by means of My Holy Face, the salvation of many souls will be obtained.” In May 1938, Our Lord appeared with His Blood stained Face and repeated His desire of sanctifying souls through the offering of His Holy Face, adding that when this offering is made “through my priests, miracles will be worked.” Our Lord asked for souls who would sacrifice themselves with Him for the salvation of the world. In 1941 Our Lord asked Sister to join Him in the agony of His soul in Gethsemane for the sins “of those who are dear to Me and especially for the rebuffs I receive from the souls of many religious, in particular for the sin of pride in religious souls.” Our Lord was asking Sr. Pierina to make reparation for all the “Judases” of the world, who were offending Him, that is all Priests, Bishops and Religious who were unfaithful to His love and His call. After suffering many illnesses, and frequent attacks from the devil, who did everything possible to hinder the spread of devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus, Sr. Marie Pierina died in 1945, in the odor of sanctity while gazing upon the Holy Face. Her last words being, “I will see all of you again in Heaven.” In that last love filled look at our Lord, Bd. Marie Pierina was showing us the way to Heaven.
Revelations and Promises of our Lord
to Blessed Maria Pierina de Micheli
- “I have given My Heart as the sensible proof of my great love for men, and I give My Face as the sensible object of my grief for the sins of mankind”.
- “I desire that My Face, which shows My soul’s deepest anguish, My Heart’s sorrow and love, be more honored.” “Whoever contemplates me, consoles Me”.
- “Contemplate My Face and you will enter into My Heart’s abysses of sorrow.”
- “Every time that anyone gazes at My Face, I will pour My Love into hearts.”
- “And by means of the Holy Face, the salvation of many souls will be obtained.”
- “Offer My Holy Face without ceasing to the Eternal Father. With this offering, you will obtain salvation and sanctification of many souls. When henceforth you offer it through My priests, they will perform miracles.”
- “I desire that My Face be honored in a special way on Tuesdays.”
- “I desire that My Face be honored by a special Feast on Quinquagesima Tuesday (Tuesday on the 5th week before Easter Sunday), a feast preceded by a Novena, in which all the faithful will make reparation to Me, thus uniting and participating in my grief.