Adoring the Holy Face of Jesus

Today is the Feast of the Holy Face of Jesus.  It always falls on Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras.)  I can’t help thinking that this Feast of reparation falls on this day at least partly because of all the sins committed during the Mardi Gras celebrations.  (I grew up in New Orleans, so I know….)

I hope you will visit this link to my post featuring the history of this feast, as well as the Golden Arrow Prayer which Jesus Himself dictated to a Carmelite nun….a prayer to bring delight to His Heart.

But I also wanted to celebrate the Beauty of the Face of Jesus today.  I substituted at Adoration yesterday, and found myself meditating much on His Sacred Humanity, and how irresistible the Face of Jesus must be.

I cannot imagine such love and compassion, such kindness, tenderness, majesty and power, such goodness and glory all shining forth in one Sacred Countenance.  Truly, one could not see Him as He is and live!

I remember the words of St. Faustina:  Jesus, who will paint You as beautiful as You are?

O Most Beautiful Face
Of my Savior,
I adore Your Divine Beauty,
Hidden from me now,
Yet known somehow
In the depths of my soul.
I sit before You,
Beneath Your Loving Gaze.
I gaze back,
Seeing
Only the Sacred Host,
Yet knowing
That it is into the
Eyes of my Beloved Savior that
I see,
Endlessly.

For an outstanding article on the Holy Face, visit: http://vultus.stblogs.org/index.php/2014/03/look-to-him-and-be-radiant/

The Holy Face of Jesus….

This is a re-blog of a post which I published shortly before The Feast of the Holy Face of Jesus last year. It is such a beautiful feast…especially dear to the hearts of Carmelites. But most of all, the prayers are a much needed act of reparation during this time of so many outrages and blasphemies committed against our Beloved Jesus. Hopefully, we can all find time to console Him this Tuesday….and like Therese prayed: May we one day behold His Glorious Face in Heaven

.

Tuesday is the Feast of the Holy Face of Jesus.  It always falls on Shrove Tuesday before Ash Wednesday.  (Appropriate, considering the grevious sins committed during Mardi Gras.)

Jesus appeared to a Carmelite nun, Sister Mary of St. Peter, in Tours, France during the 1840’s, and requested devotion to His Holy Face in order to make reparation for the blasphemies and outrages committed by unbelievers, and for the profanation of Sundays by Christians.

“Oh, you who are My friends, and My faithful children, look and see if there be any sorrow like mine. Everywhere My enemies despise and insult both my Eternal Father and My Church, the cherished Spouse of My Heart. Will no one rise up to console Me by defending the glory of My Father, and the honor of My Spouse, which has been so cruelly attacked? I can no longer remain in the midst of a people that will continue to be so heedless and so ungrateful. Look at the torrents of tears that stream from My eyes! Can I find no one to wipe away these tears by making reparation to My Father, and imploring forgiveness for the guilty?”

Jesus entrusted to Sister Mary of St. Peter an act of praise and reparation which He called The Golden Arrow, saying that those who would recite this prayer would pierce His Heart delightfully, and heal those other wounds inflicted on Him by the malice of sinners. It is recommended to be prayed on the 33 beads of the Holy Face Chaplet (or rosary beads may be used.)

MAY THE MOST HOLY, MOST SACRED, MOST ADORABLE, MOST INCOMPREHENSIBLE AND UNUTTERABLE 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.

_________________________________

Perhaps today, as we prepare for the beginning of Lent, we can console the Heart of Jesus by meditating on His Holy Face, and the sufferings endured by that Divine Countenance….the blows, the spittle, the piercing of thorns, and even the plucking of His beard from His cheeks…as the Scripture tells us.

Oh what cruelties were endured by our Gentle Jesus, who could have annihilated His torturers in an instant, but instead submitted with perfect humility and obedience for love of you….and me.

Let us remember His falls beneath the heavy Cross, which caused His Holy Face to be pressed into dirt and rocks, no doubt causing the agony of additional cuts and bruises.

If we contemplate His Suffering Face, His Wounded and Bleeding Face, His Beaten and Tortured Face here in our exile, surely the day will come when He will reveal to us that Most Beautiful and Glorious Face which will be our Beatitude for all eternity.

__________________________________

O Jesus, Whose adorable Face ravishes 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 behold Thy Glorious Face in Heaven.  (St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face)

The one agony you alone can spare Jesus…..

O Jesus, the Blood is pouring from Your Face, cut by the blows of the soldiers!  Your
eyes are swollen and filled with tears… not from physical pain, but from the much greater
agony of seeing Your Love rejected.

Precious Jesus, the thorns are piercing Your head, streams of Blood run down into Your Beautiful Eyes.  Your whole Face is red with Your Precious Blood. You can no longer be recognized. You are truly the Man of Sorrows.

O my God, they have even spit in Your Face! What an abomination!  Yet, You endure it for me.  You endure it so that You will not have to spend eternity without me. You are thinking:  Anything, if only she will love Me. No pain is too great, no humiliation too much, only that she may love Me and be Mine forever. I endure all for Love, for I AM LOVE.
____________________________________________________________________________

The above is true, but it does not even begin to approach the reality of the Love Jesus Christ bears for each one of us.  When we contemplate His Passion, and meditate on the humiliation, suffering, torture, rejection, hatred, physical agony and more that He suffered for us, there is one thing that we can spare Him…..not loving Him in return.

Oh, let us love Him, let us love Him and cling to Him this week, so that we will know that 2000 years ago when He went to the Cross for us, He Saw Us Loving Him Now, and that is how the angel comforted Him in Gethsemane, and that is why He found the strength to struggle to His feet again after He had fallen. Your love, my love, our love consoled Him long before we were born, for He saw that we would accept His Mercy and allow Him to wash away our sins in the River of Divine Blood that flowed on that Day.

During this Holy Week, let us implore His Mercy for those who do not know, do not yet love Him.  Through the intercession of our Sweet Mother of Sorrows, may our number multiply, that Jesus, so long ago may see from His Cross, countless souls standing beneath the Blood and Water which flowed from His Side…..

He knew us, even as He was dying for our sins.  He knew that we would claim Him as our Savior and King.  He was consoled by our love.

But how much do we love Him?  It is not too late, even now, to tenderly kiss that disfigured Holy Face…..once betrayed by a kiss.  To kiss with love and tenderness the Face of God.

And as He never forgot Mary anointing Him with fragrant perfume, or Veronica wiping His Face with her veil, neither will He forget you.

We are all in that crowd watching.  What will we do?

How much do we dare to love JESUS?

May I behold Your Glorious Face in Heaven……

Tuesday is the Feast of the Holy Face of Jesus.  It always falls on Shrove Tuesday before Ash Wednesday.  (Appropriate, considering the grevious sins committed during Mardi Gras.)

Jesus appeared to a Carmelite nun, Sister Mary of St. Peter, in Tours, France during the 1840’s, and requested devotion to His Holy Face in order to make reparation for the blasphemies and outrages committed by unbelievers, and for the profanation of Sundays by Christians.

“Oh, you who are My friends, and My faithful children, look and see if there be any sorrow like mine. Everywhere My enemies despise and insult both my Eternal Father and My Church, the cherished Spouse of My Heart. Will no one rise up to console Me by defending the glory of My Father, and the honor of My Spouse, which has been so cruelly attacked? I can no longer remain in the midst of a people that will continue to be so heedless and so ungrateful. Look at the torrents of tears that stream from My eyes! Can I find no one to wipe away these tears by making reparation to My Father, and imploring forgiveness for the guilty?”

Jesus entrusted to Sister Mary of St. Peter an act of praise and reparation which He called The Golden Arrow, saying that those who would recite this prayer would pierce His Heart delightfully, and heal those other wounds inflicted on Him by the malice of sinners. It is recommended to be prayed on the 33 beads of the Holy Face Chaplet (or rosary beads may be used.)

MAY THE MOST HOLY, MOST SACRED, MOST ADORABLE, MOST INCOMPREHENSIBLE AND UNUTTERABLE 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.

_________________________________

Perhaps today, as we prepare for the beginning of Lent, we can console the Heart of Jesus by meditating on His Holy Face, and the sufferings endured by that Divine Countenance….the blows, the spittle, the piercing of thorns, and even the plucking of His beard from His cheeks…as the Scripture tells us.

Oh what cruelties were endured by our Gentle Jesus, who could have annihilated His torturers in an instant, but instead submitted with perfect humility and obedience for love of you….and me.

Let us remember His falls beneath the heavy Cross, which caused His Holy Face to be pressed into dirt and rocks, no doubt causing the agony of additional cuts and bruises.

If we contemplate His Suffering Face, His Wounded and Bleeding Face, His Beaten and Tortured Face here in our exile, surely the day will come when He will reveal to us that Most Beautiful and Glorious Face which will be our Beatitude for all eternity.

__________________________________

O Jesus, Whose adorable Face ravishes 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 behold Thy Glorious Face in Heaven.  (St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face)