Important Update: The Message of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV For the 60th World Day of Social Communications has recently been published by the Vatican addressing “The Preservation of Human Voices and Faces” — made in the image and likeness of God:

“Dear Brothers and Sisters, Our faces and voices are unique distinctive features of every person; they reveal a person’t own unrepeatable identity and are the defining elements of every encounter with others. The ancients understood this well. To define the human person, the Ancient Greeks used the word “face” (prosopon), because it expresses etymologically what is before one’s gaze, the place of presence and relationship. The Latin term “person” (from personage), on the other hand , evokes the idea of sound: not just any sound, but the unmistakable sound of someone’s voice… Faces and voices are sacred. God, who created us in his image and likeness, gave them to us when he called us to life through the Word he addresses to us. This Word resounded down the centuries through the voices of the prophets, and then became flesh in the fullness of time. We too have heard and seen this Word. (cf. 1 Jn 1:1-3) — in which God communicates his very self to us — because it has been made known to us in the voice and face of Jesus, the Son of God…” (Click here to read Pope Leo’s beautiful document in its entirety.)

I can’t think of a better invitation “to seek the Face of God” in this 2026 Novena of the Holy Face! As Pope Leo XIV stressed in his letter, “The stakes are high.” In a world with AI, our relationship with God can be at stake.

Therefore, “Come apart for a little while and seek the Face of God.”

~St. Anselm

“It is the Church’s task to reflect the light of Christ in every historical period, to make His Face shine also before the generations of the new millennium.  Our witness, however, would be hopelessly inadequate if we ourselves had not first contemplated His Face.”

–Pope St. John Paul II

The first day of the Holy Face Novena will begin on Sunday, February 8th–nine days of prayer leading up to the Feast day of the Holy Face on Tuesday, February 17, 2026–and will be posted here for each day. 

The Feast day of the Holy Face always falls on “Shrove Tuesday” which is the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday.

“Do you see how I suffer? Yet, very few understand me. Those who say they love me are very ungrateful! I have given my HEART as the sensible object of my great LOVE to men and I give my FACE as the sensible object of my sorrow for the sins of men. I wish that it be venerated by a special Feast on Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday. I wish that the feast be preceded by a novena in which the faithful make reparation with Me, joining together and sharing in my sorrow.” –Words of Our Lord to Bl. Mother Maria Pierina de Micheli  (1890-1945)

Another holy nun, Sr. Marie St. Pierre (1816-1848) of Tours, France, was given revelations about devotion to the Face of Jesus. She received communications from Our Lord, who asked for a devotion to His Holy Face and a Work of Reparation: the offering His Holy Face to the Father in reparation for the sins of blasphemy, sacrilege, the crimes of atheistic communism, the profanation of the Holy Name, and the Holy Day of Sunday. The sins against the first three Commandments of the Ten Commandments are the greatest sins against God. The damage done by our sins to our relationship with God are reflected in the Face of of His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ. For this reason, devotion and reparation to the Holy Face is fitting in order to make amends for what we have done to Him.

Our Lord said to her, “I have taken upon my Head all the sins of mankind, so that my members may be spared. Therefore, offer my Face to the Father, this is the means of appeasing Him.”

“My daughter, I give you my Face and my Heart, I give you my Blood, and I open my wounds to you; draw from them and pour it out. Buy without money, my Blood that is the price of souls. Oh! What grief for my Heart to see the remedies which have cost me so dearly, scorned. Ask from my Father as many souls as the number of drops of Blood that I shed during my Passion.”

“All who will undertake this work and who will truly devote themselves to it will not die the eternal death. I will defend their cause before my Father and I will give them the kingdom of Heaven.” 

“This work is the essence of charity!” — Our Lord to Sr. Marie St. Pierre

The Holy Face Novena will be posted here each day. For those who follow this blog, an email will be sent each day of the Novena. There are several Holy Face novenas that may be found on the Novena “tab” above — some short, some longer, — but, all very good, and a wonderful preparation for Lent. Thank you for joining in the Holy Face Novena for 2026 — and for wiping away blasphemy with love! Like the story of the legendary St. Veronica, the compassionate woman who in performed a beautiful act of love for Jesus, may our souls be transformed into His image, and His Holy Name be glorified forever!

Click here if you would like to read a little of the History of images of the Holy Face.

“To contemplate The Face of Christ, and to contemplate it with Mary, is the “program” which I have set before The Church at the dawn of the third millennium…To contemplate Christ involves being able to recognize Him wherever He manifests Himself, in His many forms of presence, but above all, in the living Sacrament of His Body and Blood.”

Pope St. John Paul II

“The Reparation is a Work destined to save society.”  Pope Pius I

Stanza 11 of St. Therese’s Poem “Living on Love”

To live on Love is to wipe your Face

It is to obtain forgiveness from sinners

O God of Love! may they come into your grace

And may they bless your name forever…

Until my heart resounds blasphemy

to erase it, I always want to sing:

“Your Sacred Names, I adore it and I Love it

I live on Love!…”