Catholic News Agency recently reported an increasing number of acts of desecration of Catholic churches in France.  Tabernacles have been knocked down, the Eucharist scattered or destroyed, crosses torn down, altar cloths burnt…in other words: blasphemy.

When God became man at the Incarnation, He showed us His human face in Jesus Christ. Through the Face of Jesus we enter into relationship with God. He lets us know the hidden Face of the Father through His human Face, by the gift of the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts. Blasphemy is rejecting the tender love God offers to mankind, then attacking and spitting in His Face.

Because of this relationship between God and man — reflected in His Name and Face — sins committed against Him cause pain and suffering to His Sacred Heart, and are reflected in the Face of Christ. The manifestation of our sins on His Countenance come about through blasphemy, atheism, disrespect of God in sacred things, the profanation of Sunday, hatred of God’s Church.  These crimes, committed by those who do not know God, pale in comparison to the most horrible and destructive blasphemy which has been committed by those who should be closest to the Heart of Jesus, within the Church, who have betrayed Him. All these indignities suffered by Our Lord in His Face represent the most serious sins, because they are against God Himself.

The damage done by our sins to our precious relationship with God, reflected in the Face of Jesus Christ, needs reparation. For this reason, devotion and reparation to the Holy Face and the Holy Name are fitting in order to make amends for what we have done to Him.  If you would like to console Jesus, prayers of reparation may be found in the “Prayer tab” above. In addition, The Holy Face Novena for 2019 will be from Sunday, February 24 to Monday, March 4.  The Feast of the Holy Face  is then celebrated on “Shrove Tuesday” March 5, 2019 – the day before Ash Wednesday. The Novena prayers will be posted each day of the Novena on this website, or if you would like to receive each day’s novena prayer by e-mail, just click the “Follow” button.

“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