Devotion to the Holy Face

Held in His Gaze – Benedictines and The Holy Face of Christ

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"Holy Face of Tours"
“Holy Face of Tours”

The Feast of St. Benedict on July 11th always reminds me of his Benedictine sons and daughters and their special devotion to the Face of Jesus. Certainly, all Benedictines make the Face of Christ in the Church shine through their beautiful liturgy. But, a few in particular come to mind when recalling the Holy Face.  It was the Benedictines of Perpetual Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament, who through the influence of St. Gertrude the Great, gave the Carmelite Monastery in Tours, France reproductions of the Holy Face, in 1851 from the Basillica in Rome.  This is the image most closely associated with Carmelite Sr. Marie St. Pierre, who received the revelation of Devotion to the Holy Face, the Holy Man of Tours, Leo Du Pont, who devoted his life to promoting the devotion and of course, St. Therese of the Child Jesus and The Holy Face.

St. Gertrude, one of the great mystics of the 13th century and the only female Saint to be called “the Great,” was known for her special devotion to the Face of Christ.  It was written that she wept each time she recalled the sorrowful vision of Our Lord in which she saw Him so severely disfigured by the executioners that her heart was filled with bitter grief.  “Tell me, O Lord,” exclaimed St. Gertrude, “the remedy that can soothe the sufferings of Thy Divine Face.” Jesus replied: “If anyone meditates upon My sufferings with tenderness and compassion, his heart will be to Me as a soothing balm for these wounds.”

St. Gertrude often saw the Face of Jesus, in meditation, resplendent as the sun, illuminating priests, inflaming the devout and converting sinners. When she asked why the Face of Our Lord shone like the sun, and Jesus explained: “Like the sun, My Countenance illuminates, warms and fructifies.”

St. Gertrude the Great
St. Gertrude the Great

On another occasion when St. Gertrude was making reparation to the Adorable Face, wounded and disfigured, she asked Jesus for a special grace for those who would practice devotion to His Holy Face. Jesus gave St. Gertrude this promise: “All those who meditate frequently on the vision of My Divine Face, attracted by the desires of love, shall receive within them, through My Humanity, a bright ray of My Divinity, which shall enlighten their inmost souls so that they shall reflect the light of My Countenance in a special manner throughout eternity.”

St. Mechtilde, a contemporary of St. Gertrude, was also devoted to the Holy Face. She once exclaimed to her sisters, “Let us all, full of holy desire, hasten to venerate the sweetest Countenance of Our Lord, which will in Heaven be our all – all that a glorified soul can desire.” St. Mechtilde had once asked Our Lord to grant that those who celebrate the memory of His sweet Face should never be deprived of His amiable company. Jesus replied, “Not one of them shall be separated from Me.” Jesus then pronounced this blessing: “The splendor of My Countenance will be their eternal rejoicing.” 

Bl. Columba Marmion
Bl. Columba Marmion

The other day I “accidentally” picked up a book, by an Irish Benedictine, while looking for a something else on my bookcase: “Union With God”, Letters of Spiritual Direction by Blessed Columba Marmion.” Remembering this book as a treasure of wise counsel and never one to resist opening and re-reading “just a few pages,”which ended up being most of the book, my eyes fell these words of Bl. Marmion, reminding me of God’s gaze upon us, working wonders in our souls as we gaze at Him:  “God’s mercy is infinite like God Himself.  If we lay open our soul to Him with all its infirmities and sins.  His Divine gaze goes into the most hidden recess and brings us strength and light.” 

Bl. Marmion writes that our relationship with God hinge upon two things; our walking in the truth of our nature as creatures, who remain always in humble adoration before our Creator, and our dignity as children of God: “Our adoption as children supposes that we act always as loving children towards our Heavenly Father, constantly seeking his good pleasure: “Seek His Face evermore.”  This Facies Dei, Face of God, is the smile of His loving approbation. If you always keep the truth of this twofold relation, you will be more and more fixed in truth and in peace.”  “Look your Heavenly Father in the face, and show him your soul in bare truth,” Bl. Marmion advises, “…do not  forget that He is God the Infinite!  The love of the creature, in order to be true, must be the love of adoration; the Sacred Humanity of Jesus stands before the face of the Father in the reverence of infinite love: “He shall be FILLED with the spirit of fear of the Lord.”  and he goes on, “If you keep the eye of your soul fixed upon God alone, you will receive many graces.”  Bl. Marmion writes too, of gazing at God in faith;  “It is good sometimes, when alone with God, to stretch out our hands to Him and look at Him in faith showing Him the depths of our soul that His eye may penetrate into those abysses that are hidden in the recesses of the heart.  Then our prayer is pure and very powerful,  for the child gazes into the Father’s face, seeking this face, that is to say His good pleasure:  “Seek ye the Lord, seek His face EVERMORE.”  

I will end with these  beautiful and inspired words of hope for the Feast of St. Benedict by Dom Mark Kirby of Silverstream Priory:

“The Sacred Name and Sacred Face of Jesus are fire and light in this world that is becoming colder and darker by the day.  In the end, the darkness will be forever vanquished by the fire of His Name and by the light of His Face, and then there shall be peace in His Kingdom fully revealed, and in the company of His Saints who will sing praise to His Name and adore His Face, shining more brightly than a thousand suns, and this unto the ages of ages.”  –Dom Mark Kirby, OSB

Happy Feast of St. Benedict!  May His Face shine upon all Benedictines!

"Il Volto Santo" Holy Face of Manoppello, Italy
“Il Volto Santo” Holy Face of Manoppello, Italy

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Bl. Mother Teresa and The Merciful Face of Jesus

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Mother Teresa source: Flicker
Mother Teresa
photo: Flicker

“Seeking the Face of God in everything, everyone, all the time, and His hand in every happening; This is what it means to be contemplative in the heart of the world.  Seeing and adoring the presence of Jesus, especially in the lowly appearance of bread, and in the distressing disguise of the poor.”  –Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Many Catholic faithful are hoping and praying for the possible canonization of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta during The Holy Year for Mercy. During the upcoming Jubilee Year of Mercy Pope Francis wants us to “Keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and his merciful gaze, that we may experience the love of the Most Holy Trinity.”  He calls us to be merciful to others and reflect on the corporal and spiritual works of mercy as a way of awakening our conscience and enter more deeply into the heart of the Gospel so that “we become merciful just as our heavenly Father is merciful.” (Lk 6:36)

Blessed Mother Teresa, by her heroic life’s witness of seeking the Face of Christ in the “distressing disguise of the poor,” perfectly exemplified how Christians can live the works of mercy. When someone would ask her what they could do to serve, she was known for taking the person’s hand and touching each finger, she would say, “You-did-it-to-me.” “I was hungry and you gave me to eat, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me. Whatever you did to the least of my brethren, you did it to me.”

Blessed Mother Teresa’s example points out to us the primary task of the Church, which, as Pope Francis urges us, is to be “a herald of mercy,” “especially at a moment full of great hopes and signs of contradiction, to introduce everyone to the great mystery of God’s mercy by contemplation of the Face of Christ.”

The greatest desire of Bl. Mother Teresa was “to satiate the thirst of Jesus by serving him in the poorest of the poor.” Though suffering spiritual darkness in her own soul, she allowed the blazing brilliance of Christ’s love to radiate through her face to others and she sought continually Jesus’ face in those she served. In photograph after photograph of Mother Teresa we can see her looking intensely into the faces of children, the poor, the sick and the dying, while tenderly caressing their faces, searching in their face for the face of her beloved, Jesus.  Pope Francis tells us, “We must embrace with tender affection the whole of humanity, especially the poorest, the weakest, the least important, those whom Matthew lists in the final judgment on love: the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and those in prison. “ (Mt 25:31) “To love God and neighbor is not something abstract, but profoundly concrete: it means seeing in every person the face of the Lord to be served, to serve him concretely. And you, dear brothers and sisters are the face of Jesus!”

Blessed Mother Teresa heroically carried out the corporal and spiritual works of mercy by being the Merciful Face of Christ to others and by seeing the Merciful Face of Christ in others. Pope Benedict XVI has characterized devotion to the Holy Face as having three separate components:

The first element is discipleship and orientation of one’s life towards an encounter with Jesus, to see Jesus in the face of those in need. In order to do this, believers first need to become better acquainted with Jesus through the Eucharist.  Mother Teresa’s whole being was directed toward this encounter with Jesus in the poor.

Image of Jesus crucified which hung in Mother Teresa's room. It was one of her last sights before dying.
Image of Jesus crucified which hung in Mother Teresa’s room. It was one of her last sights before dying.

The second element is relating to the Passion of Jesus, and the suffering expressed by the images of the wounded Face of Jesus, relating this to the Eucharistic experience. This image of Jesus Crucified hung on the wall of Mother Teresa’s room in Calcutta. It was one of her last sights before dying. She identified completely with the Crucified Jesus. “Jesus, I love with my whole heart, with my whole being, I have given Him all, even my sins, and He has espoused me to Himself in tenderness and love. Now and for life I am the spouse of my Crucified Spouse.”

The third element, the Eucharist, is woven between the other two. The eschatological element then builds on awakening to Christ by contemplating His face in the Eucharist. The Eucharist was central to Mother Teresa’s mission.  “Seek him in the tabernacle. Fix your eyes on Him who is the Light. Bring your hearts close to His Divine Heart and ask Him to grant you the grace of knowing Him.”  She insisted that each Missionary of Charity begin their day in prayerful silence before the Eucharistic Face of Jesus from Whom they drew the strength to serve the poor.

“Jesus gives us two faces,” Pope Francis says, “actually only one real face, that of God reflected in many faces, because in the face of each brother, especially the smallest, the most fragile, the defenseless and the needy, there is God’s own image.  And we must ask ourselves: when we meet one of these brothers, are we able to recognize the face of God in him?”  

If we hope one day to see the Face of God we must open our eyes to our neighbor.  Pope Benedict XVI has said, “closing our eyes to our neighbor also blinds us to God.”

Bl. Mother Teresa, pray for us, help to recognize the Face of Jesus and carry out the “Works of Mercy,” so that we too may contemplate “the Living Face of Christ’s Mercy.”

The Corporal Works of Mercy           The Spiritual Works of Mercy

Feed the Hungry                                              Teach the ignorant

Give Drink to the thirsty                                 Pray for the living and the dead

Clothe the naked                                              Correct sinners

Shelter the homeless                                       Counsel those in doubt

Comfort the prisoners                                     Console the sorrowful

Visit the sick                                                      Bear wrongs patiently

Bury the dead                                                    Forgive wrongs willingly

Radiating Christ by Bl. John Henry Cardinal Newman was one of Mother Teresa’s favorite prayers…

Dear Jesus, help me to spread your fragrance every I go.

Flood my soul with your Spirit and Life.

Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that my life may only be a radiance of Yours.

Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul.

Let them look up, and see no longer me, but only Jesus!

Stay with me and then I will begin to shine as You shine, so to shine as to be a light to others.

The light, O Jesus, will be all from You; none of it will be mine.

It will be You, shining on others through me.

Let me thus praise You in the way You love best, by shining on those around me.

Let me preach You without preaching, not by words but by example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fullness of the love my heart bears for You.  Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

Idol – “A face which is not a face”

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“Be on your guard against idols.” (1 John 5:21)

Adoration of the Golden Calf by Nicholas Poussin
Adoration of the Golden Calf by Nicholas Poussin

The first at the top of the list of The Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai is: “I am the Lord, Thy God: thou shall not have strange gods before me.”  The people of Israel do not want to endure waiting to see the Face of God,  and so fashion an idol, a Golden Calf, the “work of their hands”, which they can see.  But, “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.” (Heb 11:1) Idol worship is the opposite of faith.

We no longer live in a time where people worship an idol as a Golden Calf, but the world certainly worships an array of “strange gods.” The Dictionary gives many definitions of an idol: 1. An image used as an object of worship. 2. A false god. 3. One that is adored, often blindly or excessively.  But, the definition that fits better than these is one that was used in the Encyclical Letter Lumen Fidei, “Martin Buber once cited a definition of idolatry proposed by the rabbi of Kock: idolatry is “when a face addresses a face which is not a face”.

How do we recognize these false faces for what they are?  First, in order to recognize what is false, we need to know what is true. Pope Emeritus Benedict said, “While we too seek other signs, other wonders, we do not realize that He is the real sign, God made flesh; He is the greatest miracle of the universe: all the love of God hidden in a human heart, in a human face.” In other words, we need to seek the face of God by looking at the face of Jesus Christ, who is the Truth. “God… has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the Face of Christ.” (2 Cor 4:6) At The Incarnation,  God became man to redeem us and now God’s Face can be seen: the Son of God, made man and He is given a name; the all-powerful name of Jesus, at whose Name every knee shall bend.

It is an interesting fact that false faces, or idols, go hand-in-hand with a false name.   Euthanasia is re-named “Mercy,” Abortion – “Compassion,” Sexually disordered actions – “Love,” murder, rape and beheading are carried out in the name of “Religion” and the media now turns its adulation to man named Bruce, who is re-named “Caitlyn.”  Bruce Jenner, through surgery, cosmetics, and a multitude of other deceptions now has the appearance of a glamorous female, “Caitlyn.”  This particular idol is unmasked  in the article “Pretty Little Lies” by Lauren Enk Mann, who points out that this is how the devil, the father of lies, by appearing as an angel of light, deceives humanity.  But, the reality is, “Lies are ugly things, but the point of a lie is that lies hide their true face; they don’t seem ugly, but attractive and appealing.”  The full article may be found here:  http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Blog/3924/pretty_little_lies_on_the_idolness_of_bruce_jenner.aspx

Our true identity is that we are made in the image and likeness of God and we must resemble Him in the end.  Truth leads us to life. The false name and “the face which is not a face” erase the identity of the human person and leave something which is horrible in it’s place: an idol, which leads to death. Truth and faithfulness go together, therefore we must seek always and everywhere what is true, live in truth and lead others to truth in charity, in order to  see the Face of God.

“We also know the Son of God has come and has given us discernment to know the one who is true.  And we are in the one who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ.  He is the true God and eternal life. Children, be on your guard against idols.” (1 John 5:20-21)

Christ Pantocrator, St. Catherine Monastery, Sinai
Christ Pantocrator, St. Catherine Monastery, Sinai

 

 

 

 

 

Contemplation and Praise of The Trinity through the Face of Christ

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The mystery of the Trinity is the beginning and end of all revealed truth. We are baptized in

Sr. Lucia's vision of The Trinity at Tuy
Sr. Lucia’s vision of The Trinity at Tuy

the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and our souls enter into relationship with each of the Three Divine Persons.  We are daughters and sons of the Father, brothers, sisters and co-heirs with the Son and sanctified by the Holy Spirit continually to make us resemble Jesus Christ.

But, how can we contemplate something so great as the Holy Trinity when we are such lowly creatures?  St. Teresa wrote that  she was “amazed at seeing so much majesty in a thing as lowly as my soul;” then Our Lord said to her: “It is not lowly, my daughter, because it is made in my own image.”  This should give us the courage to come in prayer before The Most Holy Trinity through Jesus Christ, through whose human face God chose to reveal Himself to us.

"Show us...Your Face, that mirror mystery-laden, of God's infinite mercy."--Pope Benedict XVI
“Show us…Your Face, that mirror mystery-laden, of God’s infinite mercy.”–Pope Benedict XVI Photo: Paul Badde

 

Words are not needed, we need only rejoice in the splendor of His Face. Pope Benedict XVI tells us, “To rejoice in the splendor of His Face means penetrating the mystery of His Name made known to us in Jesus, understanding something of His interior life and of His Will, so that we can live according to His plan for humanity.  Jesus lets us know the hidden Face of the Father through His human Face; by the gift of the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts.” 

We rejoice in the splendor of His Face as we gaze at Him, and while we gaze at Him, He gazes at us: “How beautiful is this gaze of Jesus – How much tenderness is there!” says Pope Francis.  Pope Francis urges us to reflect on Jesus gaze upon us: “How is Jesus looking at me?

Pope Francis adoring The Eucharistic Face of Christ
Pope Francis adoring The Eucharistic Face of Christ

With a call? With a pardon?  With a mission? But on the path He created, all of us are being looked at  by Jesus.  He always looks at us with love.  He asks us something, he forgives us for something and he gives us a mission… May each one of us think: ‘Lord, You are here, among us.  Fix your gaze on me and tell me what I must do:  how I must repent for my mistakes, my sins; what courage do I need to go forward on the path that You first created.”   St. John of the Cross says the gaze of God is active, “for God’s gaze is to love and to work favors.  His Gaze is love and love does things.  God’s gaze works four blessings in the soul: it cleanses her, makes her beautiful, enriches her and enlightens… making her like Himself.”

By this mutual gaze of love between the Face of God and the soul man, God restores His Image in our souls where, incredibly, He chooses to dwell.  In The Spiritual Canticle, St. John of the Cross exclaims “O, then, most beautiful soul who dost so much desire to know the place where your Beloved is in order to seek him and to be united with him, He tells you now that you yourself are the abode wherein He dwells, and the closet and hiding place where He is hidden.  It is a matter of great contentment and joy for you to see that all your good and all your hope are so near that you cannot be without them.  ‘Behold’ says the Spouse, ‘the kingdom of God is within you’ (Luke 17:21), and his servant the Apostle Paul says: ‘We are the temple of the living God’ (2 Cor 6:16).”

Divine Mercy in the waters of Baptism
Divine Mercy in the waters of Baptism when the Holy Trinity comes to dwell in the soul.

St. Elizabeth of the Trinity on receiving news of the baptism of her niece, wrote to her sister, “I feel full respect, for this little temple of the Blessed Trinity…If I were near her I would kneel down to adore him who dwells within her.”

Prayer to The Holy Trinity by St. Elizabeth of the Trinity

“My God, Blessed Trinity!  Draw from my poor being what most contributes to your glory, and do with me what you wish both now and in eternity.  May I no longer place between us any voluntary hindrance to your transforming action… Second, by second, with a forever ‘actual’ intention, I desire to offer you all that I am and all that I have.  Make my poor life, in intimate union with the Word Incarnate, an unceasing sacrifice of glory to the Blessed Trinity…

Discalced Camelite Nun - St. Elizabeth of The Trinity
Discalced Camelite Nun – St. Elizabeth of The Trinity

My God, how I wish to glorify you!  O, if only in exchange for my complete immolation, or for any other condition, it were in my power to enkindle the hearts of all your creatures and the whole of creation in the flames of your love, how I would desire to do so!  May at least my poor heart belong to you completely, may I keep nothing for myself not for creatures, not even a single heartbeat.  May I have a burning love for all mankind, but only with you, through you and for you… I desire above all to love you with the heart of Saint Joseph, with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and with the adorable Heart of Jesus; and, finally, to submerge myself in that infinite ocean, that abyss of fire that consumes the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever.

O Jesus, who said:  ‘No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one whom the Son chooses to reveal him’ (Matt 11:27) ‘Show us the Father, and we will be satisfied!” (John 14:8)

And you, O Spirit of Love!  ‘Teach us all things’ (John 14:26) and ‘form Jesus with Mary in us’ (Gal 4:19) until we ‘become perfectly one; (John 17:23) in ‘the bosom of the Father’ (John 1:18).  Amen.

 

The Work of the Holy Spirit – restoring God’s Likeness

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Come Holy Spirit!
Come Holy Spirit!

“Disfigured by sin and death, man remains “in the image of God,” in the image of the Son, but is deprived “of the glory of God, of his likeness.” “… the Son himself will assume that “image” and restore it in the Father’s “likeness” by giving it again its Glory, the Spirit who is “the giver of life.”–CCC705

Mankind has separated itself from the love of the Father, like the prodigal son of the Gospel, man no longer wants to be the image of God, but the image of himself, which is a false image — not who God created us to be; his sons and daughters.  The Holy Spirit restores God’s likeness in us through the merciful face of Jesus.

In the letter, “Misericordiae Vultus” (Merciful Face) Pope Francis invokes the Holy Spirit by praying, “May the Holy Spirit, who guides the steps of believers in co-operating with the work of salvation wrought by Christ, lead the way and support the People of God so that they may contemplate the face of mercy.” 

"Jesus Christ is the Face of the Father's Mercy." -- Pope Francis
“Jesus Christ is the Face of the Father’s Mercy.” — Pope Francis

Pope St. John Paul II who dedicated the millennium to The Holy Face also prayed, ”May the Holy Spirit, which you have granted, bring to maturation your work of salvation, though your Holy Face, which shines forever and ever.”  Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI tells us that the Holy Spirit illuminates the reciprocity between God the Father and Jesus the Son: “Jesus has divine dignity and God has the human face of Jesus.  God shows himself in Jesus and by doing so gives us the truth about ourselves.”


The truth is that we are not God, our own image is a false one and we need the Holy Spirit “to restore his likeness” in us through Jesus, the King of Mercy.  By the mutual gaze of love between the Face of God and the soul of man, God restores his image in our souls.

At the first Pentecost the Holy Spirit manifested as fire.  Jesus said, “I come to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already enkindled.” (Lk 12:49)  The fire of the Holy Spirit blazes, but does not destroy when it burns.  The effect of the fire of the Holy Spirit is to purify, sanctify and transform us, through the Cross, into his image in truth and love and re-animating our souls with the Holy Spirit’s breath of life.

Burn within us, Holy Fire, so that chaste in body and pure of heart, we may desire to see the Face of God.

Mary, Spouse of the Holy Spirit
Mary, Spouse of the Holy Spirit

Prayer to Mary, Spouse of the Holy Spirit

Hail, Mother of Mercy, Mother of God, and Mother of pardon, Mother of hope, and Mother of grace, Mother of holy joy — O Mary!

Hail, happy Virgin Mother, for he who sits at the Father’s right hand and rules over the heavens, earth and sky, enclosed himself in your womb — O Mary!

The Uncreated Father made you, the Holy Spirit overshadowed you, the only begotten Son became man in you: divine was your making — O Mary!

Be our consolation; O Virgin, be our joy; and after this our exile bring us to our heavenly  home — O Mary!

–Salve, Mater Misericordiae

 

The Pope, the Poet, and the Year of Mercy

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IMG_1106

“Receiving mercy should ignite in us a fire of love, of longing to see His face…”

“We were all sinners till our latest hour
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
when light from Heaven made us wise to see
Our sins, and we repented and forgave,
Leaving our lives at last in peace with God,
Who now torments our hearts with the desire,
To see His Face. “
— Dante (Canto 5, lines 53-58)

Holy Face of Manoppello Photo: Paul Badde
Holy Face of Manoppello
Photo: Paul Badde

Pope Francis recently recommended the reading of Dante’s epic poem The Divine Comedy as a spiritual preparation for the Year of Mercy and seeking the Merciful Face of God.  For those who may not be up to reading an epic poem, but would still like to get the essence of Dante’s (and Pope Francis’) thoughts on mercy or for others who may be prompted to pick up and read The Divine Comedy if they had a little taste of it…  Here is Lauren Enk Mann’s article: The Pope, the Poet, and the Year of Mercy | Catholic World Report – Global Church news and views

Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis – Crisis Magazine

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C.S. Lewis
C.S. Lewis

Most people are familiar with C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia books, or The Screwtape Letters, but, very few have read his last, over-looked, and probably, most spiritually insightful work; Till We Have Faces.  Lauren Enk Mann has written an excellent article on Lewis’ book for Crisis Magazine which reveals the profound significance of our own struggle towards the ultimate goal, at the end of life’s pilgrimage – to see God face to face, something which we cannot do  “Till We Have Faces.” (Click below for the full article)

Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis – Crisis Magazine.

 

Pope Francis – Misericordiae Vultus (Merciful Face) Jubilee Year

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Pass through the Door of Mercy

“Whoever refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of my justice.” –Our Lord to St. Faustina, Divine Mercy in my Soul (1146)

"Jesus Christ is the Face of the Father's Mercy." -- Pope Francis
“Jesus Christ is the Face of the Father’s Mercy.” — Pope Francis

On April 11th, Divine Mercy Sunday of 2015, Pope Francis gave a great gift to all the people of the world: Misericordiae Vultus (Merciful Face).  The first lines of the document declaring an “Extraordinary Year of Mercy” are both profound and powerful, “Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy.  These words might well sum up the mystery of the Christian Faith.” In this beautiful letter (which can be read here) Pope Francis, the servant of the servants of God, extends to all who read it “Grace, Mercy and Peace.”

"The Holy Door" of St. Peter's Basilica
“The Holy Door” of St. Peter’s Basilica

The Holy Year will open on December 8, 2015, The Solemnity of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, highlighting God’s greatest mercy in the history of mankind. “When faced with the gravity of sin, God responds with the fullness of mercy” by choosing Mary to be the Mother of the Redeemer. The “Holy Doors” of Mercy will be opened beginning in Rome and then in Cathedrals and Co-Cathedrals throughout the world.  The Holy Doors “will become a Door of Mercy through which anyone who enters will experience the love of God who consoles, pardons and instils hope.”  The jubilee will close with the liturgical Solemnity of Christ the King, “the living face of God’s mercy” on the 20th of November 2016.  “On that day, as we seal the Holy Door, we shall be filled, above all with a sense of gratitude and thanksgiving to the Most Holy Trinity for having granted us an extraordinary time of grace.”

Come Holy Spirit
Come Holy Spirit

In the letter Pope Francis invokes the Holy Spirit by praying, “May the Holy Spirit, who guides the steps of believers in co-operating with the work of salvation wrought by Christ, lead the way and support the People of God so that they may contemplate the face of mercy.”  This prayer is an echo of the words of Pope St. John Paul II who prayed, ” May the Holy Spirit, which you have granted, bring to maturation your work of salvation, though your Holy Face, which shines forever and ever.”  and of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI who said, “The Face of Christ is the supreme revelation of Christ’s mercy.” 

During this Jubilee Year of Mercy Pope Francis wants us to “Keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and his merciful gaze, that we may experience the love of the Most Holy Trinity.”  He calls us to be merciful to others and reflect on the corporal and spiritual works of mercy as a way of awakening our conscience and enter more deeply into the heart of the Gospel so that “we become merciful just as our heavenly Father is merciful.” (Lk 6:36)

“Pilgrimage has a special place in the Holy Year because it represents the journey each of us makes in life.”  Pope Francis tells us that Jesus shows us the steps of the pilgrimage to attain out goal: “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.  For the measure you give will be the measure you get back.” (Lk 6:37-38) Pope Francis reminds us that Jesus asks us to “forgive and give.” “To be instruments of mercy because it was we who first received mercy from God.”

The season of Lent for the Jubilee Year will be a time to meditate on Sacred Scripture “to help rediscover the merciful Face of the Father.”  The Pope cites (Hos 11:5) speaking of the unfaithful people of God who deserved a just punishment and anger, in which the prophets speech “reveals the true face of God:”  “How can I give you up, O Ephraim!  How can I hand you over, O Israel!  How can I make you like Admah!  How can I treat you like Zeboilim!  My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender.  I will not execute my fierce anger, I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come to destroy.”  “Gods anger lasts but a moment, His mercy forever.”

The Holy Father also turns his gaze to the face of Mary, Mother of Mercy and our Mother, “May the sweetness of her countenance watch over us in this Holy Year, so that all of us may rediscover the joy of God’s tenderness.” Pope Francis asks us to address our Merciful Mother in the words of the Salve Regina (Hail, Holy Queen), “a prayer ever ancient and ever new, so that she may never tire of turning her merciful eyes toward us, and make us worthy to contemplate the face of mercy, her Son, Jesus.”

Sorrowful Mother
Sorrowful Mother

The primary task of the Church, Pope Francis urges us,  is to be “a herald of mercy,” “especially at a moment full of great hopes and signs of contradiction, is to introduce everyone to the great mystery of God’s mercy by contemplation of the Face of Christ.”

Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, "the living Face of God's Mercy."--Pope Francis
Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, “the living Face of God’s Mercy.”–Pope Francis

 

The Salve Regina or “Hail, Holy Queen”

Queen Beauty of Carmel
Queen Beauty of Carmel

Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope! To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears! Turn, then, O most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this, our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.

V. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God.
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

 

 

 

 

“The Face of Christ: …the supreme revelation of Christ’s Mercy.”

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“The Face of Christ is the supreme revelation of Christ’s mercy.”

–Pope Benedict XVI

Divine Mercy Jesus, I trust in You!
Divine Mercy
Jesus, I trust in You!

Pope St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, although differing in personality and charism, all have something in common, if we connect the pontifical dots… and the dots are: Mercy, the Face of God and Peace.

Beginning with Pope St. John Paul II, who established Divine Mercy Sunday, canonized St. Faustina, the Saint of Divine Mercy and wrote in an encyclical: “The Message of Divine Mercy has always been near and dear to me… which I took with me to the See of Peter and which in a sense, forms the image of this Pontificate.”

The message of Divine Mercy to the world began in 1931, when Our Lord appeared to a Polish nun, St. Faustina, in a vision.  She saw Jesus clothed in a white garment with His right hand raised in blessing.  His left was touching His garment in the area of His Heart, from where two large rays came forth, one red and the other pale. Jesus said to her:

Paint an image according to the pattern you see with the signature: Jesus I trust in You.  I promise that the soul that will venerate this image will not perish.  I also promise victory over [its] enemies already here on earth, especially at the hour of death.  I Myself will defend it as My own glory. (Diary, 47, 48) I am offering people a vessel with which they are to keep coming for graces to the fountain of mercy.  That vessel is this image with the signature: “Jesus, I trust in You” (327) I desire that this image be venerated, first in your chapel, and [then] throughout the world.

At the request of her spiritual director, St. Faustina asked the Lord about the meaning of the rays in the Image.  She heard these words in reply:

Divine Mercy in the waters of Baptism
Divine Mercy in the waters of Baptism

The two rays denote Blood and Water.  The pale ray stands for the Water which makes souls righteous.  The red ray stands for the Blood which is the life of souls.  These two rays issued forth from the depths of My tender mercy when my agonized Heart was opened by a lance on the Cross. …Happy is the one who will dwell in their shelter, for the just hand of God shall not lay hold of him (299). 

The image represents the graces of Divine Mercy poured out upon the world, especially through Baptism and the Eucharist.

Good Friday, the day on which Jesus died and “Blood and Water poured forth for souls” begins the first day of the Divine Mercy Novena, which ends on Divine Mercy Sunday, the second Sunday in Easter.  (The novena can be found here: http://thedivinemercy.org/message/devotions/novena.php)

Pope St. John Paul II died on April 2nd, the eve of Divine Mercy Sunday in 2002. Pope Benedict XVI recalled the words of Pope St. John Paul II at the dedication of the Divine Mercy Shrine in Krakow, Poland: “Outside the mercy of God there is no other source of hope for human beings.” Pope Benedict said, “His message, like St. Faustina’s, leads back to the face of Christ, the supreme revelation of God’s mercy. Constantly contemplating that face: This is the legacy that he has left us, which we welcome with joy and make our own.”

Pope Benedict XVI did indeed make the message of Divine Mercy his own, connecting it to devotion to the Holy Face.  He spoke again and again of the Holy Face of Jesus, “that mirror, mystery-laden of God’s infinite Mercy.”

"This Mercy of God, which has a concrete face, the Face of Jesus, the Risen Christ." --Pope Francis
“This Mercy of God, which has a concrete face, the Face of Jesus, the Risen Christ.” –Pope Francis

Continuing to “connect the dots,”  Pope Francis, on Divine Mercy Sunday 2013 said:

“Each one of us is invited to recognize in the fragile human being The Face of The Lord, who in human flesh, experienced the indifference and loneliness to which we often condemn the poorest, either in the developing nations or in the developed societies. Each child that is unborn, but is unjustly condemned to be aborted, bears the Face of Jesus Christ, bear the Face of The Lord, who even before he was born, and then soon as he was born experienced the rejection of the world. And also each old person and – I spoke of the child, let us speak of the elderly, even if infirm or at the end of his days, bears the Face of Christ. They cannot be discarded, as the “culture of waste proposes! They cannot be discarded!”

Pope Francis recently made the joyful announcement of a special Holy Year of Mercy, again relating the message of Mercy to the Face of God:

“Dear brothers and sisters, I have often thought about how the Church might make clear its mission of being a witness to mercy.  It is a journey that begins with a spiritual conversion.  For this reason, I have decided to call an extraordinary Jubilee that is to have the mercy of God at its center.  It shall be a Holy Year of Mercy.  We want to live this Year in the light of the Lord’s words: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” (cf. Lk 6:36)

This Holy Year will begin on this coming Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception and will end on November 20, 2016, the Sunday dedicated to Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe — and living face of the Father’s mercy.”

Jesus Christ, King of the Universe
Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

When the world turns to the merciful and glorious Face of God there will be peace, as Pope St. John Paul said in his prayer to the Holy Face:

“Holy Face, which looks at us and searches for us, kind and merciful, You who call us to conversion and invite us for the fullness of love, we adore and bless you.  In Your luminous Face, we learn to love and to be loved, to find freedom and reconciliation, to promote peace, which radiates from you and leads to you.” 

In Pope Benedict XVI’s homily on the World Day of Peace in 2013, he said that peace is “His [God’s] most sublime gift, in which He turns toward us the splendor of His Face.”

Come Holy Spirit
Come Holy Spirit

Let us pray that the fruit of the upcoming “Holy Year of Mercy” announced by Pope Francis will be peace, not as the world gives, but by the gift of The Holy Spirit poured into our hearts.”  This, Pope Benedict XVI said, is the foundation of our peace, which nothing can take from us.” 

“May the Lord bless and keep you; may He make His Face shine upon you and be merciful to you; may He turn His countenance toward you and grant you His PEACE!”

Peace! Holy Face of Manoppello, Italy Photo: Paul Badde
Peace! Holy Face of Manoppello, Italy Photo: Paul Badde

 

Jesus, in Thy Bitter Passion – Holy Thursday

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IMG_0294
Console Him

O Jesus, Who in Thy bitter Passion didst become “the most abject of men, a man of sorrows,” I venerate Thy Sacred Face whereon once there 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 souls of poor sinners by means of their infinite value.

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 come to the contemplation of Thy glorious Face in Heaven.  Amen.

–Prayer of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face.