Blasphemy against Our Lord now seems to have reached the inverted crescendo of debauchery reflecting the depths of hell in the opening ceremony of the French Olympic’s obscene mockery of the Last Supper of Christ. I cannot stomach repeating a description of the revolting display that was acted out in an anti-christian spirit that perhaps surpassed that of the French Revolution in it’s world-wide scope.
What does blasphemy has to do with the Face of God, and what should be the response of all Christians?
God has a Face and a Holy Name in Jesus Christ. When God became man at the Incarnation, He showed us His human face in Jesus. The Hebrew term “panim” means both to see the Face of God, or to be in His Holy Presence, as well as a term that describes relationship. Through the Face of Jesus we enter into relationship with God. 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. Blasphemy is rejecting the tender love God offers to mankind in His Son Jesus, and in effect, attacking and spitting in His Face.
Because of this relationship between God and man — reflected in the name of Jesus and His Holy 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. All of which was demonstrated in the satanic display at the Olympic opening ceremony.
Our relationship with God as it should be is lovingly presented to mankind in the first three of the Ten Commandments that relate to God Himself:
I AM THE LORD THY GOD: THOU SHALT NOT HAVE STRANGE GODS BEFORE ME.
THOU SHALL NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE LORD THY GOD IN VAIN.
KEEP THE SABBATH HOLY.
According to Catholic Church teaching, the first commands: faith, hope, love and worship of God; reverence for holy things; prayer; and forbids: idolatry; superstition; spiritism; tempting God; sacrilege; and attendance at false worship. The second commands: reverence in speaking about God and holy things; the keeping of oaths and vows. It forbids: blasphemy; the irreverent use of God’s name; speaking disrespectfully of holy things; false oaths and the the breaking of vows. The third commands: going to church on Sundays and holy days of obligation. It forbids missing church through one’s own fault; unnecessary servile work on Sunday and holy days of obligation.
The sins, however, 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.
Left: Photo of the Holy Face of Manoppello / On the Right: Judas betraying Jesus with a Kiss. Painting by Hans Holbein Photo: Paul Badde/EWTN
If you would like to console Jesus, uniting to Him in His suffering, our bishops have suggested attending Mass with reverence, as well as spending time in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. In addition, prayers of reparation may be found clicking the “Prayers” tab. The damage done by the sins of humanity to our precious relationship with God, which are reflected in the Face of Jesus Christ, are in need of repair. For this reason, devotion and reparation to the Holy Face and the Holy Name are fitting in order to make amends for what humanity has done to Him.
“For God so loved the world”
“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.” –Words of Our Lord to Bl. Mother Maria Pierina de Micheli
The Veronica Veil
The Golden Arrow Prayer, is a prayer given by Our Lord to Sr. Marie St. Pierre, OCD, to be prayed in atonement for the sins of blasphemy against God’s name–As those sins are like a ‘poisoned dart’ continually wounding Our Lord’s Sacred Heart, Sr. Marie St. Pierre saw in a vision that this “Golden Arrow Prayer” had the power to wound His Heart delightfully:
“May the most holy, most adorable, most incomprehensible and ineffable Name of God be forever 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.”
Be a “Veronica” by wiping the spittle from the Face of Our Lord, and He will restore His Image in your soul. Click here to learn “What does it mean to be a Veronica?”
“With the Virgin Mary embrace your beloved. He is yours.” ~St. Elizabeth of the Trinity
“My desire is to dwell in Your Hearth of love
In the radiance of the brightness of Your Face
and to live on You alone.” ~St. Elizabeth of the Trinity
(Detail) painting by Hans Holbein the elder.
There can be no dispute that we live in evil times. The face of the Bride of Christ has been defiled and disfigured horribly by the Church’s own members, who by blasphemy, spit in the Face of Christ, and prefer their own wicked idols to the one, true, and living God. There is no need to enumerate the offenses against God, and it is useless to bemoan them. There is, however, a remedy for the offense which is in our own power: to restore what has been defiled, by turning back to His Face, and as a bride has eyes only for her husband, to have eyes only for Jesus.
St. Elizabeth of the Trinity
It has been said that God raises up saints for a particular time in history as a remedy the evils of that time. Recently canonized, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, is such a saint. She tells us what it means to be “a bride of Christ”:
“To be a bride means to have eyes only for Him… our heart wholly taken over, wholly possessed, as if it has passed out of itself and into Him, our soul filled with His soul, filled with His prayer, our whole being captivated and given.
To be “a bride of Christ” is to rest from everything in Him, and to allow Him to rest from everything in our soul!
To be “the bride of Christ”…is to have all rights over His Heart…It’s a heart-to-heart exchange for a whole lifetime…It’s living with…always with…”
O my beloved Christ, crucified by love, I wish to be a bride for Your Heart; I wish to cover You with glory; I wish to love You–even unto death.”
Veronica’s Veil by Hans Memling
St. Elizabeth of the Trinity wrote that God has created human beings in His image and likeness to be able to contemplate Himself in His creatures. When we, in turn, are contemplating Christ, we become all His. His image and likeness is restored in us. Like the veil of St. Veronica, the imprint of His Face will remain upon our souls.
Then, the Most Holy Trinity must become our home, she says, that we must never leave. St. Elizabeth accomplished this by surrendering herself to God’s perfect will completely, keeping her soul in silence and peace, docile to the touch of the Holy Spirit in each moment, and keeping her gaze on God.
St. Elizabeth of The Trinity, Discalced Carmelite nun
“It is Your continual desire to associate Yourself with Your creatures…How can I better satisfy Your desire than by keeping myself simply and lovingly turned towards You, so that You can reflect Your own image in me, as the sun is reflected through pure crystal? …We will be glorified in the measure in which we will have been conformed to the image of His divine Son. So, let us contemplate this adored Image, let us remain unceasingly under it’s radiance so that it may imprint itself on us.” –Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity, O.C.D.
The face of the Bride of Christ will become beautiful once again, one person at a time, when each becomes a “praise of glory” like St. Elizabeth, reflecting the light on the Face of Christ to others. “A soul united to Jesus is a living smile that radiates Him and gives Him!”
Our souls will be glorified in the measure in which they will have been conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. In order to be conformed to Him, we must know Him through prayer, as St. Elizabeth did, by first becoming aware of His Divine indwelling in her soul.
“A praise of glory is a soul that gazes on God in faith and simplicity; it is a reflector of all that He is; it is like a bottomless abyss into which He can flow and expand; it is also like a crystal through which He can radiate and contemplate all His perfections and His own splendor. A soul which permits the divine Being to satisfy in itself His need to communicate all that He is and all that He has.”
Young Elizabeth Catez
“The Word will imprint in your soul, as in a crystal, the image of His own beauty, so that you may be pure with His purity, luminous with His light.”
“May the Father fill you with great largesse, May the Word imprint Himself in the center of your heart, and may the Spirit of love consume you unceasingly.” ~St. Elizabeth of the Trinity
Illumina Domine Blog - Devotion to The Holy Face 