The Holy Face

Alberto Carosa on a powerhouse of holiness and grace

Is it just a coincidence that the most prominent promoters of the devotion to the Holy Face of Our Lord Jesus Christ are on the path to canonization? I think not. Given the countless graces and even miracles in the wake of this devotion, it is certainly worth knowing more about it.

First of all, how did the Feast of the Holy Face and its devotion come about? Well, it was established by Pius XII in 1958 on the day before Ash Wednesday.

Everything comes from the Lord's visions to Sister Marie de Saint Pierre (1816-1848) and to Blessed Maria Pierina de Micheli (1890-1945) Sister Marie de Saint Pierre died at the age of 31 after living in mortification for and reparation of offences against Jesus. In a vision of 1844, Jesus told her: “ Those who contemplate the wounds on my Face here on earth, will contemplate it resplendent with glory in Heaven!”

Another apostle of the Holy Face was Léon Papin Dupont (1797-1876), a kind of spiritual son of Sister Marie and proclaimed Venerable by Pius XII. He was in close contact with Carmel of Tours where Sister Marie de Saint Pierre received revelations from Heaven on devotion to the Holy Face. When Sister Marie died, Léon started to spread the devotion. On Holy Saturday 1851, a young woman suffering from a disease in her eyes went to Léon's house to pray in front of the image of a copy of Veronica's Veil and recovered after anointing her eyes with oil from a lamp. This first miraculous event was followed by many others.

Among the Apostles of the Holy Face there are also Mother Maria Pierina and the Venerable Father Ildebrando Gregori (1894-1985), her spiritual guide After Maria Pierina’s death, Father Ildebrando, although already engaged in various charitable initiatives for the poor and the needy, fulfilled this new task with great energy and passed it on as a charism to a Congregation of Benedictine nuns, the Reparatory Sisters of the Holy Face of Our Lord Jesus Christ (BRSV). He arranged for the same mission to be conferred on the Benedictine Sylvestrines, to whom the Father belonged and whom he directed as abbot for 20 years from 1945 to 1965. In addition to the Giulianova Monastery, they dedicated the Shrine of Bassano Romano and Clifton in the United States to the Holy Face.

Father Abbot Gregori had a medal struck, which did not fail to produce an impressive series of miracles. For example, according to his testimony, during the Second World War all those who had been given the Medal of the Holy Face, expressly approved by the Holy See, escaped death. By the will of Paul VI a copy of the medal was left on the moon by American astronauts. Pope Francis proclaimed Father Gregori Venerable on 7 November 2014.

In his apparitions to the t wo nuns, Jesus had also said that he would be pleased if his Holy Face could be honoured not only on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, but generally every Tuesday and especially on Tuesdays during Lent, a request that has become regular practice with the BRSV nuns in their convent of St Francis in Poggio Cinolfo, where as a rule on this day of each week the morning Mass is followed by Eucharistic adoration.

This convent might seem to be located in the middle of nowhere, but its importance as a hub for the dissemination of the devotion to the Holy Face ought not be underestimated, especially as it has the highly symbolic value of being situated in Poggio Cinolfo, the very place where the founder of BRSV, Venerable Abbott Gregori, was born.

Mother Pierina’s story reached its climax when Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed her Blessed on 30 May 2010. In one of her apparitions to Mother Pierina, on 31 May 1938, Our Lady had linked four supernatural promises to this devotion.

“All those who wear a scapular like this, and make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament every Tuesday, to offer reparation for the outrages that the Holy Face received in his painful passion and receives every day in the Eucharistic sacrament i) will be strengthened in faith, ii) be made ready to defend it, iii) will overcome interior and exterior difficulties, iv) moreover they will die of an unpainful death under the loving gaze of my divine Son”.

A more recent apostle of the Holy Face is Father Domenico da Cese (1905-1978). Born Emidio Petracca, his childhood was marked by the tragic earthquake of 1915 in Avezzano in which two of his sisters died. In 1921 he joined the Capuchin friars and was an apostle of the Holy Face of Manoppello, where for 400 years pilgrims have been venerating a veil on which the face of Jesus Christ is imprinted with open eyes and the signs of the Passion. This veil is traditionally believed to be the cloth with which Veronica wiped the holy face of Jesus.

Father Domenico da Cese died in Turin after being hit by a car in September 1978, and on 27 July 2013, his cause for beatification began.

Poggio Cinolfo: the convent of Saint Francis of the Reparatory Nuns of the Holy Face of Jesus