WICHITA, Kan. (ChurchMilitant.com) – A conference focused on devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus is soon taking place in the geographic center of the United States.
The Holy Face of Jesus
The conference will be held in Wichita, Kansas, at St. Joseph Church from Nov. 9–11. The League of St. Martin, riding the wave of resurging devotion, is sponsoring the event.
One of the conference speakers, Fr. Lawrence Carney, is among the most widely known proponents of the Devotion to the Holy Face. The priest is not only dedicated to keeping the holy tradition alive but growing it.
“I have a goal that a million people enroll in this devotion before I leave this world,” he said in a recent video.
Father Carney is also the author of a new book, The Secret of the Holy Face: The Devotion Destined to Save Society, in which he unpacks his belief in the devotion’s power to fight one of the greatest evils — communism.
Reparation to Invoke Mercy
The priest’s promotion of the devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus traces back to Sr. Marie of St. Peter, a Carmelite nun who lived in the mid-1840s in France — a time and place swirling with the ideas of communist revolutionaries.
She received a series of divine revelations about the importance of repentance for the sins of the world. The two sins repeatedly revealed to Sr. Marie as causing our Lord pain included blasphemy and the profanation of Sundays and other Holy Days. These sins, in particular, disclosed to the nun the disdain with which God was held and the disbelief in Him altogether during her time. She saw that adoring God and blessing his name instead of profaning it would lead to salvation.
In a prophetic vision, Our Lord revealed the nature of the chastisement for these offenses: “My Father is not going to punish the world so much with the elements but with the malice of revolutionary men.”
Fr. Lawrence Carney Live: The Secret of the Holy Face: The Devotion Destined to Save Society!
In 1848 — the same year Karl Marx published the Communist Manifesto — Sr. Marie wrote in her diary:
God has imposed on me a new mission … . He has commanded me to cross swords with the Communists, who, as he told me, were the sworn enemies of the Church, and of his Christ. He gave me to understand that the greater number of these renegades were born in the bosom of the Church, of whom they now declare themselves the most bitter enemies.
Sr. Marie of St. Peter
The Golden Arrow Prayer was given to Sr. Marie of Peter in a vision in 1843.
May the most holy, most sacred, most adorable, most incomprehensible and unutterable Name of God be always 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.
The faithful see the prayer as an act of reparation for blasphemy, the profanation of the Lord’s Day and the evils of atheism and communism. It is often recited as part of a group of prayers known as the Holy Face Devotion. The faithful often contemplate an image of Our Lord’s Holy Face while they pray.
Devotion’s Resurgence
Venerable Leo Dupont picked up the spiritual work of Sr. Marie after she died. He formed the Archconfraternity of the Holy Face in the city of Tours, keeping the devotion alive for future generations.
Dupont said that communists would one day enslave people — that is, “close up their churches, and make them slaves of the state … unless reparation is done, unless men come before the Face of their Savior to ask His forgiveness and His help!”
Fr. Lawrence Carney
The devotion has ebbed and flowed over the decades. Currently, interest in the devotion is on the rise, with the upcoming conference one sign of the resurgence.
Fr. Carney argues that we can’t see the schemes and propaganda of the Left if we don’t have the light of the Lord.
“That’s why He wanted to give us this Devotion to the Holy Face,” he said. “It’s up to us to wipe out communism.”
The Conference of the Holy Face features three speakers, including Fr. Carney. Three Solemn High Masses will be offered during the event.
Organizers say space is still available. To register, click here. For information or questions, email SaintJosephWichita@gmail.com or call (316) 261-5800.
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