Holy Face Prayers and Spirituality

(See also the menu tab, “The Golden Arrow Prayer & Offering Chrit’s Wounded Face to the Father.”)

Reparation to the Holy Face:

“Oh, you, who are my friends, and my faithful children, look and see if there be any sorrow like mine. Everywhere My enemies despise and insult both my Eternal Father and My Church, the cherished Spouse of My Heart. Will no one rise up to console Me by defending the glory of My Father, and the honor of My Spouse, which has been so cruelly attacked? I can no longer remain in the midst of a people that will continue to be so heedless and so ungrateful. Look at the torrents of tears that stream from My eyes! Can I find no one to wipe away these tears by making reparation to My Father, and imploring forgiveness for the guilty?”
Our Lord to Sister St. Pierre

The Golden Arrow Prayer:

May the most holy, most sacred, most adorable, most ineffable and unutterable Name of God be always praised, blessed, loved, adored and glorified in Heaven, on earth, and in the hells, 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.

After receiving this prayer, Sister St. Pierre was given a vision in which she saw the Sacred Heart of Jesus delightfully wounded by this “Golden Arrow”, as torrents of graces streamed from It for the conversion of sinners.

Holy Face Chaplet:

Antique Holy Face Chaplet, property of Sister Saint Pierre’s brother, Prosper Eluere, who emigrated from France to American in 1840. The chaplet was given to him by the Carmelites of New Orleans in 1885.

The chaplet has for its object the honoring of the five senses of our Lord Jesus Christ and of entreating God for the triumph of His Church. The chaplet comes to us from Sr. St. Pierre and is composed of a cross, 39 beads, six of which are large, and 33 of which are small. The 33 small beads represent the 33 years of the mortal life of our Lord. The first 30 recall to mind the 30 years of His private life and are divided into five decades of six with the intention of honoring the five senses, touch, hearing, sight, smell, and taste of Jesus, which have their seat principally in His Holy Face, rendering homage to all the sufferings our Lord endured in His Face through each one of these senses. A large bead to honor each of the senses precedes each of these five decades of six beads. The three small beads recall the public life of the Savior and honor the wounds of His adorable Face; the large bead preceding them has the same purpose. A medal of the Holy Face completes the chaplet.

To pray this chaplet, start by making the sign of the cross with the crucifix and recite this invocation: “O God, incline unto my aid. O Lord, make haste to help me,” followed by the Glory Be.

The Sign of the Cross / Signum Crucis

In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Deus, in adjutorium meum intende: Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina.

O God, incline unto my aid. O Lord, make haste to help me.

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

On the thirty three small beads:

“Surge domine et dissipentur inimici tui et fugiant qui oderunt te a facie tua”

“Arise, O Lord, and let Thy enemies be scattered, and let them that hate Thee flee before Thy Face!”

On each of the six larger beads:

“O mi Jesu misericordia!” “Gloria Patri…”

“My Jesus, mercy!” and one “Glory Be..”

At the end of meditating on the senses of Jesus, continue repetitions of “Arise, O Lord” prayer on the remaining three beads, to bring the total to 33, one for each year of Our Lord’s earthly life. On each of these last three beads, think about the wounds in His holy face from the slaps He endured, and from the crown of thorns. [The seven Gloria Patri’s said during the course of the chaplet are said in honor of the 7 words of Jesus from the Cross and the Seven Sorrows of Mary]*:

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

On the medal at the end pray:

“O God, our Protector, look down upon us and cast Thine eyes upon the Face of Thy Christ!”

*The above is taken from the Roman Catholic Man Website. This is an accurate description of how to say the Little Chaplet of the Holy Face, as first given in the original Manual of the Archconfraternity of the Holy Face (1887), with the exception of the omission of the Seven Sorrows of Mary also being the object of meditation during the seven Gloria Patri’s (as noted above in brackets). Also, there appears some ambiguity in the Manual as to whether the seven Gloria’s mentioned are those “built in” (on each large bead) or whether they are added at the end. My understanding from the reading, as well as from a friend who was instructed on how to say the Chaplet by Carmelites in the 1970’s, is that they are “built in,” despite the original (un-bracketed version) description above and some other resources having them at the end.

Video of Holy Face Chaplet in Latin
Full of grace tv

Additiional Prayers Given to Sister St. Pierre by Our Lord to Combat the Enemies of His Church (Communism)

Eternal Father I offer You the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ and all the other instruments of His Holy Passion, that You may put division in the camp of Your enemies; for as Your Beloved Son has said, “A kingdom divided against itself shall fall.”

May God arise and let His enemies be scattered and let those who hate Him flee before His Face!
May the thrice Holy Name of God overthrow all their plans!
May the Holy Name of the Living God split them up by disagreements!
May the terrible Name of the God of Eternity stamp out all their godlessness!
Lord, I do not desire the death of the sinner, but that he be converted and live. “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

Offering the Wounded Face of Christ as an Extension of Holy Communion:

Offering Christ’s wounded Face to the Father, which Our Lord revealed to Sister St. Pierre as “the greatest grace after that of the sacraments,”[1] is designed to be the most efficacious way to extend Him love, as well as to expect love in return, save participation in the “source and summit of Christian Faith,” the Sacrament of the Mass, of which this offering, however, is an extension. It is so efficacious because Christ’s Face—His merits, His love—is infinitely more pleasing to the Father than man’s; offering It to the Father is a complement to the offering of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar in Mass (for it is offered in union with It).

This offering of adoration and love is only properly made through the Sacred Heart (in that only Christ, the God-man, is entirely holy, thereby being made singularly capable of truly glorifying and praising the Name of the Father).[2] Consequently, man appropriately offers this reparation of love with Christ (as He is the Head and the faithful are the Mystical Body), specifically in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.

Sister St. Pierre’s own practice after receiving holy communion reflects man’s proper mindset in joining with Christ in this reparatory work: she “annihilates” herself in the Sacred Heart so that Christ may perform in her “the office of mediator between God and man.”[3] By consciously sacrificing all but that which is Christ in her, she joins with Christ in making herself a premier vessel of reparation—and love.

[1] Sister Mary St. Peter, Life of Sister Mary St. Peter, ed. M. L’Abbe Janvier (France, 1884), 247.

[2] Sister Mary St. Peter, Life of Sister Mary St. Peter, ed. M. L’Abbe Janvier (France, 1884), 304. See also: Dietrich von Hildebrand, “The True Meaning of Sabbath Worship,” Liturgy and Personality, Hildebrand Project (2016). www.hilderbrandproject.org.

[3] Ibid., 158.

Offering of the Holy Face of Our Lord Jesus Christ
to God the Father

Eternal Father, turn away Your angry gaze from our guilty people whose face has become unsightly in Your eyes. Look instead upon the Face of Your beloved Son, in Whom You are well pleased. We now offer You this Holy Face, covered with shame and disfigured by bloody bruises, in reparation for the crimes of our age, which are atheistic communism, blasphemies and other insults against thy divine majesty, in order to appease Your anger, justly provoked against us. Because Your Divine Son, our Redeemer, has taken upon His Head all the sins of His members, that they might be spared, we now beg You, Eternal Father, to grant us mercy. Amen.

Twenty-Four Acts of Adoration

For the Reparation of the Blasphemies Uttered During the Twenty-Four Hours of the Day

Our Lord inspired Sister St. Pierre to add to the “Golden Arrow” these prayers which should also be recited by all the faithful. He instructed her to devote herself to praising and blessing His adorable Name, in imitation of the angels in heaven who ceaselessly sing Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, and that this would fulfil the order He had given her of honoring His Heart and that of His Holy Mother’s, both grievously wounded by blasphemy. Our Lord gave these instructions to sustain Sister St. Pierre (and all) who would suffer from Satan on account of this great work of reparation, for Christ warned Sister St. Pierre that Satan would do all in his power to stamp out the devotion.

The Magnificat is said at the beginning:

My soul doth magnify the Lord; and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior, because he hath regarded the humility of His handmaid for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed, because He that is mighty hath done great things to me, and holy is His Name, and His mercy is from generation unto generation to them that fear Him. He hath shown the might in His arm; He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble. He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He hath sent empty away. He hath received Israel, his servant, being mindful of His mercy. As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to His seed forever. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and every shall be, world without end. Amen.

In union with the Sacred Heart of Jesus: Come, let us adore the admirable Name of God which is above every name.
In union with the Holy Heart of Mary: Come, let us adore the admirable Name of God which is above every name.
In union with St. Joseph: Come, let us adore….
In union with St. John the Baptist: Come, let us adore….
In union with the choir of the Seraphim….
In union with the choir of Cherubim….
In union with the choir of Thrones….
In union with the choir of Dominations….
In union with the choir of Virtues….
In union with the choir of Powers….
In union with the choir of Principalities….
In union with the choir of the Archangels….
In union with the choir of the Angels….
In union with the seven Spirits which are before the throne of God and the twenty-four ancients….
In union with the choir of the Patriarchs….
In union with the choir of Prophets….
In union with the choir of the Apostles and the four Evangelists….
In union with the choir of Martyrs….
In union with the choir of holy Pontiffs….
In union with the choir of holy Confessors….
In union with the choir of holy Virgins….
In union with the choir of holy Women….
In union with all the Heavenly Court….
In union with the whole Church and in the name of all men….

Come, let us adore the admirable Name of God which is above every name, and let us prostrate ourselves before Him. Let us weep in the presence of the God who has made us, because He is the Lord our God; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

(More to come.)