A lineage of reparation
The History of the Devotion
The Chaplet of the Holy Face of Jesus traces its origin to a Carmelite cloister in nineteenth-century France and has been carried forward by saints, popes, and the faithful ever since.
1843
The Revelations at Tours
In the Carmel of Tours, France, Sister Mary of St. Peter (born Marie Pellier) received a series of visions in which Our Lord revealed the devotion to His Holy Face. Jesus spoke to her of the need for reparation for blasphemy and the profanation of Sunday — sins He said were like a 'twin stream of iniquity' flowing into the Church. He asked that His Holy Face, disfigured during His Passion, be honored and venerated as a remedy for these offenses.
1844
The Golden Arrow & the Chaplet
Sister Mary of St. Peter composed the prayers of the Holy Face devotion, including the 'Golden Arrow' prayer and the Chaplet of the Holy Face. The thirty-three small beads recall the thirty-three years of Christ's earthly life. The aspiration — 'My Jesus, mercy' — and the verse 'Arise, O Lord, and let Thine enemies be scattered' were given as a means of reparation and a weapon against the enemies of God and His Church.
1849
Leo Dupont, the Holy Man of Tours
Léon Papin-Dupont, a layman of Tours known as the 'Holy Man of Tours,' became the great promoter of the devotion. He kept a lamp burning before a picture of the Holy Face in his home and attributed countless healings to its intercession. His persistence carried the devotion far beyond the cloister and into the wider Church.
1885
Approval by Pope Leo XIII
Pope Leo XIII granted formal approval to the Archconfraternity of the Holy Face, established in Tours. The Pope expressed the desire that the devotion spread throughout the world as a work of reparation. The Chaplet thus carries the Church's blessing as a prayer of reparation for blasphemy, irreverence, and the sins that wound the Sacred Heart through the Face of Christ.
1958
St. Thérèse and the Holy Face
St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face, the Carmelite of Lisieux, took the Holy Face as part of her religious name. She saw in the hidden, suffering Face of Jesus the model of contemplative love. Her devotion helped carry the Chaplet into the spiritual life of the whole Church in the twentieth century.
Today
A Prayer for Our Time
The Chaplet of the Holy Face remains a living devotion, prayed by the faithful as a daily act of reparation and love. In an age marked by irreverence and forgetfulness of God, the prayer returns the heart to the wounded Face of Christ — the 'sun' that, as Sister Mary of St. Peter was told, would rise once more over a world renewed by reparation.
“By My Holy Face you will work wonders.”
— Words attributed to Our Lord to Sister Mary of St. Peter
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