FEASTS OF THE DAY
TUESDAY, 4 MARCH, 2025
1) HOLY FACE OF JESUS
2) SAINT CASIMIR
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1) HOLY FACE OF JESUS
"THIS SALUTARY REPARATION TO THE HOLY FACE OF JESUS IS A DIVINE WORK, DESTINED TO SAVE MODERN SOCIETY." (PIUS IX)
On April 17th, 1958, His Holiness Pope Pius XII approved the observance of a Feast of the Holy Face of Jesus on Shrove Tuesday (Tuesday before Ash Wednesday).
SISTER MARIE OF ST. PETER AND THE GOLDEN ARROW
In Tours, France during the 1840's a young Carmelite nun, Sister Marie of St. Peter, received a series of revelations from Our Lord about a powerful devotion He wished to be established worldwide - the devotion to his Holy Face. The express purpose of this devotion was to make reparation for the blasphemies and outrages of 'Revolutionary men' (the Communists), as well as for the blasphemies of atheists and freethinkers and others, plus, for blasphemy and the profanation of Sundays by Christians. This devotion is also an instrument given to the individual devotee as a seemingly unfailing method of appealing to God in prayer - through adoration of His Holy Face and Name.
The following prayer was dictated by our Lord Himself to Sister Marie of St. Peter. Opening His Heart to her, our Saviour complained of blasphemy, saying that this frightful sin wounds His divine Heart more grievously than all other sins, for it was like a "poisoned arrow".
After that, our Saviour dictated the following prayer, which he called "The Golden Arrow", saying that those who would recite this prayer would pierce Him delightfully, and also heal those other wounds inflicted on Him by the malice of sinners. This prayer is regarded as the very basis of the Work of Reparation.
PRAYER OF REPARATION IN PRAISE OF THE HOLY NAME OF GOD ENTITLED "THE GOLDEN ARROW"
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.
SISTER PIERINA AND DEVOTION TO THE HOLY FACE
The Blessed Maria Pierina de Micheli, a holy nun who died in 1945, was urged in many visions by the Blessed Mother and Jesus Himself to spread the devotion to the Holy Face, in reparation for the many insults Jesus suffered in His Passion, such as to be slapped, spit upon and kissed by Judas, as well as now being dishonoured in many ways in the Blessed Sacrament by neglect, sacrileges and profanations.
She was given a medal, which on one side bore a replica of the Holy Shroud and the inscription: “Illumina, Domine, vultum tuum super nos”. - Ps. 4:6 “May, O Lord, the light of Thy countenance shine upon us”. On the reverse side was a radiant Host, with the words, “Mane nobiscum, Domine”. – “Stay with us, O Lord” Luke 24:29.
After great difficulties, Sister Pierina obtained permission to the have the medal cast. Even the expenses for the casting were miraculously met when she found on her desk an envelope with the exact amount of the bill – 11,2000 lire. The evil spirit showed his chagrin and rage at the medals by flinging them down and burning the pictures of the Sacred Face, and beating Sister Pierina savagely.
In 1940, when the Second World War had the world in turmoil, Italy saw a wide distribution of this medal. Relatives and friends saw that their soldiers, sailors and aviators were provided with the replica of the Holy Face of Jesus since the medal was already famous for its miracles and countless spiritual and temporal favours.
IN THE WORDS OF OUR LORD TO SISTER PIERINA
“By My Holy Face you will obtain the conversion of numberless sinners. Nothing that you ask in making this offering will be refused to you. According to the care you take in making reparation To My Face, disfigured by blasphemers, I will take care of yours, which has been disfigured by sin. I will reprint on it My Image, and render it as beautiful as it was on leaving the Baptismal Font. I promise personal and spiritual protection to all who venerate this medal.”
Sister Pierina was beatified on Sunday, May 30, 2010 at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome - the first beatification ever held within its walls. Archbishop Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints' Causes, celebrated the ceremony, in representation of Pope Benedict XVI.
Our Lord promised St. Gertrude: “All those who meditate frequently on the vision of My Divine Face, attracted by the desires of love, shall receive within them, through My Humanity, a bright ray of My Divinity, which shall enlighten their inmost souls so that they shall reflect the light of My countenance in a special manner throughout eternity.”
PRAYER OF MOTHER MARIA PIERINA
O Blessed Face of my kind Savior, by the tender love and piercing sorrow of Our Lady as she beheld you in your cruel Passion, grant us to share in this intense sorrow and love so as to fulfill the holy will of God to the utmost of our ability. Amen.
PROMISES OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST
(Revelations to Sr. Mary of St. Peter)
1. By offering My Face to My Eternal Father, nothing will be refused, and the conversion of many sinners will be obtained.
2. By My Holy Face, they will work wonders, appease the anger of God and draw down mercy on sinners.
3. All those who honor My Face in a spirit of reparation will by so doing perform the office of the pious Veronica.
4. According to the care they take in making reparation to My Face disfigured by blasphemers, so will I take care of their souls which have been disfigured by sin. My Face is the Seal of the Divinity, which has the virtue of reproducing in souls the image of God.
5. Those who by words, prayers or writings defend My cause in the Work of Reparation, especially My priests, I will defend before My Father, and will give them My Kingdom.
6. As in a kingdom they can procure all that is desired with a coin stamped with the King's effigy, so in the Kingdom of Heaven they will obtain all they desire with the precious coin of My Holy Face.
7. Those who on earth contemplate the wounds of My Face shall in Heaven behold it radiant with glory.
8. They will receive in their souls a bright and constant irradiation of My Divinity, that by their likeness to My Face they shall shine with particular splendor in Heaven.
9. I will defend them, I will preserve them and I assure them of Final Perseverance.
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2) SAINT CASIMIR
CONFESSOR
(3 October, 1458 - 4 March, 1484)
St. Casimir, to whom the Poles gave the title of "The Peace-maker," was the third of the thirteen children of Casimir IV, King of Poland, and of Elizabeth of Austria, daughter of the Emperor Albert II. Devout from his infancy, the boy gave himself up to devotion and penance, and had a horror of anything approaching softness or self-indulgence. His bed was often the ground, and he was wont to spend a great part of the night in prayer and meditation, chiefly on the passion of our Saviour. His clothes were plain, and under them he wore a hairshirt. Living always in the presence of God, he was invariably serene and cheerful, and pleasant to all.
The saint's love of God showed itself in his love of the poor who are Christ's members, and for the relief of these the young prince gave all he possessed, using in their behalf the influence he had with his father and with his brother Ladislaus when he became king of Bohemia. In honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Casimir frequently recited the long Latin hymn "Omni die dic Mariae," a copy of which was by his desire buried with him. This hymn, part of which is familiar to us through Bittleston's version, "Daily, daily sing to Mary," is not uncommonly called the Hymn of St Casimir, but it was certainly not composed by him; it is three centuries older than his time.
The nobles of Hungary, dissatisfied with their king, Matthias Corvinus, in 1471 begged the King of Poland to allow them to place his son Casimir on the throne. The saint, at that time not fifteen years old, was very unwilling to consent, but in obedience to his father he went to the frontier at the head of an army. There, hearing that Matthias had himself assembled a large body of troops, and finding that his own soldiers were deserting in large numbers because they could not get their pay, he decided upon the advice of his officers to return home.
The knowledge that Pope Sixtus IV had sent an embassy to his father to deter him from the expedition made the young prince carry out his resolution with the firmer conviction that he was acting rightly. King Casimir, however, was greatly incensed at the failure of his ambitious projects and would not permit his son to return to Cracow, but relegated him to the castle of Dobzki. The young man obeyed and remained in confinement there for three months. Convinced of the injustice of the war upon which he had so nearly embarked, and determined to have no further part in these internecine conflicts which only facilitated the further progress into Europe of the Turks, St Casimir could never again be persuaded to take up arms though urged to do so by his father and invited once more by the disaffected Hungarian magnates. He returned to his studies and his prayers, though for a time he was viceroy in Poland during an absence of his father. An attempt was made to induce him to marry a daughter of the Emperor Frederick III, but he refused to relax the celibacy he had imposed on himself.
St Casimir's austerities did nothing to help the lung trouble from which he suffered, and he died at the age of twenty-six in 1484 and was buried at Vilna, where his relics still rest in the church of St Stanislaus. Miracles were reported at his tomb, and he was canonized in 1521.
- From Butler's Lives of the Saints
PATRON: Poland, Lithuania, Russia, bachelors, youth, kings, princes.
SYMBOLS: Lily (for purity).
PRAYER: Almighty God, to serve you is to reign; grant that, with the help of Saint Casimir's intercession, we may constantly serve you in holiness and justice. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.