The devotion of the Holy Face has, for its principal object, the rendering to the adorable Face of Jesus Christ, disfigured in the Passion, a special homage of respect and love; of repairing the blasphemies and the violation of Sunday which outrages it afresh, and lastly, the obtaining from God the conversion of blasphemers and of those who profane his holy day.

This touching devotion, which our Lord seems himself to have instituted on the day of his death, by miraculously impressing his bleeding countenance upon the veil of Veronica, has been always known and practiced in the Church. The holy veil piously preserved at Rome in the Vatican basilica is honored and surrounded with signs of confidence. Several times in the year it is exposed and venerated by the faithful. The sovereign Pontiffs have granted numerous indulgences to those who piously visit the sacred relic.

Many Saints have been distinguished by their piety towards the Holy Face and have derived from it all kinds of graces and fruits of salvation; we may cite amongst others: the holy king David, saint Augustine, saint Bernard, saint Gertrude, saint Mechtilde, and in our own days, Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre, the Carmelite of Tours, and the venerable Mr. Dupont, the indefatigable propagator of the devotion of the Holy Face. This devotion has latterly assumed a considerable development. It is an inspiration of the Holy Ghost passing through the catholic world. It is a providential remedy offered to the world to combat the ravages of impiety and to be a shield against the scourges of Divine Justice.

The magnificent and consoling promises of our Lord, confirmed by a happy experience, show how pleasing the devotion of the Holy Face is to God, and how useful to Christians. How many special graces, what unhoped for conversions, what success in business, what supernatural lights, have been obtained by this means! Above all, what a number of miraculous cures have been operated by the virtue of the oil which burns constantly before the venerated picture at Tours!

It is remarkable that in no other part of his adorable Body did our Lord suffer such outrages, such ignominies and insults, as in his amiable Face. No other circumstance of the Passion was so clearly announced by the Prophets, or so minutely related by the Evangelists. All these details were not preserved in the Scriptures without a particular design of God. They exhort us eloquently to give a place among the mysteries of the sorrowful Passion of the Redeemer, to the humiliations and sufferings of his most Holy Face. Christians, who have at heart the glory of God and the salvation of your neighbor, honor with profound veneration the blood-stained and humiliated Face of our Savior, and pray to it with absolute confidence. In reparation of the impiety of the world, offer to the eternal Father this adorable Face, with its sadness, its ignominy, its blood, its tears, its bruises, and its wounds. By so doing, you will appease the anger of God, obtain the conversion of your erring brethren, contribute powerfully to the triumph of the Church, and participate in the glorious rewards promised by our Lord.