Relative of Holy Face seer explains the devotion’s power against communism

(LifeSiteNews) — Catholic author Mary Jane Zuzolo has published an important book about the Holy Face devotion this year.  

Mrs. Zuzolo is a great-great-great-niece of Sister Marie de Saint Pierre, the nineteenth-century French Carmelite who received revelations from Our Lord which established the Holy Face of Jesus devotion. This pious attachment, which has been approved by the Church, is practiced in reparation for crimes of blasphemy and, especially, of communism.  

Zuzolo published her book on the Holy Face devotion, Unveiling the Sixth Station of the Cross: Reparation to the Holy Face, Mother of All Devotions,with Sophia Institute Press. It will be the basis of a forthcoming documentary on Venerable Fulton Sheen, Saint Therese of Lisieux, and Sister Marie de Saint Pierre. 

LifeSite asked the author to tell our readers about the importance of this devotion for today, when communism is spreading throughout the world. Sister Lucia, one of the Fatima seers, once stated in an interview that even America will eventually be overcome by communism. 

We invite our readers to read this interview and to start practicing this devotion which is meant to complement our devotion to Our Lady of Fatima and her messages, since it will be through our devotion to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary that the world will be renewed and converted. 

On a personal note, I myself was specially drawn to Mrs. Zuzolo’s book because, during the last eight months of the life of my husband Dr. Robert Hickson, Liz Yore, a dear friend of ours, had sent us prayers from the Holy Face devotion. It was during this time that I prayed daily one of these prayers for my husband. (In addition, a first-class relic of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face was brought to his sick bed by a generous family.) And indeed, my husband was greatly blessed with a holy end of life and death, with the sacraments of the Church and many prayers of family and friends. I cannot enough stress the efficacy and the importance of these prayers. 

Please see here the text of the interview with Mary Jane Zuzolo: 

1. What inspired you to write Unveiling the Sixth Station of the Cross: Reparation to the Holy Face, Mother of All Devotions, and why do you call this devotion the “mother of all devotions”? 

At first, I was motivated to write about the Holy Face devotion out of frustration that not more know of it … despite its profound relevance in being designated by God as spiritual armament against communism—and any ideology that seeks to replace the immutable authority of God with the mere contriving of men. Evidently coinciding with these ideologies now … so blatantly “in our faces” by way of societal norms, education, government, and even religion, there has been the welcome beginning of the devotion’s resurgence in very recent times, however. While the devotion had been enormously popular for the first 70 years after its approval, it fell into … seeming obscurity during the most recent 70 years (except the last three or so). This is not entirely surprising, for Christ warned in the private revelations given to initiate the devotion that Satan would do all in his power to stamp out it out—surely an indicator of its importance in the spiritual unfolding of things.  

As I researched … I was even more struck by the extraordinary depth and breadth of the Holy Face devotion. I recognized prefiguring of the devotion in the “Book of Job”; Saint Joan of Arc as the forebearer of the devotion; the devotion as complementary to the deep spirituality of St. Thérèse and the whole of the Carmelite mystical tradition; the corresponding yet pinnacle relationship the devotion has to other significant devotions to Christ as well as approved Marian apparitions; the Mariology of the devotion as affirming St. Louis de Montfort’s writings (though the nun who received the revelations requesting the devotion was unaware of them); and the deep ideological and political impact of the devotion in its celestial design as spiritual armament for our times (to be utilized in union with devotion to Our Lady), defeating communism, socialism, freemasonry, modernism, moral relativism, and now wokeism—again, all ideologies opposed to the absolute truth and morality of God as recognized in moral law and preserved in the doctrine of the Faith. My goal was to bring forth a well-documented yet captivating and readable work to showcase the power and legitimacy of the Holy Face devotion, mysteriously all but forgotten for decades.  

“Mother of all devotions” is a term I coined, borrowing from today’s vernacular, to indicate the pinnacle nature of the Holy Face devotion. Christ Himself designates this in various ways, including by describing the work as the “most beautiful work under the sun”; not “trumping” the beauty of Christ’s Redemption, it is, rather, an extension of it, as it is of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, even being offered in union with the Sacred Heart. Not concerned with the sin of Eve per se, the Holy Face Devotion is a work of reparation for current sins of blasphemy, designed by God to reorient men to Him, offered by man in union with Christ to the Father, by virtue of the merits of Christ’s dolorous Face. It is evidently both pleasing and fitting in God’s eyes that mankind should take a more specific role in Redemption, given how grave his offenses to God have become in modern times, remarkably revealed by Christ as never having been exceeded. 

Christ further indicates the devotion as preeminent by describing it as the “miraculous wine served at the end of the wedding feast of Cana” (versus the common wine of the other devotions), though clearly all are necessary and beautifully interrelated. It is most favored by God because it concerns the adoration of and reparation to the Godhead itself, versus aspects of Christ’s sacred humanity, though again, all work together, the Holy Face devotion even having been “found,” so to speak in the Sacred Heart of Christ. 

Breaking with tradition (by not being approved more incrementally), the Holy Face devotion was approved immediately for the whole world as an archconfraternity in 1885 by Pope Leo XIII, the same pope who had just months prior experienced a vision of Satan challenging Christ that he could destroy the Church if given enough time and power over those under him. Even prior to this approval, Pope Blessed Pius IX described the devotion as “destined to save society.” These popes had a deep sense of the spiritual armament necessary for the times: no less than the greatest devotion to make reparation for the greatest crimes, to paraphrase Christ. Again, these most heinous offenses in the eyes of God are those which attack His rights as outlined in the first three commandments, the axis of moral law. 

Regarding a secondary meaning of the term, “mother of all devotions,” this reparatory work could not be more Marian. Christ in fact gave His Mother the honor of bestowing it upon mankind in that the Work of Reparation is, according to Him, “fraught with so much necessity and honor for God.” Our Lord therefore requests that those practicing the devotion salute His Mother with the title“Our Lady of the Holy Name of God.” The nun who received the Holy Face revelations was also graced with a series of very rare mystical experiences referred to as Divine Maternity in which she was shown that all the torrents of grace that flow from the devotion come through the Blessed Virgin. Indeed, Our Lady’s role of Mediatrix of Grace and Mercy (as well as Co-Redemptrix and Mother of Man) make her not only the mother of the Holy Face devotion, but the “mother of all devotions,” giving the phrase a dual significance. 

RELATED: Why every Catholic should develop a devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus

2. Could you tell us more about your personal connection to Sr. Marie de Saint Pierre, the nun who received this devotion from Heaven? 

My great-great-grandfather Prosper Eluere was the eldest brother of Sr. Marie de Saint Pierre. He emigrated to Vincennes, Indiana (then the capital city of the Old Northwest Territory) at about the same time she entered the Carmel in Tours, France: 1839. Prosper had been commissioned by the second bishop of Vincennes to do ironwork and intricate woodwork for what is now a minor basilica in Vincennes. He also did artisan work for the first saint of Indiana, Mother Theodore Guerin, helping in her construction of a convent and school for girls, Saint Mary of the Woods, also located in Indiana.  

Though Prosper was the eldest of twelve, he was the only one who outlived their father, Pierre. Pierre’s wife and all other children, including Sr. Marie de Saint Pierre, preceded [Prosper] in death. Happily, Prosper lived to see the Holy Face devotion approved as an archconfraternity and left many books and mementos for future generations pertaining to the devotion and his kid sister, Sr. Marie de Saint Pierre. 

3. What specifically were these revelations? 

Approved, private revelations or messages from Christ were given to the young French Carmelite nun, Sr. Marie de Saint Pierre of the Holy Family, in the mid-nineteenth century. The messages primarily concern Our Lord’s desire that she initiate the Holy Face devotion to make reparation for sins of atheism, blasphemy, and the profanation of Sunday to draw mercy for the multitudes as well as to mitigate impending just chastisement.  

It was a timely request, occurring soon after the fresh offenses against the first three commandments brought by the prevailing “freethinking” ideology surrounding the first French Revolution and leading into the second. These offenses have now sadly become the norm and are described by Christ as “deep-rooted impiety and absolute incredulity.” That is, man either doubts or rejects God’s truth and morality to the point of inventing his own. Christ describes these offenses as wounding His Heart more than all others.  

Christ further revealed that offenses against the Godhead as represented by the Holy Face are also offenses against the Face of the Church, or her doctrine, such that all the blasphemy endured by the Church—heresies, for example, as well as individual heretical sins against the first three commandments—are as renewed wounds to the Countenance of Christ, which was revealed by Him as also representing the Godhead Itself. (The wounded Countenance of Christ represents Christ’s suffering for sinners in the Great Redemption, the “face” of the Church or her doctrine, and the Trinitarian God.) Blasphemies aimed at the Godhead whom they cannot reach fall back, so to speak, upon the Face of Christ, renewing His injuries, possible in that Christ is the Head of His Mystical Body, the Church. 

Designed by God Himself for the modern era, the Holy Face Devotion is to be a central element of Catholic spirituality. Though based upon private revelation, its status of an archconfraternity establishes it as a public devotion, cemented by the Church for all times and places. It is to be used by those engaged in the spiritual significance of the era, providing hope and a means for man to do his part to assist in Christ the reclaiming of all. 

4. Why do you think this devotion is so important in our time when Communism seems to be spreading throughout the world? 

As was made clear in various approved Marian apparitions, we are in a celestial battle between good and evil. The remedy is thus foremost a spiritual one. Moreover, the faithful are obliged to help their fellow brethren; as was also revealed in the messages of Our Lady of Fatima, many are going to hell because there is no one to pray for them, to make reparation for them. For ours is a solidarity in the Communion of Saints and the Mystical Body of Christ. The Holy Face Devotion is promised by Christ as “the greatest source of grace second to the sacraments,” poured forth “for the multitudes,” joining with Our Lady in the defeat of Satan through the conversion of the world. 

The “errors of Russia” warned by Our Lady of Fatima—and previously referenced as “communism” in the Holy Face revelations, given just prior to the publication of Marx’s Communist Manifesto—are manifesting today by a topsy-turvy morality in which all are considered to have a say in what is right and wrong except, paradoxically, those who believe in objective truth and moral law under the authority of God.  

The eighteenth and nineteenth century “dogma” of reason (wherein argumentation was the ultimate judge of truth) became a forerunner to modernism (wherein individual feeling was the ultimate judge of truth) which in turn manifests today as moral relativism (wherein man believes he can create his own, individual, truth and morality). In many respects, today’s wokeism is the inversion of the truth and morality given by God to man in natural law and the ten commandments and as preserved in the doctrine of the Faith. The Holy Face Devotion is the means which God has given man to defeat these ideologies, ultimately spawning from the free-thinking revolutionaries of Sister Saint Pierre’s day (though having roots in the Enlightenment)—and which would manifest as Marxist communism shortly after her death. 

Communism does not “only” kill and make lives miserable. Akin to modernism in its design to ruin Christian civilization from within, Marxist-modernist thought has infiltrated almost every aspect of the current cultural and political world—as well as the Catholic Church. (This is not my observation, but rather has been openly warned against by various popes, beginning with Blessed Pius IX.) Decades have now passed in which these blasphemous ideologies set out to permeate both Church and State; the alarming, real-time manifestation of this subversion affords the devotion extreme relevance today. As Venerable Fulton Sheen put it regarding communism, “Russia gave political form and social substance [to the] de-spiritualization of the Western World.” 

In consideration that the blasphemous thinking of nineteenth-century France was the catalyst to current, often even more egregious affronts to God, the devotion is also—if not ultimately— intended for the third millennium. God chooses that modern man play a role in the combat with these ideologies via reparation, engaging him in the spiritual warfare of the age, for according to Christ, communism is both the enemy of God and an allowed chastisement by Heaven as punishment for unprecedented, modern sins of blasphemy. Yet in God’s mercy, He has given us the remedy: reparation to the Godhead. For the warning Christ gave to Sister St. Pierre, “Woe to those [cities] that do not make reparation,” is not only an urgent commendation for man, but it is hope for those who do make reparation, that their cities and regions will obtain mitigation in chastisement, particularly that taking the form of what Christ describes as the “malice of revolutionary men.” 

5. St. Thérèse of Lisieux at a very young age had a vision of her father covering his face with a cloth. When he developed dementia late in his life, he did cover his face with a cloth. That was the reason, as I understand, that St. Thérèse added “and of the Holy Face” to her religious name “Thérèse of the Child Jesus.” Could you tell us more about this very touching story? How did her father enter into this specific mystery of Our Lord’s Passion? 

Yes, shortly after her entry into Carmel, Saint Thérèse began to delve more deeply into the riches of Christ’s Passion. The timing coincided with what she referred to as her father’s three years of martyrdom in which he endured a series of strokes, resulting in his entry into a mental institution only a month after Thérèse received her religious habit. She felt that he became the living personification of Christ as the Man of Sorrows: “His face was as though hidden” (Is 53:3). During this time of intense grief and sorrow for the Little Flower, she states that “spiritual aridity was her daily bread.” Therese first signed her name “of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face” the day she received the habit, January 10, 1889; from that time on, she cherished the suffering Face of Our Lord as not only the center of her own spiritual life but as a tool in the salvation of her brethren.  

Saint Thérèse credited her blood sister, who was also her sister in Carmel, Agnes, with first introducing her to the “science of love” hidden in the suffering Face of Christ. Saint Thérèse later remarkably proclaimed that the wounded Countenance of Christ, introduced to her by the Holy Face devotion and as depicted in Isaiah 53, was “the source of all her piety.” Here she was at one with her predecessor, Sr. Marie de Saint Pierre, whose very life was the reparative worship of the wounded Holy Face of Christ. 

There is striking evidence, in fact, that the collection of revelations from Christ given to initiate the Holy Face devotion, along with Sr. Marie de Saint Pierre’s prayers, mystical favors, and insights, greatly contributed to the underlying basis of Saint Thérèse’s spirituality. Indeed, Thérèse always wore a relic of Sr. Marie de Saint Pierre near her heart and had the Veronica Veil image (associated with the Holy Face devotion) in her breviary and pinned to her bed curtain during her long illness. Her prayers and poems are sometimes a near-verbatim repetition of the revelations given by Christ to Sr. Marie de Saint Pierre.  

In hindsight, we can appreciate the favor Saint Thérèse of Lisieux has given the devotion by exemplifying its unique spirituality but also the service the devotion now gives again to Saint Thérèse by putting back the spiritual context of her deep devotion to the wounded Holy Face, largely neglected since the mid-twentieth century.  

Aptly, St. Teresa of Avila once appeared to Sister Marie de Saint Pierre, pronouncing that the devotion would one day be “the honor of Carmel,” surely referring in part to its deep spirituality. In fact, Thérèse apparently identified, utilizing an understanding of the devotion’s deep spirituality, “secrets” or “veiled treasures” of the wounded Holy Face of Christ, which are mystical aids toward union with God. 

As part of this, the contextual backdrop of the Holy Face devotion which first drew Thérèse to love of Christ’s wounded Face underscores a striking, dual meaning to her statement that the wounded Face of Christ was “the source of all her piety.” She did not only mean that it was a mystical tool toward sanctity but that it was her sanctity. Saint Thérèse wanted to rely only upon God’s merits in attaining holiness and in drawing mercy for sinners: Yet that is the “way” of the Holy Face Devotion! Christ’s sanctity becomes that of the devotee, for the devotee relies not upon his own merits and love in offering reparation to the Father for modern affronts against the first three commandments but relies instead, upon the merits and love of Christ. It is foremost an offering, therefore, of God to God, mirroring and joining with the Sacred Heart in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar (Christ’s Face there veiled). 

The devotion is thus compatible with Thérèse’s idea of spiritual childhood in that one realizes that his merits and love are nothing to that encased in the suffering Face of the Savior. Like Job’s friends, one understands that there is a “face” more worthy—more mercy-invoking—than his own in attempting appeasement of God’s justice. Moreover, in offering Christ’s love and merits (as “residing” in His Face) to the Father—rather than our own—in this selfless work of reparation to draw mercy for sinners, the Divine likeness is remarkably stamped upon the devotee’s soul as recompense, per the promises of Christ in the revelations. In the spirit of Saint Thérèse, Christ’s sanctity truly becomes that of the devotee: the making of perfect victimhood to both Mercy and Justice. 

6. Have you heard stories about the efficacy of this devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus? 

Yes, people occasionally reach out to me with stories of healings, but it is perhaps more convincing to talk about the over 6,000 documented miracles involving Venerable Leo Dupont, who played no small part in helping to show the credibility of the revelations, not just by virtue of these countless miracles, but also by way of his heroically virtuous life, marked by his extraordinary practice of and zeal for the Holy Face devotion. 

Venerable Dupont, in fact, is the “other half” of the story regarding the devotion.  He used his wealth and prestige to inform the public of it, and it was at his hands that thirty years of these miraculous healings were manifested, earning him the title from Blessed Pope Pius IX of “perhaps the greatest miracle worker in Church history.” The miracles were effected through the prayers of the devotion and oil from a lamp burning in front of a Holy Face relic image, which had been touched to the Veronica’s Veil in the Vatican. This original veil had become miraculously “enlivened” for three hours during a Christmas octave exposition in 1849. The Holy Face image linked to the devotion is from a hand-drawn copy of this “Miracle of the Vatican.” 

7. There are several traditions of devotions to the Holy Face that can be a bit confusing. Could you tell us about them? 

Yes, I think there is confusion on at least two levels: the images associated with these devotions and the devotions themselves. Often confused are the Holy Face devotion as revealed to Bl. Mother Maria Pierina de Micheli of the Italian Daughters of the Immaculate Conception and that revealed to Sr. Marie de Saint Pierre of the Carmel of Tours, France. And they do deeply correspond with one another. The revelations given to Bl. Pierina continue devotion to the veiled Face of Christ in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, practiced by Sr. Marie de Saint Pierre especially before her. Both devotions are extremely complementary to the Sacred Heart, as well, even “completing” it, according to the respective revelations, forming a sort of “trinity” of reparation and love designed for the faithful, building upon and reverting to one another. 

Yet they are given as distinct by Heaven for a reason and do have important differences. There are distinctions in the object of reparation, for example. The revelations given to Bl. Pierina focused on real-time injuries to the Face of Christ during His Passion and current suffering due to ongoing irreverence to the Blessed Sacrament. The Face of Christ in the revelations given to Sr. Marie de Saint Pierre also represent the merciful love of Christ’s Redemption, reflected in His suffering for men during the Passion as imprinted on the veil of Veronica, but the wounded Face is meant to primarily represent current injuries to the Face of Christ as representative of heresies and other blasphemies against the Trinity.  

The Holy Face devotion as given to Bl. Pierina, like the Sacred Heart, is centered on making reparation to the sacred humanity of Christ, while the one given to Sr. Marie de Saint Pierre makes reparation for offenses against the Godhead. While the devotion as given to Bl. Pierina is centered upon reparation for offenses against Christ’s Face during the Passion and now in the Holy Sacrament, it also includes more general crimes of lust, for example (prohibited as part of the last seven sacraments, versus the first three). The devotion as given to Sr. Marie de Saint Pierre is centered exclusively on crimes against the rights of God as prohibited in the first three commandments. 

And there are different images associated with each: Pierina’s devotion utilizes the Shroud of Turin, a suffering Face (as part of the Body) that is, however, no longer still living, a sign of the Savior’s supreme sacrifice of death—albeit apparently at the moment of the Resurrection. The devotion as given to Sr. Marie de Saint Pierre utilizes the Veil of Veronica, which recorded a living, still-suffering Face in need of consolation—by which merciful love was given to and received from Veronica, our model in attaining as reward for our acts of reparation, the image of God upon our souls (not unlike Veronica being recompensed for her act of compassion with the image of Christ upon her veil). There is more in the book, as well as a discussion of the Divine Mercy devotion and its image in relationship with that of the Holy Face.  

Left for my next book is a defense of the Veronica Veil image in consideration of recent arguments that the Veil of Manoppello is the true Veronica’s Veil. (Both images may be valid, but both cannot be Veronica’s Veil.) Briefly, the arguments in favor of Manoppello as the “true” Veronica’s Veil (as opposed to it simply being the Sudarium of Christ, a secondary burial cloth for the face, for example), essentially ignore the “Miracle of the Vatican,” recognized by Pius IX. In addition, they do not address the thousands of documented miracles associated with the Veronica’s Veil at the Vatican via a relic of that veil (also integrally associated with Venerable Dupont and the Holy Face devotion as an archconfraternity). Thus, these miracles—and through them, Veronica’s Veil as currently at the Vatican—involved various levels of approval from at least Popes Pius IX, Leo XIII, and Pius XII. Even if we allow for the sake of argumentation that the (current) veil at the Vatican may not be the same as the one prior to the sack of Rome in 1527, whatever remains appears to have been affirmed by these marvels. Apt is St. Augustine’s quote: “It would be against all divine attributes of God to approve a lie with miracles.” 

8. I understand that there are multiple prayers attached to this devotion. Which prayers of this devotion do you specially recommend? 

 I think the most important prayer was the one that Christ dictated to Sr. Marie de Saint Pierre: Our Lord revealed to Sr. Marie de Saint Pierre that blasphemy is like a poisoned arrow which perpetually wounds His Divine Heart. To console His Heart, He wishes for the faithful to offer a “golden arrow,” which wounds Him with delight and love, healing the wounds of malice which sinners inflict upon Him, a form of reparation particularly adapted to the crime to be atoned, formulated to console his Sacred Heart and to appease God’s wrath. 

 The following is the prayer which Our Lord dictated to her for the reparation of blasphemy against His Holy Name. He offered it to her as a golden dagger or arrow, assuring her that every time it was said, it would wound his Heart most lovingly: 

 May the most holy, most sacred, most adorable, most incomprehensible and ineffable Name of God, be forever praised, blessed, loved, adored, and glorified, in heaven, on earth, and in hell, 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. 

Our Lord, after having revealed this prayer to Sr. Marie de Saint Pierre, warned her that she should beware of how she appreciates this favor, for He will demand an account of it. At that moment, Sister St. Pierre beheld flowing from the Sacred Heart of Jesus, wounded by this golden dagger, torrents of grace for the conversion of sinners. 

Another very important prayer is the Holy Face chaplet, inspired by God for the protection of Holy Mother Church and the defeat (conversion) of her enemies. It is especially efficacious, along with optional prayers usually said with it, for the defeat of communism. Instructions for how to say it, along with some of the more well-known prayers of the devotion (all utilizing the Manual of the Archconfraternity of the Holy Face), are located on my website, primarily here.  

Also at the bottom of this same page  is a link to (printable) public prayers of reparation, graciously compiled and provided by Jule Lane (likewise utilizing the Manual). As Christ asked Sr. Marie de Saint Pierre to save France, even deputing her to be “responsible for the sins of France” by offering His wounded Countenance to the Father, “ceding” His merits to her in this way, “to pay her assumed debts,” we are likewise made responsible for our cities, regions, and nations. But again, we are not relying upon our own merits, but those of Christ, thus enacting what Christ refers to as “the sole means of appeasing His Father’s wrath” (in the face of chastisement). Where possible, public reparation should be made, for as mentioned, Christ even warns, “Woe to those [cities] that do not make reparation!” Yet again, this warning is also a means of encouragement, for if we do offer reparation, we may very well be doing our part in mitigating just chastisement for our part of the world. 

9. How has the reaction been to your book? 

Praise God—and He is certainly responsible for any good in the book—the response has been very positive. Apart from the basic facts surrounding the Holy Face devotion and the life of Sr. Marie de Saint Pierre, the book is an almost entirely unique analysis pertaining to the devotion’s deep significance for the times and the spiritual life of the faithful. Because of this, I include copious footnotes and sought the imprimatur and nihil obstat from my archbishop toward substantiating an updated “take” on these immense treasures of the devotion, strangely lost for decades and yet in some respects, only now able to be fully appreciated.  

We have the vantage now to see the effects of neglecting the Holy Face devotion as well as its ever-increasing necessity as remedy. Let us then utilize what God Himself has provided as means to reclaim in Christ Jesus, our families, our nations, our Faith—our world! Let us exemplify proper reverence of Our Lord, for “unto you that fear my name, the Sun of justice shall arise” (Malaki 4:2), promising to mercifully brand His resplendence upon us by way of this, “the most beautiful work under the sun”!