"I seek for more Veronicas to console and adore my Divine Face, which has but few worshippers. He made me understand anew, that all those who devoted themselves to this work of Reparation, would perform the same office as Veronica."
[Our Lord to Sr. Marie St. Peter on October 27th, 1845]
"After which he addressed to me the following consoling words : 'I give you my Holy Face as a recompense for all the services you have rendered me for the past two years ; you have done but little, it is true, but your heart has conceived great designs ; therefore, I give you .this Face in presence of my Eternal Father, in virtue of the Holy Ghost, and in sight of the angels and saints; I present you this gift by the hands of my Holy Mother, and of St. Veronica, who will teach you how to honor it.' Our Lord continued: 'By this Face, you will perform prodigies.' She understood that this precious gift was not for herself alone, but that it was to become the distinctive symbol of the projected work. 'For,' said she, 'my Divine Master manifested his desire to see his Holy Face offered as the appropriate object of devotion to his children, the members of the Association of Reparation for Blasphemy, and he seemed to invite me to reveal his adorable Face under this aspect.' She undoubtedly felt, at the same time, the excellence of the grace accorded her by Our Lord. 'It was,' he told me, 'the greatest grace he could have given me after that of the sacraments, and for which he had prepared and cultivated the soil of my soul by the interior trials which I had suffered a short time previously.'"
Dear Friends,
I wish to share with you a treasure. And then a treasure within a treasure! Please forgive me for having delayed in writing to you this announcement for I have struggled on how to share with you this joy! This treasure of which I write is the wonderful rewards in store for us in having devotion to the Holy Face/ Holy Name of Jesus and making Reparation to the Holy Face which has been recalled for us. For within this devotion, promises of Our Lord are given and gifts from Him await us in Heaven!
The treasure within a treasure is the gift that Our Lord has given us in a somewhat new devotee of the Holy Face!
My words cannot express the happiness I felt upon learning of a person who has taken up the pen to write about the Holy Face of Jesus! I have struggled to write an article to introduce this person and I can only fall back on the words of Sr. Marie St. Peter and Abbe Janvier, a French priest who wrote three grand volumes of the subject of the Holy Face devotion which are a beautiful biography on Sr. Marie St. Peter, biography of the Leo Dupont, the Holy Man of Tours and the Manual of the Holy Face.
The words of Our Lord say so much in so little time and I will quote His words to Sr. Marie St. Peter once again so that others may know that it is in this devotion that many of us will find salvation! I need not write more!
"CONCEAL HER, LORD IN THE SECRET OF THY FACE."
Abbe Janvier quotes Sr. Marie St. Peter in the chapter titled: "Veronica and the Good Thief":
"Our Lord gave me to understand that both the one and the other are the two models given to the Work of Reparation, Veronica, the model for those of her sex who are not appointed to defend his cause by their eloquence, but to soothe his Holy Face in reparation for the blasphemy of sinners, by prayer, praise and adoration; the Good Thief, as the model for his ministers, who in the Work of Reparation should defend him publicly. " "My amiable Master caused me to notice the magnificent recompense which he bestowed on these two persons, the one in leaving her his divine portrait, the other in assigning him a place in his heavenly kingdom, as a testimony of the esteem he had for the services they rendered him. Then he promised me that those who, in reparation for blasphemy, would defend his cause by prayers, words, or writings, would be defended by him before his Heavenly Father and that he would make them partakers of his kingdom. It seemed to me that he told me to promise in his Name, to those of his ministers who would preach this work, to his spouses who would endeavor to soothe and honor his Holy Face in reparation for the blasphemy of sinners, that at the hour of death, he would purify their souls by effacing the stains of sin, and would restore to them their primitive beauty." " Methought also that he said : Write down these promises, they will make more impression on the minds of men than all I have hitherto said to you concerning this "Work, because of the promise of eternal life, which although not the purest motive, is at least, not unworthy of consideration, since I have given my life that sinners may obtain the kingdom of heaven. He added, if you keep these things secret, through fear, you will be guilty of in justice to mankind. My Divine Master spoke to me thus because I hesitated to believe this communication, for I am always afraid of being deceived." "This is, reverend mother, a precise account of what has passed in my soul. The communications which I have just received have greatly disturbed me, I am filled with interior sorrow, and I suffer from a devouring fire ; I tremble and humble myself before God, adoring his divine operations in a miserable atom."
So, in April of this year, I was thrilled to meet a new friend in the Holy Face of Jesus. This person who writes so eloquently on this subject seems to have been prepared by Heaven for this work. Not only this, but her lineage proves the same!
Her name is Mary Zuzolo and she is the great-great-great niece of Sr. Marie St. Peter herself! Mrs. Zuzolo provided me with an excellent family timeline:
"My mother’s maiden name was Eluere, the same as that of Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre of the Holy Family, the young French Carmelite nun who received revelations from Christ in the mid-nineteenth century to initiate the Holy Face Devotion...
The first ancestor on my mother’s side to live in America was Sister Saint-Pierre’s older brother, another of twelve children born to Pierre and Francoise Portier, Prosper Michel Louis Marie Eluere, who emigrated from France to “Vincennes of America” in 1838. Though he was the eldest, Prosper was the only of the parental family to live to see the Holy Face Devotion approved by Papal Brief in 1885. Prosper was given a relic of Sister Saint-Pierre’s hair and clothing by the Carmelites and obtained a first (French) edition of her biography, which outlines the revelations surrounding the Holy Face Devotion. These artifacts are still in the family’s possession and are very much treasured by us, as is, of course, the devotion itself.
Prosper had accompanied the second bishop of Vincennes to America, Rt. Rev. Celestine de la Hailandiere, after his returned to Rennes, France, to find artisans to help him complete the Saint Francis Xavier Cathedral in what was then the capital of the Northwest Territory. Prosper was a skilled blacksmith and later established a business in Vincennes, where he and his wife Mary Louise (Bayard) raised eight children, my great-grandfather, Edward Louis Michel Eluere, being the eldest. Prosper was also well acquainted with and did artisan work for the first Indiana Saint, Mother Theodore Guerin of the Sisters of Providence in Terre Haute, Indiana, where she founded a convent and school for girls, Saint Mary-of-the-Woods.
Prior to his start in America, Prosper, son of Pierre and brother of Sister Saint-Pierre, was drafted into the French army and was unable to pay for his replacement by another (an acceptable practice in France at the time). Pierre and his sisters (aunts of Prosper) were obliged to raise two thousand francs to defray this expense. This resulted in a hardship for Sister Saint-Pierre who soon afterword needed to obtain a dowry to become a religious. In addition to supplications to Our Lady, her devotion to St. Martin of Tours led her to a dowry and to the Carmel in Tours, France (a convent she did not previously know existed).
There had been another obstacle to her entrance, which had been resolved about the same time: Pierre’s wife Francoise died, leaving Pierre a widower with a household and business to operate with only the help of his children. The local pastor of Saint Germain in Rennes felt this life was too hard for his friend, “the best of parishioners.” Approaching Pierre about this subject, he was told by Pierre that he was too busy to seek and court a wife. The good priest replied that he himself would find a suitable wife for Pierre and did, in fact, find him a new and “excellent” wife. She was received into the family with respect and courtesy and doubtless with relief by the older daughters, who had been caring for the household. Perrine, the second daughter, who had most of the responsibility in place of her elder, sickly sister, could now leave for Carmel where she became Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre..."
She continues later on in this short biography to me to explain her background:
"I am humbled to realize that I may not know of the Holy Face Devotion, which is now largely neglected (though gaining momentum in very recent years), were it not for my blood relation to Sister Saint-Pierre. There is no merit in merely being a relation of a very holy person, of course, but I feel the connection does, however, oblige me to at least understand and practice the devotion to the best of my ability, as well as to pass along what I know to my children. Now more fully realizing the extreme, real-time relevance of the devotion, I feel the additional duty of helping to re-introduce it to the world."
She writes further on about the Devotion to the Holy Face which is so very badly neglected and yet so terribly necessary in these times:
"The blasphemous evils of nineteenth-century France were the catalyst to current, like affronts to God. What Christ revealed to Sister Saint-Pierre is all the truer today: “In no other time has iniquity reached such a degree.” Man’s God-given role in this fight against “Marxist-modernists” is not limited to France nor the nineteenth century. Established by the Church for all times, the faithful are called to imitate Sister Saint-Pierre by using reparation to the Godhead as spiritual weaponry in reclaiming our Church and times for Christ.
Offering Christ’s wounded countenance to the Father—His merits and love—in reparation for modern affronts to the first three commandments (those concerning the rights of God) unites the power of God with the cooperation of man. Offenses against the Godhead as represented by the Holy Face are offenses against the Face of the Church, or her doctrine, such that all the blasphemy endured by the Church are as renewed wounds to the countenance of Christ. Reparation to the Godhead for these renewed injuries is the remedy, “the sole means of appeasing the Father,” according to Christ.
The promises attached to the devotion state that those who engage in this Work of Reparation are stamped anew by God with the Image of Christ, such that they may become truer and more beautiful vessels of reparation—and love. They learn to practice fear of the Lord quintessentially. They become the very antithesis of blasphemy, sharing in the most noble privilege of “consoling the Godhead Itself”!
This Work of Reparation, the Holy Face Devotion, in that it is intimately allied to the great Work of the Redemption yet demanded by God as a new work to repair the outrages of modern society, is, according to Our Lord Himself, “the most beautiful work that has yet appeared on the face of the earth” and “the greatest source of grace, second to the sacraments.” Please join with Our Lady of the Holy Name of God in this most noble remedy for our era: consolation for God and mercy for man!
Mary Zuzolo 's website and some of her writings can be found:
Also Mrs. Zuzolo wrote the forward for a book on the Holy Face by Fr. Lawrence Daniel Carney III titled: "The Secret of the Holy Face The Devotion Destined to Save Society" which can be found here:
and
Let us thank God for another warrior that will fight with the pen for the Glory of the Holy Name of God and Work of Reparation to His Most Holy Face!
