Need to Know
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Right now, I suppose it would be a giant benefit to the whole Church if even a tenth of us would do one or two of these things daily. Imagine the influx of Divine grace.
I suggest this devotion to fit into the 1/2 hour in #5 above.
https://holyfacechapel.org/holy-face-devotion/
We, as a parish, are getting the devotion underway. For several years a few women have been very faithful in practicing this devotion.
Fr. Carney came up to our parish and gave a long weekend talk on this devotion. 32 parishioners gathered at 0930 on the last Sunday of the month and did the 30 minute version of the prayers and chaplet.
I was one of the 32. It’s a new devotion for me but I’m confident that our small acts to comfort his battered face from the blasphemy of yesterday, today and tomorrow and will help his countenance be restored and as it’s being restored he restores our battered soul, battered because of our sins. He restores our soul to the shape it was in at the moment of our baptism.
I hope someone will find this helpful and benefits from this practice. The practice in loving our Savior.
https://www.martinians.org/
One of the most grave casualties of the post-Vatican II era has been the loss of an organized daily personal devotional life, such as described in these “points,” or spiritual exercises of S. Alphonsus Liguori. Catholics were encouraged in the prior era to become more receptive to God’s grace in the soul by a focus on daily spiritual self-discipline and advancement.
After 1965, most of these kinds of valuable highly worthwhile spiritual exercises were scorned as “Pelagian,” mere “man-made efforts” at personal salvation. They were not: these daily spiritual exercises (“points”) were guideposts developed by consummate masters of the spiritual life: besides S. Alphonsus, S. Ignatius Loyola, S. Teresa of Avila, S. Francis de Sales, S. Peter of Alcantara, Francisco de Osuna, and others.
If the sad state of post-Vatican II spiritual atrophy, especially among members of the priesthood, is to be reversed, a serious commitment must result: a commitment to a daily Catholic discipline practicing acts of faith, hope, and charity and absorbing the guidance of the great spiritual masters. O
Regarding the Holy Face of Jesus devotion, I am sure Philip N. knows S. Therese of Lisieux was particularly devoted to this practice.