Apr. 1, 2017

April 2017

April is the Month the Church Dedicates to the Holy Face

THE SEASON OF LENT

The season of Lent begins from March 1, 2017 (Ash Wednesday) until April 15, 2017 (Holy Saturday). We are obliged to Fast & Abstain during this season. It sums to 40 days of Fasting & Abstinence in commemoration of the forty days Jesus spent fasting in the desert. Excluding Sundays within the Lent, it sums to exactly 40 days from Ash Wednesday until the Holy Saturday.

The below are nature of Fasting & Abstinence during the days of Lent that one needs to observe:

- Ash Wednesday & Holy Saturday: Day of Fasting & Complete Abstinence

- All Fridays in Lent: Day of Fasting & Complete Abstinence

- All the other days in Lent (except Sundays): Day of Fasting & Partial Abstinence

- Sundays during Lent are not the days of Fasting & Complete Abstinence.

- For complete Law on Fasting & Abstinence & its details, Click here

"By offering My Face to My Eternal Father, nothing will be refused, and the conversion of many sinners will be obtained."
-Our Lord To Sr. Marie de Saint-Pierre - Nov 1846 A.D.

DEVOTION TO THE HOLY FACE OF JESUS

Promises of Our Lord Jesus Christ to Sr. Mary of St. Peter, Discalced Carmelite Nun of Tours, France, in favor of those who honor His Holy Face:

1. "By My Holy Face you shall work miracles."

2. "By My Face you will obtain the conversion of many sinners."

3. "Nothing that you ask in making this offering will be refused to you."

4. "If you knew how pleasing the sight of My Face is to My Father."

5. "As in a kingdom you can procure all you wish for with a coin marked with the King's effigy, so in the Kingdom of Heaven you will obtain all you desire with the precious coin of My Holy Face."

6. "Our Lord has promised me that He will imprint His divine likeness on the souls of those who honor His most holy Countenance."

7. "All those who honor My Holy Face in a spirit of reparation will, by so doing, perform the office of the pious Veronica."

8. "According to the care you take in making reparation to My Face, disfigured by blasphemies, so will I take care of yours, which has been disfigured by sin. I will reprint therin My image and render it as beautiful as it was on leaving the Baptismal font."

9. "Our Lord promised me that all those who defend His cause in this work of reparation, by words, by prayers, or in writing, He will defend them before His Father; at their death He will purify their souls by effacing all the blots of sin and will restore to them their primitive beauty."

Act of Reparation for Blasphemy

May the most holy, most sacred, most adorable, most mysterious and unutterable Name of God, be praised, blessed, loved, adored and glorified in heaven, and on earth by the Sacred Heart of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in the most Holy Sacrament of the altar, and by all God's creatures. Amen. (Imprimatur 18 February, 1917.)

• Eternal Father, I offer Thee the adorable Face of Thy beloved Son for the honor and glory of Thy Holy Name, for the conversion of sinners and the salvation of dying souls.

• Eternal Father, I ask of Thee as many souls as was the number of the drops of Blood as Thy Divine Son shed in His Passion. (She was given a vision of Hell and the multitude of souls falling in, and was invited to pray for poor sinners. Dec. 21, 1846).

• Eternal Father, I offer Thee Our Savior, Jesus Christ for the expiation of my sins and for the needs of Holy Church.

• Our Lord told Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre on March 16, 1844, "Oh if you only knew what great merit you acquire by saying even once, 'Admirable is the Name of God,' in the spirit of reparation of blasphemy." (say often)

• Be merciful to us, O my God and reject not our prayers, when amid our afflictions, we call upon Thy Holy Name and seek with love and confidence Thine adorable Face.

• Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Holy Face of Jesus, covered with Blood, Sweat, dust and spittle, in reparation for the crimes of communists, blasphemers and by the profaners of His Holy Name and of the Holy Day of Sunday.

Taken from: www.todayscatholicworld.com/ap06tcw.htm

For the links between the beginnings of the public devotion to The Holy Face of Jesus (received by Sr. Mary of St. Peter of Tours [1816 -1848]) and the Church-approved apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary at La Salette (1846), Click here.

Below listed are the feasts falling in April 2017:

April 1: FIRST SATURDAY

(THE PASSIONTIDE BEGINS)

April 2: I Sunday of the Passion (Passion Sunday), Double of the I Class.

April 4: St. Isidore Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor of the Church, Double.

April 5: St. Vincent Ferrer Confessor, Double.

April 7: FIRST FRIDAY/Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Greater Double.

April 9: II Sunday of the Passion (Palm Sunday), Double of the I Class.

April 10: Monday in the Holy Week (Jesus curses the fig tree).

April 11: Tuesday in the Holy Week (Cleansing of the temple).

April 12: Wednesday in the Holy Week (Judas Iscariot plans his treachery).

April 13: Maundy Thursday, Double of the I Class.
[PART I: Until the Last Supper]
[PART II: After the Last Supper]