The Chaplet of the Holy Face – Battle Prayers

A month or so ago, I started praying the Chaplet of the Holy Face of Jesus with my family. I’d never heard of this prayer before working for the Carmelites in Alexandria, SD, but they have a profound devotion to the Holy Face and are building a chapel to promote this devotion. I thought that I should try to understand it better, and the best way to understand a spiritual discipline is to put it into practice. As St. Augustine says, “If you do not believe, you will not understand.” (His paraphrase of Isaiah 7:9)

My kids love the Holy Face Chaplet. It’s a bit shorter than a rosary, which suits their fancy. They are 12, 10, 7, 5, and 2, so their attention spans can be squirrelly by 8:00 at night when I gather my flock for bedtime prayers.

The Holy Face Chaplet is prayed with beads like a Rosary, but in a slightly different configuration. The symbolism of the chaplet focuses on the sacred humanity of Christ. It has five groups of 6 small beads separated by large beads. Adding these to the three small beads between the Crucifix and the circlet gives a total of 33 small beads, one for each year of Jesus’ earthly life. Each group of small beads (hexad, hexade?) focuses our attention on one of Jesus’ physical senses: touch, hearing, sight, smell, and taste, in that order.

“ARISE, OH LORD, AND LET THY ENEMIES BE SCATTERED!” My 10-year-old son loves to solemnly intone this on each of the small beads of the hexad, which drives his little sister a bit crazy. She wants him to pray like a normal person. I’m just glad that he’s praying. “And let them that hate thee flee from before thy face,” the rest chime in.

The Chaplet of the Holy Face is a battle prayer. It’s the prayer that Moses prayed whenever the Ark set out for a day’s journey toward the Promised Land. (Num 10:35) It’s a cry for Divine Assistance in the face of unknown or insurmountable odds. It’s a declaration of dependence on God’s protection.

But Who Are His Enemies?

The question, “Who are God’s enemies?” is an important one. The answer informs our prayer. When Sr. Marie de St. Pierre received the Chaplet from our Lord in prayer, the Church in France was under attack by the remnants of the French Revolution, who completely rejected the authority of God. Atheists and Freemasons sought to undermine and destroy the Church. But were they really God’s ultimate enemies?

The Gospel of John tells us that, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” Jesus came to save sinners. Given the state of the world when He arrived, as well as today, that means everybody. Every human being was created by Him. They were all created for Him. This includes atheists and Freemasons. Human beings are not God’s enemies.

The devil and his fallen angels are God’s real enemies. They had complete knowledge of God’s goodness and the consequences of rejecting His love, and they did it anyway. They have finally and irreconcilably rejected God and want to destroy or deface His creation. The demons work tirelessly to trick people into rejecting the goodness of God and so share in the devil’s misery. The book of Job shows us that the devil particularly wants to tempt men to blaspheme against the name of God, because it strikes directly at the relationship between man and God.

Now, human beings might act like God’s enemies, because they are enslaved to the devil. From conception until they are born again through baptism in water and the Spirit, they are under the devil’s dominion. This is the state of original sin, which people inherit from our first parents, Adam and Eve. The burden of original sin is accompanied by an inclination to do evil, a darkness of the mind, and disordered passions (or emotions). Look around today, and you can see the evidence of the fall everywhere.

The Church Captive

I’ve heard it said that we live in a “post-Christian” age. This is not good news. Jesus told us that when a demon is cast out, it runs around in the desert before gathering seven nasty friends and returning to its former dwelling. The person who can’t fight off the onslaught will be worse off than before they were first saved.

This is bad when it happens to a person. It’s worse when it happens to a civilization. Ancient Rome was a place where false gods were worshipped, human beings were bought and sold, and slaves killed one another for the entertainment of the crowd. That civilization was conquered by the Cross of Christ, and the false gods of the Romans fled before the face of God. They’ve been wandering around in the desert for a millennium and now have returned with an army seven times greater than the one that was first defeated by the blood of the apostles and martyrs.

This diabolical host has produced a culture that has slaughtered more children than ancient Carthage could have imagined. A culture that can’t tell male from female. One that uses the name of Jesus only as a curse.

Members of the Church are not immune to this second, greater fall. If something like 70% of men abuse pornography regularly, that means that a large number of Catholic men are in a habitual state of mortal sin. They have been taken captive by the enemy. They are no longer members of the Church Militant. They are prisoners of war. Their condition is seven times worse than if they had never been baptized. The devil can see in them the mark of Christ and abuses them with unrelenting vigor. Not to judge. I’ve been there. Got the T-shirt.

My Jesus, Mercy

To save all men from this wretched state, Jesus, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, became man. He experienced His Passion through the five human senses that He shares with us. He felt the whip bite into His sides and back, the crown of thorns pressed upon His head, and His beard being plucked out. He heard the false accusations of the witnesses brought against Him by Caiaphas. He saw the crowds jeering and calling for His Crucifixion. He smelled the press of the crowd as He carried His cross up to Calvary. He tasted the sour wine that was brought to quench His thirst.

Tradition tells us that Veronica wiped Jesus’ face as He walked up to Calvary. The image of the Holy Face of Jesus, taken from her veil, reveals Jesus’ face when He was in the very act of saving us. It is a snapshot of the suffering, unconditional love that God has for all people. When I look upon His Face in prayer, there’s a very real way that I’m entering into that eternally saving moment.

On each of the large beads of the Holy Face Chaplet, we pray, “My Jesus, mercy,” followed by the “Glory Be”. When we pray the Holy Face Chaplet, we are actively participating in that quintessential work of mercy. With Jesus, we are begging God the Father, “forgive them, they know not what they do.”

Jesus told Sr. Marie de St. Pierre, “By offering My Face to My Eternal Father, nothing will be refused, and the conversion of many sinners will be obtained.” Jesus came to save sinners. He’s still doing it. The Holy Face Chaplet aligns our prayer with this Eternal mission of our Lord.

The West is in a spiritual battle seven times more ferocious than that faced by St. Peter and the Apostles. The Psalms teach us to pray, “Lord, show me Your face and we shall be saved.” (Ps 80:20) Jesus took on a human nature so that the Invisible God could reveal a human face. The Chaplet of the Holy Face draws us into that salvific act through the sacred humanity of Jesus. He is showing us His face so we can be saved.

We just have to look.