“My Name is everywhere blasphemed! There are even children who blaspheme!”
This is the sorrowful complaint of Our Lord to Sr. Mary of St. Peter, a Carmelite nun who lived in France in the 1800s. He said that sins against His Holy Name are like poisoned arrows that wound His Sacred Heart most grievously—more, He said, than all other sins.
But He provided Sr. Mary with a remedy, a “golden arrow” that would pierce His Heart with a welcome wound to atone for the sin of blasphemy.
It is a beautiful and simple prayer:
May the most holy, most sacred, most adorable, most incomprehensible and unutterable Name of God be always praised, blessed, loved, adored and glorified, in Heaven, on earth, and under the earth, 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.
Sr. Mary said that “at that moment I believe I saw streaming from the Sacred Heart of Jesus, delightfully wounded by this ‘Golden Arrow,’ torrents of graces for the conversion of sinners.”
The Golden Arrow prayer forms the backbone of the Holy Face Devotion, which Our Lord revealed to Sr. Mary in a series of revelations in the 1840s. He desired Sr. Mary to spread this devotion in particular to atone for blasphemy, the sins of atheism and communism, and the profanation of Sundays, especially by Christians.
Francisco de Zurbarán’s portrayal of the Holy Face on Veronica’s veil
Pope Leo XIII established this devotion as an Archconfraternity in 1885. Some of its early members were the Martins, the family of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. When Thérèse entered Carmel, she took the name “Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face.”
Though it seems almost niche, this devotion—so earnestly desired by Our Lord Himself!—is more necessary than ever in our modern age, which is so impious, irreverent, and infected with atheistic and communist ideas. Devote yourself to His Holy Face with this beautiful Holy Shroud Rosary. By combing the spiritual weapon of the Rosary with the healing power of the Holy Face, this rosary becomes a profound tool for salvation. Arm yourself for spiritual battle with this rosary available today at the Catholic Company!
