OBEYING- the archbishop's counsels, Sister Saint-Pierre began to pray with renewed fervor for greater light regarding the establishment of the Work of Reparation. But it pleased the Divine Master to lead his servant once more through the path of interior trials. She was assailed with fears and doubts; terrible temptations met her at every turn; all sensible consolations were withdrawn; she felt that her soul had lost even sanctifying grace, and in her agony she hardly dared receive Holy Communion. One day, while awaiting the hour of Mass, and hesitating as to whether she should approach the holy table, she thought that this Bread of the Strong would infuse courage. She seized with renewed faith her crucifix, and, recalling to mind that Jesus had said that the Act of Praise called the Golden-Arrow delightfully wounded his Heart, she pronounced this formula ten times in succession and resolved to receive Holy Communion in Reparation for blasphemy. Nothing more was needed to touch the Heart of the Heavenly Spouse. This fervent, loving soul was filled with consolations, and the Mystery of the Sorrowful Face of Christ was suddenly revealed to her. She felt herself transported in spirit to the road to Calvary. "There," she says, "our Lord vividly portrayed to me the pious act of Veronica, who with her veil wiped his most Holy Face, covered with spittle, dust, sweat, and blood. This Divine Saviour made. me understand that the impious at present, by their blasphemies, renewed the outrages formerly inflicted on his Holy Face. All the blasphemies hurled against the Divinity, whom they cannot reach, fall back, like the spittle of the Jews, upon the Face of our Lord, who has offered himself a victim for sinners.
Then he told me I must imitate the zeal of the pious Veronica, who so courageously braved the crowd of his enemies to reach him, and he gave her to me as a protectress and model. By-promoting the Reparation for blasphemy we render him the same service as did this heroic Jewish woman, and he looks upon those who thus act with the same complacency as when he gazed upon her on his way to Calvary." All the purpose of the Reparation is here in the germ. We shall behold it developing in the succeeding revelations. Henceforth the Sister applied herself to rendering homage to the Holy Face. "I believe," she says, " I am under the special protection of the pious Veronica; I am continually occupied in adoring the August and Most Holy Face of the Divine Saviour. This Adorable Face is the mirror of the perfections contained in the Most Holy Name of God." "I comprehended" she says, "that as the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the sensible object offered to our adoration, to represent his boundless love in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar; so in the Work of the Reparation our Lord's Face is the sensible object offered to the adoration of the Associates, to atone for the outrages of blasphemers, who attack the Divinity, of which it is the mirror and expression. By virtue of this Adorable Face presented to the Eternal Father we can appease his just wrath and obtain the conversion of the impious and blasphemers." Our Lord favored his servant with still other lights. He made her comprehend that the Church is his mystical body, and religion the face of that body. u He then showed me," she says, u that this face is to-day a butt for the enemies of, his Holy Name; and I saw, by means of this divine light, that the impious, by wicked words and blasphemy against the Holy Name of God, spit upon the Saviour's Face and cover it with mud; that all the blows given to Holy Church and religion by sectarians are a renewal of the numerous buffets which the Holy Face of our Lord received, and that these wretches, in striving to annul the infinite merits of its sufferings, cause, as it were, the sweat of this Most Holy Face."
"After this vision," continues the Sister, "the Blessed Saviour said to me: 'I seek Veronicas to wipe and honor my Divine Face, which has few adorers.' And he made me understand anew that all who would devote themselves to this Work of the Reparation would thereby perform the office of the pious Veronica. After which he addressed me these words: ' I give you my Face as a recompense for the services you have rendered me. They are slight, it is true; but your heart has conceived great desires. I therefore present you this gift in virtue
of the Holy Ghost, in the presence of my Father, the angels and saints, through the hands of my Most Holy Mother and St. "Veronica, who will teach you in what manner it should be venerated.' He moreover added: 'By my Holy Face you will perform wonders.'" The Sister understood that this precious gift was not for herself alone; that it was to become in the Work of Reparation a distinctive sign and powerful means of action. But this grace was for her, after that of the Sacraments, the greatest she could receive. " Now," added the Lord, "if any do not recognize in this my work, it is because they close their eyes." "Two days after, having taken for the subject of my prayer," the Sister says, "the Betrayal of Judas, I sorrowfully considered the outrage the Face of our Lord had received in the kiss of his perfidious disciple, and it seemed to me that the Divine Master invited me in a spirit of reparation to kiss most fervently the image of his Holy Face. (See Brief of Leo XIII.) After obeying the inspiration I felt that this amiable Saviour willed to instruct me on the excellence of the gift he had presented me in his Adorable Face, and he had the goodness to accommodate himself to the feebleness of my mind by the following simple comparison: ' As in earthly kingdoms' said he, 'one can obtain what he wills with coin stamped .with the king's effigy, so with the precious coin of my Sacred Humility, whose effigy is my Adorable Face, one can obtain in the kingdom of heaven all that he desires.' And he promised me, besides, that all who, by words, prayers, or writings, would defend his cause in this Work of Reparation, he would defend before his Father, and would give them his kingdom."
Succeeding these communications on the Holy Face, Sister Saint-Pierre had the next day an interior light on the same subject, which she expressed in the following prayer:
" Remember, O my Son! the instructions which thy Heavenly Spouse has this day given thee concerning his Adorable Face. Remember that the Divine Head represents the Eternal Father, who is unbegotten; that the mouth of this Holy Face represents the Divine Word, begotten of the Father; the two eyes, the reciprocal love of the Father and the Son, for these divine eyes have but one light, one identical knowledge, and produce the one same love which represents the Holy Ghost. Contemplate in his flowing hair the infinite perfections of the Most Blessed Trinity. Behold in this majestic Head, precious portion «of the Sacred Humanity of the Saviour, the image of the Unity of God."
A series of other communications soon came to unfold more clearly these consoling truths. On the 3d of November, in order to show more plainly the propriety of the choice he had made of his Holy Face as the principal object of the Adoration, our Lord declares to Marie de Saint-Pierre that he gives it to her "to be wiped with her homages and perfumed with her praises," and he adds: " According to the care you will take to make reparation to my Face, disfigured by blasphemy, will 1 take of your soul, disfigured by sin. I will reimprint my likeness upon it, and make it as beautiful as when it came forth from the baptismal font. There are men skilled in restoring health to the body, but I alone am the 'healer of souls,' I alone can renew in them the image of God, effaced by sin." Hearing these words, the pious Sister in transports exclaimed: "I salute thee, I adore thee, and I love thee, O Adorable Face of Jesus, my Beloved, noble seal of the Divinity. With all the powers of my soul I apply myself to thee, and I most humbly pray thee to imprint in all of us thy image, disfigured by sin." " What a mystery of love !" continued our Carmelite. " Man is invited to repair the outrages made to his God, and in a loving return he promises to restore his image in our souls! Let us, therefore, wipe the august Face of the Saviour, soiled with the spittle of blasphemers, and he will wipe our soul, soiled with the spittle of sin,"