Holy Face of Jesus

The Holy Face of Jesus is a title for specific images which some Catholics believe to have been miraculously formed representations of the face of Jesus Christ. The image obtained from the Shroud of Turin is associated with a specific medal worn by some Roman Catholics and is also one of the Catholic Devotions to Christ.

Various Acheiropoieta (literally "not-handmade") items relating to Christ have been reported throughout the centuries, and devotions to the face of Jesus have been practiced. Devotions to the Holy Face were approved by Pope Leo XIII in 1895 and Pope Pius XII in 1958.

In the Roman Catholic tradition, the Holy Face of Jesus is used in conjunction with Acts of Reparation to Jesus Christ with specific institutions whose focus is such reparations, e.g. the Pontifical Congregation of the Benedictine Sisters of the Reparation of the Holy Face. In his address to this Congregation, Pope John Paul II referred to such Acts of Reparation as the "unceasing effort to stand beside the endless crosses on which the Son of God continues to be crucified".

Belief in the existence of authentic images of Christ is connected with the old legend of Abgar of Edessa and the apocryphal writing known as the "Mors Pilati". The oldest and best known of these images was called the vera icon (true image), which in ordinary language became known as "veronica".

According to tradition Saint Veronica encountered Jesus along the Via Dolorosa on the way to Calvary. When she paused to wipe the blood and sweat off his face with her veil, his image was imprinted on the cloth. The story is not recorded in its present form until the Middle Ages. The event is commemorated by the Sixth Station of the Cross.

In 1844, Sister Marie of St Peter, a Carmelite nun in Tours, France, reported a vision in which Jesus said to her, "Those who will contemplate the wounds on My Face here on earth, shall contemplate it radiant in heaven." She later reported further visions and conversations with Jesus and the Virgin Mary in which she was urged to spread the devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus, in reparation for the many insults Jesus suffered in his Passion. Devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus started to spread among Roman Catholics in France.

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