Feast of the Most Holy Face of Jesus

Every year on Friday before Ash Wednesday there is the feast of the Most Holy Face of Jesus. In Poland, the devotion to the Most Holy Face was spread mainly by the Felician Sisters.

Sister Mary Simplicia Rotariusz, Felician Sister, while collecting alms in Belgium from 1884-1885, became acquainted with the spirit of the Archconfraternity of the Most Holy Face, founded in Tours. She was named by one of the Belgian Bishops with the consent of the Bishop of Krakow as the first moderator of this organization in Poland. In her almsgathering journeys through France, she was fortunate to visit in Tours. From that time, the Felician Sisters began cultivating this devotion to the Most Holy Face of Jesus.

The Archconfraternity of the Most Holy Face, affiliated with the Felician Congregation, has many lay people enrolled. Some older convents preserved the pictures of the Holy Face and surround them with veneration. Formerly, the Sisters burned oil lamps before them. In return to primary sources according to the spirit of the Foundress, it would be commendable for the Sisters to revive in themselves that devotion and to spread it to others by gaining new members and by not permitting themselves to be outdone by other communities and by lay people in zeal for this cause.

In connection with the worship of the Sacred Face of Jesus, Father Honorat Kozminski wrote a book entitled The New Gift of Jesus, Krakow 1891 and the second edition of the book in 1902 with the new title Devotion of Reparation.