THE HERD OF BLASPHEMING SOULS IS UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF LUCIFER

After two years had passed wherein Sister Mary of St Peter had faithfully recorded Our Lord's revelations, and she had began difficult negotiations with her superiors as to how the devotion to the Holy Face was to be ratified by the bishops of the Church, and as to how they would spread the prayers to the Holy Face by way of pamphlets that the convent would use their own money to print, Our Lord rewarded Sr Mary with a gift. To evince His gratitude He gave her soul the gift of His Face. Our Lord announced to Sr Mary, "To you, I give My Holy Face as a recompense for the services you have performed for Me...I now give this Holy Face in the presence of My Eternal Father and in virtue of the Holy Ghost...I offer you this gift of My Holy Countenance through the hands of My Mother and those of St Veronica."

Our Lord awarded His Holy Face to Sr Mary's soul as an outright personal gift, and in doing so He made good on the promise that those who honor His Holy Face will have His Image imprinted on their souls.  It was only fitting that His Face would adorn her soul because she gave herself totally to Our Lord so that through her the devotion was born, but in her humility it had never occurred to her that she would be a recipient of the promise.

Sr Mary was moved to understand that after the sacraments, the gift of Jesus's Holy Face was "the greatest gift He could bestow on me." The same week, however, that Our Lord made His Face part of Sr Mary's soul for all eternity, she was dogged by doubt and thoughts of her inadequacy. She said, "I had some difficulty in persuading myself that Our Lord had actually presented me, who am so unworthy with the precious gift of His Holy Face." And so she sought a visual sign, "I begged Him to grant me a visible proof of the invisible grace." Then she kissed lovingly a picture of the Holy Face in a spirit of reparation several times, after which she felt Our Lord draw near to her and instead of chiding her for her lack of faith, as He had in the past, He answered her request and He used a most strong, concrete image to impart to her another promise in which she was given an understanding of the awesomeness of His Face, and Its awesome power, "Just as in an earthly kingdom, money which is stamped with the picture of the sovereign or ruling executive of the country procures whatever one desires to purchase, so likewise in the Kingdom of Heaven, you shall obtain all that you desire by offering the coin of My precious Humanity which is My adorable Face."

The "coin" of Our Lord's Humanity is His Face and in offering It, prayers are answered. Immediately after Our Lord had given Sr Mary this combined revelation and promise, He transported her in spirit to a piece of land that adjoined her convent. On a previous occasion Sr Mary's superior (the nun in charge of the convent) had asked Sr Mary to pray that this land would become theirs. And in this moment when Our Lord and Sr Mary were viewing the land together, He invited her to offer His Holy Face as a means of purchasing the land. When Sr Mary did so, Our Lord assured her that the land would become the property of her Carmelite Community.

Some months later, when the nuns had become the owners of the land, Our Lord appeared again to Sr Mary and told her he wanted her to think of the land as a metaphor, that just as the offering of His Holy Face had meant this land become their property, so too, could the offering of His Face mean that many souls could be bought. Jesus showed Sr Mary a vision of a fold of sheep grazing on the land, and He appointed her as their shepherdess. He informed her that these sheep had been bitten by the serpent who had infected them with "the madness of blasphemy". Sr Mary was given the task of leading these sheep to the Divine mysteries of Our Lord's life in order that they might be healed, and He instructed her to shelter the sheep in the wounds of His Sacred Heart, and that she was to brand them with the picture of His Holy Face. But Our Lord issued a stern warning; He cautioned Sr Mary that the herd of blaspheming souls is under the direct leadership of the prince of demons, that is Lucifer himself, and that the other herds of sinners such as those given to drunkenness and avarice are led by less powerful demons. Sr Mary saw and related the chilling reality, "blasphemers are Lucifer's own particular herd."

When she knew these truths, Our Lord gave her advice that may well be adopted by us today, He told her not to fear Lucifer because St Michael would protect her, and He gave her His cross as her crook, "I give you My cross to use as a shepherd's crook, and through this weapon you will become formidable to the demon."  While Sr Mary was highly privileged, she was not so good as to be undeserving of a new reprimand from Our Lord and in addition to the revelations He upbraided her for neglecting to pray for blasphemers, and said it was the demonic which had tempted her to distrust the mercy of God, and thus deny blasphemers prayer which in a moment of doubt Sr Mary thought lacking in power over blasphemers.  Our Lord asked of Sr Mary rhetorically, "Did I not Myself give you the example of praying for blasphemers while I was on the cross?"

Many of us, myself certainly, fall into the category of people who have neglected to pray for blasphemers, and until now I have neglected to pray in reparation for my own sins of blasphemy and my sins of omission in this regard, the times when I have been in starlit company when sordid curses stung the air when I have failed to say their blasphemy is unacceptable to me because I did not grasp the seriousness of the wounds inflicted by curses on the Holy Face. So I am in effect like Sr Mary in that I have been awoken to the reality that Lucifer personally takes charge of blasphemers, among such a fold I once was, but there is a dual responsibility in my case to make reparation for my own sins and the sins of others. Then in turn, the "others" who will flee the flock of blasphemers may be in offer dual reparation, for their past sins and the others who remained in the flock that Lucifer oversees. 

You may read the entirety of the revelations given Sr Mary which are contained in the book The Golden Arrow. 

This painting by El Greco is perhaps my favorite depiction of Our Lord's Face on Veronica's Veil, because while the veil is so impregnated with black marks that it looks like it was borrowed from a mechanic's shop, it does not so much represent the true Veil which was Veronica's best silk cloth, but rather it represents a soul quite like mine that is smudged with black grime and has an overall beige squalidness. Yet, the Holy Face is imprinted on it all the same, true to Our Lord's promise that His Face would be imprinted on a soul that honors His Face, like it was imprinted on Veronica's Veil because the promise holds for those who honor His Face, not only to those who are perfect.