(An unusual Paschal candle, depicting Mary Magdalene with Our Lord in the Resurrection Garden)

After the Virgin Mary, St. Mary Magdalene could be said to be one of the first to have a Devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus. After her conversion, she wanted only to sit at His Feet, gaze up into His Face, and listen to His every word. Each look, each word, that came from Him was just what she needed for her soul. And so it is with us as well...

Here's another moving excerpt from my interlibrary loan...

"The cultivation of special love and devotion to the human Face of God our Savior must of necessity bring to the soul a very world of grace. It is the gaze of the soul upon God..."

E. Seton, in her 1915 book, "Devotion to the Holy Face" reminds us that looking into His Face and loving Him is what this whole life is about: living our lives so that we may look into His Face for real in the next life. Then she gives this uplifting view of the end of the world for those who have looked into His Face in prayer and meditation and love throughout their lives...

"What a joy, therefore, will the vision of the Face they have loved and served devotedly on earth, to which they have offered treasured reparation, what a joy will It be in Heaven to Its adorers! It shall be their everlasting Inheritance -- for this is the 'Treasure of the elect' - their secure Possession, Mary's part which 'shall not be taken from her.' 'The "many things" of earth that absorbed the troubled attention of Martha will pass away when the earth is folded up as a garment. Medicine ceases with the grave. Astronomy fades with the stars that fall from heaven. Geology melts with the rocks on the last dread day, the naturalist must feel the earth slip through his fingers. Even Moral Theology ceases its inquisition when the hydra-headed monster, Sin, is no more, and Dogma needs not its formula when Truth appears, divinely simple; but the Face of Jesus that held the gaze of Mary is eternal, and It shall not be taken from her.'"