# A heaven-revealed remedy to the ills of our times
*2018-06-02*

> Bill Young discusses the power of universal love and leads a prayer of reparation through the Devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus.

## The Nature of Heavenly Love

I want to share a story about my aunt, Sister Mary Teresa, who passed away many years ago after a beautiful, fruitful life as a sister for over sixty years. About thirteen years after her death, while I was going through some personal struggles with work and family, I began praying the Rosary and asking for her intercession. After completing the prayers, I felt an overwhelming sense of love—first for my son, and later, a profound love for everyone, including total strangers.

When I shared this experience with my sister, she told me she had felt that same extraordinary love at our aunt's funeral. This led me to a conclusion: in heaven, there is a particular kind of love that is equal for everyone. I believe that until we learn to love everyone equally—as God commands us to love our neighbors as ourselves—it will be difficult to enter heaven. This universal love, extending even to our enemies and those who have wronged us, is the heaven-revealed remedy to the ills of our time.

## God's Providence in the Small Things

I also recall finding an old Bible that my aunt had given me years prior. I had overlooked it for a long time, but I found it exactly when I needed to. Inside was a note addressed to me and highlights in the Book of John, specifically regarding the search for the light. Interestingly, I found this Bible on a Saturday, and the very next day at Sunday Mass, the Gospel reading was about Mary saying 'yes' to God—the same passage my aunt had marked.

This reminded me that God knows every hair on our heads and every single event of our lives, no matter how small. He knows the moment we find a forgotten book or the exact second we need a specific word of encouragement. Everything is known to Him.

## The Devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus

I recently acquired a set of beads for the Devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus. This devotion, involving prayers composed by Sister Mary of St. Peter, was originally intended as a battle in prayer against the enemies of God. While the original context mentioned communism, the prayers are applicable to all forms of evil and blasphemy present in our world today.

The devotion uses a specific set of 33 beads to make reparation for sins committed against the Holy Face of our Lord. It focuses on the five senses and the three years of Christ's public ministry, asking for the conversion of sinners and the triumph of the Holy Name of God.

## The Prayer of Reparation

Following the tradition of the devotion, we pray for the division of the camp of God's enemies and the conversion of those who hate Him. We ask that the Holy Name of the Living God may overrule the plans of the wicked and that the 'terrible name of God of eternity' may stamp out their godliness. Crucially, we pray with the heart of Christ, stating that we do not desire the death of sinners, but that they may be converted and live.

We conclude by offering the Holy Face of Jesus—covered with blood, sweat, dust, and spit—in reparation for blasphemers and those who profane the Holy Name and the Holy Day of Sunday. We trust in the promise that whenever His Face is contemplated, He will pour out His love into the hearts of those persons for the salvation of many souls.

*To reach heaven, we must strive to love everyone, including our enemies, because they often do not know what they do.*