God Demands Reparation

 The book “God Demands Reparation: The Holy Man of Tours, the Life of Leo Dupont” recounts the inspiring story of Leo Dupont, a wealthy man who dedicated his life to the spiritual mission of revering the Holy Face of Jesus. His journey was driven by a deep devotion to combat blasphemy and uphold the sanctity of the Lord’s Day.
Leo Dupont’s early days were devoted to education, becoming a lawyer, but a man who was deeply religious and had a great desire to become a priest. He was turned away from that desire because of deformity in his hand but his advisor said he would one day do great work for the Church.

Over time, Dupont realized that his wealth could be a powerful tool for promoting reverence and educating the illiterate in their faith. His ultimate goal was for his fellow men to love God above all and obey the first three Commandments. His path was fraught with challenges and heartache as he sought to fulfill a divine request relayed by God to Sister Marie Pierre. These revelations made to Sr. Marie Pierre over a period of four years and fully approved by the Church … eventually.

Leo Dupont, often referred to as “The Holy Man of Tours,” dedicated his life to promoting the veneration of the Holy Face of Jesus bringing one of the Sacri Vultus images Pope Pius IX sanctioned in 1849. This veneration took place with the public coming into his home to adore His Holy Face. Leo fervently believed that this devotion would bring about spiritual reparation for the many blasphemies and irreverences committed against the Holy Name of Jesus and the sanctity of the Lord’s Day. His conviction emanated from a Carmelite nun who receiving many revelations over a 4 year period from God, shared her divine visions in which she was instructed to promote this veneration along with specific prayers including the Golden Arrow Prayer and the Little Chaplet to defeat Communism and Freemasonry which was at the doorsteps of France.

Leo saw a deteriorating society and the threat of communism approaching Europe and recognized the key to solving this dilemma rested in the messages that Jesus gave to Sr. Marie Pierre. To purge society of blasphemy, communism, and freemasonry required reparation to His Holy Face. While Sr. Marie Pierre, carried out this mission valiantly while she was alive, she passed away in 1848, leaving a gaping hole to carry on the Work of Reparation.

Driven by a profound sense of purpose, Dupont worked tirelessly to advocate for the formal recognition of this devotion. God had requested of Sr. Marie Pierre and Leo had taken up the mission to seek approval for this devotion. A formal Brief from the Pope in Rome was essential to validate and bolster the Work of Reparation to the Holy Face as instructed by God Himself to Sr. Marie Pierre. Despite Leo’s unwavering efforts and the indirect support he eventually garnered from bishops, Dupont faced significant obstacles to gain formal approval. The ecclesiastical authorities in Tours were reluctant to issue approval for public devotion, and his appeals often fell on deaf ears.

Dupont’s persistence was unwavering, even as he encountered resistance and indifference. He wrote numerous letters, engaged in heartfelt pleas, and sought support from influential clerics. His home became a center of pilgrimage to thousands where miraculous healings occurred, where he displayed the image of the Holy Face and encouraged visitors to join him in prayer and devotion. Even a bishop who sent people to venerate the Holy Face and pray for miraculous healings (which occurred every time) withheld his approval for public devotion. The world remains perplexed as to the reasons for the bishop’s reluctance to grant approval for public devotion to the Holy Face while privately believing in the healing miracles.

The struggle to secure the Formal Brief from Rome consumed much of Dupont’s life, and he continued his efforts until his dying days. It was not until a new bishop of Tours was appointed, Archbishop Colet, did official recognition occur, making public devotion to the Holy Face and the devotional prayers ecclesiastically approved. After his death, his mission gained greater recognition, and the devotion to the Holy Face continued to spread. After Leo’s death, Archbishop Meigan ensured that Leo’s home was designated as an oratory and the Holy Face relic was retained in the oratory for the public to venerate.

The formal approval for the devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus, which Leo Dupont had worked so tirelessly to achieve, was granted by Pope Leo XIII in 1885 with the Formal Brief being issued just as Jesus had demanded. This approval established the devotion as an Archconfraternity for the whole world. The Formal Brief came nearly a decade after Leo Dupont’s death in 1876.

Leo Dupont’s story is one of profound faith, dedication, and perseverance in the face of adversity. His life’s work serves as a testament to the power of unwavering belief and the impact of a single individual’s commitment to a divine cause. Though he did not live to see the full fruition of his efforts, his legacy lives on, inspiring future generations to uphold and revere the Holy Face of Jesus.

Thine Adorable Face

I salute Thee, I adore Thee and I love Thee, O adorable Face of Jesus, my

Beloved, noble Seal of the Divinity! outraged anew by blasphemers. I offer

Thee, through the heart of Thy blessed Mother, the worship of all the Angels and

Saints, most humbly beseeching Thee to repair and renew in me and in all

men Thine Image disfigured by sin.

 

Our Lord Comes to a Carmelite Nun, Sr. Marie Pierre of the Holy Family

Sr. Marie Pierre shares with the Carmelite prioress that “Our Lord deigned to manifest himself to me, showing me the multitude of souls who were falling into hell, He expressed the desire that I should offer myself entirely to His good pleasure and that I should resign to Him all the merits I might acquire in my new career for the furtherance of His designs.” Life of Sister Marie Pierre – Janvier, 1884, p70

Sr. Marie Pierre is told by our Lord and Saviour on August 26, 1843 that she is being called to a special mission with which He intended to entrust to her. The prioress, Mother Mary of the Incarnation, recognized the need for help outside the walls of the Carmelite Order and sought out Leo Dupont’s assistance.

To convince Leo of the messages received Mother Mary of the Incarnation proceeds to share with Leo the following messages:

“My name is everywhere blasphemed! Even children blaspheme!”

By this act we are cursing him to his face and openly annul redemption and pronounce our own condemnation.

Mother Mary went on to say that to heal the wounds inflicted on the heart of our Saviour by the poisoned arrow of blasphemy, the Master asks us to pray:

“May the most holy, most sacred, most adorable, most incomprehensible and ineffable name of God be praised, blessed, loved, adored, and glorified in heaven and on earth, by all the creatures by God, and by the Sacred Heart of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.”

Three months after this meeting between Leo and Mother Mary where Leo then agreed to help, Sr. Marie Pierre receives the following message:

“Until now, I have shown you only in part the designs of My heart, but today I will reveal them to you in all their fulness. The earth is covered with crimes, the violation of the First Three Commandments of God has irritated My Father; the Holy Name of God is blasphemed, and the Holy Day of the Lord profaned fills up the measure of iniquities these sins have risen unto the Throne of God and provoked His wrath, which will soon burst forth, if His justice be not appeased; at no time have these crimes reached such a pitch! I desire and most ardently, that there be formed, to honor the Name of My Father, an Association, properly approved and organized. Your superiors are right in not wishing to take any steps concerning this devotion but such as are well based, for otherwise, My designs would not be fulfilled.”

Our Lord made it known to Sr. Marie Pierre that the work of the Reparation to the Holy Face is of such excellence that it surpasses various other devotions and how agreeable it is to God, to the Angels and Saints, and how salutary it was to the Church:

“Of if you did but know the glory a soul acquires in saying only once in the spirit of Reparation for blasphemy, Admirable is the Name of God.”   

   

“In proportion to your care in repairing the injuries My Face receives from blasphemers, will I take care of yours which has been disfigured by sin; I will restore to it My likeness, and render it as beautiful as when it had just left the Baptismal font.”

For two years, Sr. Marie and Leo struggled to make known and have printed the prayers for the Works of Reparation to the Holy Face. Then in 1846, Sr. Marie Pierre asked Our Lady for help in making the devotion known. Never was it known anyone who calls to her earnestly, have prayers remain unanswered.

Sr. Marie Pierre received a prompt answer … directly from her Blessed Mother. Through Mary’s intercession, two children on a mountainside were now proclaiming the SAME MESSAGE which Sr. Marie Pierre had been repeating inside the Carmelite Order for more than two years … the need for reparation for blaspheming and loving strange gods. This same message as we know came through Our Lady of La Salette (this will be CUP’s next blog…)

In 1846, Sr. Marie received an ominous message from our Savior indicating a threat that He would punish the world not by elements (i.e., earthquakes, fire, rain), but by “the malice of revolutionary men.”

Note that in 1848, Pope Pius IX fled the Vatican to Naples where he remained in hiding when the Carbonari (Freemasons) murdered his right-hand aid. French revolutionaries were marching on Rome and the Vatican and he was no longer safe. It was in 1849 that the miracle of the Holy Face occurred while on display for the public to venerate, bringing to us a gift of the Holy Face to venerate for ages to come.  Click here to read further on this.

It was soon after that warning that a simple pamphlet, an abridged version, concerning the blasphemies was approved for distribution in a limited setting in Tours, France by the local bishop. Unfortunately, the distribution backfired causing a firestorm of criticism and resulting in the Archbishop of Tours ordering both Dupont and Sr. Marie Pierre into total silence. Unfortunately for Sr. Marie this silence was not lifted all the way to her death but she knew the mission she had been called to for the works of the reparation to the Holy Face would be fulfilled.

Despite the obstacles faced by Sr. Marie Pierre and then by Leo Dupont, it was clear that His Holy Face would bring restoration to nations and Christians back to their faith just as Jesus promised. Will you join CUP in the works of reparation to His Holy Face through prayer? We have much work to do.

Enroll in the Archconfraternity of the Holy Face

Prayers for Reparation to His Holy Face