Latest / Arena Ablaze Podcast / Why the Holy Face Devotion Needs Community | Father Carney

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Why the Holy Face Devotion Needs Community | Father Carney · Arena Ablaze Podcast

0:02
Welcome into the arena.
0:04
This is the Arena Blaze podcast.
0:06
I'm your willing host, Marco Sandoval.
0:08
Our mission here at the podcast is to
0:11
invite men to join us in the 33
0:15
days consecration, the total consecration of Jesus through
0:20
the Immaculate Heart of Mary, so that our
0:22
hearts can be lit on fire, and we
0:24
can be willing to pick up the sword
0:26
of the Holy Face of Jesus and wield
0:29
it in the world, a spiritual battle raging
0:31
all around us.
0:32
I'm joined today by Father Carney, the priest
0:35
walking the streets of Wichita, Kansas.
0:38
If you find value in this conversation, please
0:41
like, share it with a friend, try to
0:43
spread the message.
0:45
Definitely leave us comments and subscribe.
0:48
I find subscribing to be very helpful because
0:50
then you'll get the alerts when the new
0:51
content comes out.
0:53
We'll begin by renewing our total consecration.
0:56
To Jesus through Mary with our prayer.
1:01
I, Marco Sandoval, a repentant sinner, renew and
1:06
ratify today in your hands, O Immaculate Mother,
1:10
the vows of my baptism.
1:12
I renounce Satan and resolve to follow Jesus
1:15
Christ even more closely than before.
1:18
Mary, I give you my heart.
1:20
Please set it on fire with love for
1:23
Jesus.
1:23
Make it always attentive to his burning thirst
1:26
for love and for souls.
1:28
Keep my heart in your most pure heart,
1:31
that I may love Jesus and the members
1:33
of his body with your own perfect love.
1:36
Mary, I entrust myself totally to you, my
1:40
body and soul, my goods, both interior and
1:43
exterior, and even the value of all my
1:46
good actions.
1:47
Please make of me, of all that I
1:49
am and have, whatever most pleases you.
1:52
Let me be a fit instrument in your
1:54
immaculate and merciful hands for bringing the greatest
1:58
possible glory to God.
2:00
If I fall, please lead me back to
2:02
Jesus.
2:03
Wash me in the blood and water that
2:05
flow from his pure side and help me
2:08
never to lose my trust in this fountain
2:10
of love and mercy.
2:12
With you, O Immaculate Mother, you who always
2:15
do the will of God, I unite myself
2:18
to the perfect consecration of Jesus as he
2:21
offers himself in the Spirit to the Father
2:24
for the life of the world.
2:26
Amen.
2:26
All right, we're joined by Father Carney, back
2:29
from his whirlwind tour of England, France, and
2:35
Ireland to take our next steps through the
2:39
manual of the Archicon Fraternity.
2:41
In the name of the Father and Son
2:43
and Holy Ghost, Hail Mary, full of grace,
2:45
the Lord is with thee.
2:47
Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is
2:49
the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
2:51
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us
2:53
sinners, now and at the hour of our
2:55
death.
2:55
Amen.
2:55
Our Lady, in the holy name of God,
2:57
Pray for us.
2:58
Saint Bridget, Pray for us.
2:59
Our patron saints and guardian angels, Pray for
3:02
us.
3:02
In the name of the Father and Son
3:03
and Holy Ghost, Amen.
3:05
So last time we talked about the first
3:08
brief of the Holy Father where he was
3:12
giving indulgences to the confraternity of the Holy
3:15
Face.
3:17
And the second brief of the Holy Father,
3:20
so Father Janvier sent another petition to enhance
3:25
the indulgences the Holy Father already gave.
3:28
And the difference of time is the first
3:34
brief was examined in tours in December 16,
3:38
1884.
3:40
And then the second brief was examined in
3:42
tours April 22, 1885.
3:48
So we only have less than six months
3:52
there.
3:52
So Kenneth Janvier is really working the system
3:56
here, trying to get this association established canonically.
4:01
And so the highlight that I want to
4:03
point out is, I'm going to read from
4:06
page nine in the manual.
4:08
It's the third point that the Pope wrote,
4:12
In addition to the same, associates who being
4:16
at least of contrite heart shall assist at
4:19
the monthly meeting of the confraternity.
4:21
Let me hold that for a minute.
4:23
You see, the Holy Father even wrote how
4:26
he has been corresponding with this monthly meeting.
4:30
And this seems to be a thing that's
4:31
missing in the devotion to the Holy Face
4:34
today.
4:35
And when I went to England and Ireland,
4:38
there's no one really actively having the monthly
4:41
meetings, as it says in here.
4:42
It continues, So
5:04
these are old indulgences today.
5:09
The indulgences are either plenary or partial.
5:12
They don't have times like this.
5:14
But what this does, though, it describes the
5:16
Holy Father is starting to give fruit to
5:21
this association that's forming, and he's decorating it
5:26
with many indulgences.
5:28
So the next time we'll talk, I've covered
5:33
pages 7 through 10 in the Arch Confraternity
5:37
of the Manual, printed in 1885.
5:40
We'll cover the petition addressed to the Holy
5:43
Father to entreat of him that the confraternity
5:47
of the Holy Face at Tours be established
5:49
as an arch confraternity.
5:51
So that's it for now.
5:53
In the name of the Father and Son,
5:54
Holy Ghost, Amen.
5:57
Father, can you speak about the importance of
6:01
the meetings?
6:02
And you say that that's kind of lacking
6:04
with the devotion, and I would agree.
6:08
I'm a devotee, and I'm enrolled in the
6:13
Arch Confraternity at Tours, but I'm not aware
6:16
of the meetings and don't participate.
6:19
Just from the man perspective, I feel like
6:22
it's very important for men to get together
6:25
and converse and share around these type of
6:28
things just to kind of help each other
6:30
stay ablaze and kind of raise the fire
6:34
of those that have it a little bit
6:36
lower and kind of vice versa.
6:39
For example, we have roughly five meetings in
6:44
Wichita, and the word meeting is something I
6:49
hate very much, and I didn't look forward
6:52
to these meetings before I started having them,
6:54
but I enjoy them greatly because things happen
7:00
when we get in front of each other
7:02
face-to-face, and during the lockdowns, they
7:06
try to cover our faces, and if we
7:09
ever get any future lockdowns, people will cherish
7:13
the ability to come together face-to-face
7:15
when they won't be able to.
7:17
They'll be prevented.
7:19
So there's no coincidence that this devotion of
7:22
the Holy Face is for our times because
7:25
it helps us to desire the face of
7:29
Jesus in the beatific vision, and since we're
7:32
made in the image and likeness of God,
7:34
if we are in the state of sanctifying
7:36
grace where God is dwelling within us, then
7:39
it should be a joy for people to
7:41
come together to talk about a strategy to
7:44
make humanity a better humanity and to make
7:48
this world a better place.
7:49
Heaven, excuse me, the world should be a
7:52
gate to heaven, and the Church should be
7:55
gates to heaven.
7:57
So that's the ideal, and we should always
8:00
be striving towards that to serve Christ our
8:05
King and the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is
8:08
our Mother and Queen.
8:10
What are the basic requirements for a meeting?
8:14
See, this is wide open.
8:15
When I went to tours in 2024 to
8:18
the Arch Confraternity, I couldn't find any examples
8:22
of the agenda, but that's okay because each
8:27
of these groups is supposed to become a
8:32
confraternity, which means a bishop will approve of
8:35
the statutes.
8:36
So each group that gets to that level,
8:40
they'll make their own agenda, and the agenda
8:43
will basically be a prayer list of what
8:45
they're going to do at each meeting, and
8:48
it'll be in order to fight against the
8:50
revolution that is against the Sacred Heart, the
8:54
Immaculate Heart, and the Church.
8:57
So that's the way that this has been
8:59
set up in the Church, and that's the
9:00
way that God wanted it to be, and
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Jesus was telling Sister Mary St. Peter how
9:06
he wanted this association to come together and
9:09
to pray.
9:11
So this manual has all kinds of prayers
9:17
in it, and you can't pray the whole
9:21
manual because it's very thick in one meeting,
9:23
so people will have to pick and choose
9:25
what will be their monthly agenda in the
9:27
futures, confraternities.
9:29
So it's basically a meeting and group of
9:32
people who are enrolled in the Arch Confraternity,
9:34
essentially, and have the manual, and that's kind
9:37
of like the basics of, you've got a
9:39
meeting, more than one enrolled member, and the
9:44
manual.
9:45
Yeah, and the idea is that people get
9:47
together once a month because that can fire
9:50
them up to keep going with this devotion.
9:55
And when people pray together, they start to
9:58
get inspired by God, and they start to
10:00
open their mouth and talk about things, and
10:02
then other people that are praying, they come
10:04
up with a conversation, and some resolutions come
10:08
about from meetings, and that's what was happening
10:12
last night at our meeting.
10:14
At our meeting last night, the man who
10:17
was hosting it became elected temporarily as a
10:20
prior of a Third Order Carmel, and so
10:22
we got to chat a little bit about
10:24
that because not all the members that usually
10:26
come were able to come last night.
10:29
And these meetings are really well attended when
10:31
people cook, and he made some sausage links,
10:34
and he had an ample amount of mustard,
10:37
so it was really a joy.
10:39
The conversation and the food together worked well,
10:42
and also the prayers.
10:44
So I really, I was not a promoter
10:48
of the meetings when I first thought about
10:50
this because it seemed like a drudgery, but
10:51
the way that these meetings are set up,
10:54
done well, I think it actually is worth
10:56
people's time.
10:58
Interesting.
10:59
I think it's difficult to get men.
11:01
I'm kind of in that game where I
11:02
try to get men to meet, and it's
11:05
hard.
11:07
And I just always tend to think it's
11:08
because men's times are so valuable.
11:10
We have a lot pulling on our time.
11:13
Sometimes we waste time, but a lot of
11:16
times it's like we work, and then we're
11:18
really protective of our spare time.
11:21
But that's one thing I always remember Father
11:22
Bernie said, if you're going to get men,
11:24
you've got to have food.
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Food's a requirement.
11:28
You can get men if you're feeding them.
11:30
I did have a question about Father Janvier.
11:32
I don't know a lot about him.
11:34
I'm just kind of curious if you could
11:36
give a little profile on him, and then
11:38
you mentioned that he was a canon, and
11:42
I know that's something that I hear you
11:43
talk frequently about, so maybe a little thumbnail
11:46
on kind of the importance of canons.
11:49
To my knowledge, we don't have a canon
11:52
in Wichita, so I'm just curious about that.
11:55
Yeah, cathedral canons.
11:58
They would chant the office at the cathedral
12:01
or co-cathedral, and that's the chanting the
12:05
psalms in Latin.
12:07
And then they would have the solemn high
12:11
mass.
12:12
They would also have pontifical high masses where
12:14
a bishop comes.
12:16
And so they have the— they pull out
12:19
all the stops for the divine liturgies in
12:21
the diocese.
12:23
So they have a lot of free time
12:25
to study the liturgy and to make the
12:27
best.
12:28
So Father Janvier was the dean of the
12:32
chapter of canons in Tours, France at St.
12:36
Gatien's Church, St. Gatien, who is a patron
12:40
of Tours, I think.
12:42
He was before St. Martin, a bishop before
12:45
St. Martin.
12:46
So he was tasked by the archbishop to
12:50
put together this manual, and when Venerable Leopold
12:55
died in 1876, his house was changed into
12:58
an oratory, and so that's where the archconfraternity
13:01
is seated right now.
13:03
And we found a biography of him.
13:05
It's a real short one where he was
13:07
a professor in the seminary a lot, but
13:09
he was—people looked to with a very level
13:13
head, and so he would write these letters
13:15
to Pope Leo XIII, and he would get
13:18
responses.
13:19
And we went to his grave praying that
13:23
he'll become canonized someday because he did some
13:27
very important work, and it's thankless work.
13:31
And I think we need to show how
13:34
valuable his work is through this podcasting that
13:39
we're doing on going through these pages in
13:41
the manual.
13:43
Yeah, played a very important role as kind
13:47
of reaching out and furthering the confraternity to
13:53
an archconfraternity and just getting set up.
13:56
Just a little bit about Tours, France.
14:01
What's special about Tours?
14:03
Like, why did Our Lady—why did, well, Jesus
14:08
pick Tours to reveal his Holy Face devotion?
14:14
Yeah, I think it's because of St. Martin.
14:17
He's a miracle worker, and St. Martin, a
14:21
lot of firsts happened through him.
14:24
The whole diocesan system where we have dioceses
14:27
and parishes and cathedrals is built upon the
14:31
structure that he knew when he was a
14:33
Roman soldier.
14:34
So it's because of him that we have
14:37
this structure for the Catholic Church.
14:39
He also clothed the beggar, and in his
14:43
dream that night, Jesus appeared to him and
14:46
said, You've done well because you clothed me.
14:48
So he took half of his cape and
14:51
cut it because Roman soldiers owned half the
14:54
cape, and half the cape was owned by
14:56
the emperor.
14:57
And so he cut off his half and
15:00
gave it to the naked man.
15:05
And he rose at least one person from
15:09
the dead.
15:10
He had 80 monks, so he would live
15:14
in the cathedral some of the time, but
15:16
then he would go to, I think it's
15:18
La Gouge, in a little monastery two or
15:22
three miles away, and he had about 80
15:24
monks.
15:26
So my birthday is November the 11th, and
15:29
I'd already started a group called the Canons
15:32
Regular of St. Martin of Tours, not really
15:35
knowing this devotion very well.
15:38
But when that didn't work out, I just
15:40
asked the bishop if we could go from
15:44
the Canons Regular of St. Martin to the
15:46
League of St. Martin.
15:47
And then when I started investigating this devotion
15:50
and found out that Jesus chose Tours to
15:53
be the place, it really struck my heart
15:55
because I'm a numbers guy, and I see
15:58
connections, and I was totally drawn into this.
16:02
So Tours is a place, I think, that
16:05
was very well liked by the Vatican, and
16:12
France is the eldest daughter in the Church.
16:16
So I think in the divine wisdom of
16:19
God and of Jesus, that Tours was the
16:22
place chosen where he would reveal this association,
16:26
because I read all the stuff and all
16:29
the different stories of Sister Mary St. Pierre,
16:33
Venerable Leo de Pot, it just drew me
16:36
so completely that I'm on fire.
16:40
When Servant of God Sister Mary St. Pierre
16:43
said, Oh, how I wish there'd be apostolic
16:45
men who would promote these revelations, I raised
16:49
my hand in my heart, and I said,
16:50
Will you pick me?
16:52
And so she has, and that's why I
16:54
go all over the world as a diocesan
16:55
priest, being a missionary.
16:58
And you know, some diocesan priests don't appreciate
17:01
what I'm doing, but that's okay, because we
17:04
were originally apostles, like the apostles that Jesus
17:09
chose, and so I'm sure they were carrying
17:11
crosses around with them when they were preaching
17:13
to people that didn't know their own language,
17:15
and they would point to the cross.
17:16
So I think that we have to become
17:19
apostolic again, like a lot of commentators are
17:23
writing about how the Catholic Church needs to
17:25
become apostolic again, because it's getting so small.
17:29
As Pope Benedict XVI said, that the Church
17:32
is going to get smaller and smaller, and
17:34
he was right.
17:35
He's a prophet about that.
17:37
And so when the Church gets into a
17:39
run that it needs to go out of
17:40
itself again, and an apostle means to be
17:43
sad, and to be apostles.
17:45
So diocesan priests should be like apostles.
17:48
So that's why I think that our Lord
17:51
went to Tours to hook me into this
17:53
beautiful devotion, and I think it will hook
17:56
in other priests when they start to see
18:00
how St. Therese is so intertwined with being
18:04
a member of the Archdiocese and her prayers.
18:07
So look out, my brother diocesan priests, if
18:10
there's any of you that will listen to
18:11
any of these, she's going to get you
18:13
into this, because I run away from people
18:15
that are popular like her.
18:17
But she has a personality, and she got
18:20
me to really pay attention to her.
18:24
That's something that you've said that struck me,
18:27
is that Christ desires us to be propagated
18:32
by diocesan priests.
18:33
They play a key role in the propagation
18:35
of the Holy Face devotion, and that just
18:38
struck me because I'm somebody who loves my
18:40
priests, prays for them, thinks a lot about
18:43
them.
18:45
I teach an adult confirmation class, and so
18:48
one of our priests is kind of there
18:51
with us for some of the time, and
18:54
I just like watching them interact with the
18:56
people.
18:56
But you just get to know priests on
18:58
a more personal level, and I think it's
19:00
easy to kind of think, well, you know,
19:03
priests are up on this pedestal, they don't
19:05
have the same struggles that we have.
19:08
But I see, I get a little peek
19:11
behind the curtain sometimes with some of them
19:13
of how heavy it is sometimes ministering to
19:16
the flock, and how they need our prayers,
19:19
largely because obviously Satan wants to attack our
19:22
priests and take them away if he can.
19:26
So that's one thing that attracts me to
19:28
this devotion, is that it's the central role
19:30
of the priest.
19:33
Awesome.
19:34
Sounds great.
19:35
Well, that'll be a wrap for this one.