This online retreat explores the Face of Jesus in art and spirituality in five videos. 

There is no record in the Gospels of what Jesus looked like, yet his face is often instantly recognisable to us all. Yet each generation of Christians have represented Jesus in their own distinct ways. It is fascinating to explore the different ways Christians have portrayed the face of Christ.

1. The first video explores the very first images in existence - Jesus the hero and the philosopher.
2. The second video looks at Iconoclasm and the initial resistance to paint the face of Christ. We look at the traditional Byzantine Icon.
3. We then look at those 'miraculous' representations, the Mandylion, the Veronica and briefly, the Shroud of Turin.
4. Next we look at the early mediaeval period leading to the image of the suffering face of Christ that dominated in the Middle Ages.
5. In the Renaissance we meet the beautiful face of Christ and finally we take the story up to the present day.

St Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face

As you follow these talks St Thérèse of Lisieux, might accompany you in your reflections. 

She was known in her lifetime as Sr Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, her two ‘names in religion’. 

The first, ‘of the child Jesus’ she received when she joined her Carmelite convent. The other, ‘of the Holy Face’ she chose for herself when she received the veil at the age of sixteen. Her life was short. She was to die of tuberculosis at the age of 24. 

The Face of Jesus became a central focus of her spirituality. She wrote prayers, hymns and poems about it, carried that image in her breviary, and celebrated the Transfiguration in a special way - that scene where the face of Jesus shone as the sun.

Six weeks before her death she remarked to her sister Pauline: 'The words in Isaiah: "No stateliness here, no majesty, no beauty, as we gaze upon him, to win our hearts" . .. - these words were the basis of my whole worship of the Holy Face' 

With that context we can pray this lovely prayer of St Thérèse to lead us to encounter Christ himself through these images of his face.

And when, Lord Jesus, I chance to glimpse

Your Holy Face it sets me once again

upon the way, both my Path and my sole Beckoning.

Your brow becomes my Paradise on earth,

Your gaze reveals – as radiant, lucent gems – Your eyes

still glistening with tears, and through my own

fresh tears I smile to You, and find Your grief

has suddenly eclipsed my own small pain.

I would delight to live precisely thus,

utterly efface, if it would then

console Your Heart’s longsuffering.

This subtle beauty is sweetly shown to all

who live unattached to mundane care.

I would abandon it all to dwell with You.

In this way Your Face becomes my home,

the radiance of my days, my realm

and sunlit land, where – all my life - 

I raise a murmur, uttering Your praise. As lilies

carpeting the valley floor, You fill

the air with mystic scent, which I breathe in

whenever I grow faint; it gives sufficient

foretaste of the peace that is to come.

Your Visage bearing this immortal grace

is like most holy myrrh to me. It is my 

music and my instrument, my rest

and resting place, my all and everything – Your Face.

Therefore my sole desire is Your Face, and so

I wish nothing more than this: that as I

contemplate Your Holy Mystery, I grow

more fully to resemble You. O Jesus, press

upon me now some lasting trace

of Your sweet, humble, ever-patient Face.

St Thérèse of Lisieux, a free translation by Scott Carins in Love's Enormity: Mystics on the Endless Life