PUBLISHER'S PREFACE

(Adapted for the 1990 edition from the Second Edition of the book)

FATHER EMERIC B. SCALLAN pursued his studies for the priesthood at St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, and in Rome, where he was ordained. The late Bishop Cornelius Van de Ven of New Orleans appointed Father Scallan as the first editor of the New Orleans diocesan newspaper and thereby launched him on a career in Catholic publishing.

After spending a number of years in the press, Father Scallan noted the alarming spread of atheism. He became convinced that of all the published Catholic material that came to his attention as editor, the Revelations of the French cloistered Carmelite Nun, Sister Mary of St. Peter, dealt directly with the problem of overcoming atheism and restoring peace to the world. He therefore translated her autobiography and helped his sister Dorothy with two other books dealing with this single theme, namely, that of offering the bruised Holy Face of Jesus to the Eternal Father in reparation for blasphemy.

At present, during these post-conciliar years, irreligion and other direct affronts against the Church have multiplied to drastic proportions. Not only in secular spheres, but even in quarters called "Catholic" there is a sort of infamous jabbing at all things Catholic, and that on a wide, public scale, which actually derogates from the extrinsic honor due the Holy Name of God. For this reason, and also because recently there have been repeated requests for the book treating the Revelations on the Holy Face—from both religious and the laity—a new, third edition has been undertaken. This current book, in flexible cover, is an unabridged edition of the first edition of The Golden Arrow.

Besides this book, there are two more volumes, forming together a sort of "trilogy" on the Holy Face Devotion for our times. The Holy Man of Tours (formerly titled God Demands Reparation), by Dorothy Scallan, deals with the life of a French attorney, Leo Dupont, who was personally acquainted with Sister Mary of St. Peter, to whom the revelations of this book were imparted by Our Lord. After her death, he became an apostle, spreading the cult of the Holy Face, not only in France, but to the most distant points of the world. After Sr. Mary's death and before official Church approval of the Holy Face Devotion, Leo Dupont developed great personal devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus (inspired by the revelations of Sr. Mary), to which he was so committed that for some 30 years he kept a perpetual lamp burning before a true replica of Veronica's Veil in a place of honor and veneration in the drawing room of his home in Tours, France. Before long, he was working miracles by applying the oil of this lamp to people's diseased or injured members. In time, his success and fame as a miracle-worker became so astounding that Pope Pius IX (1846-1878) declared him to be perhaps the greatest thaumaturgist (miracle-worker) in Church history. The cause for his beatification is in process.

The third book in this series is entitled The Whole World Will Love Me, by Dorothy Scallan, and is a biography of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face. In this definitive study, St. Therese is portrayed in her essential role as an adorer of the Holy Face, which practice sent her to such heights of sanctity that she has come to be esteemed as the greatest saint of modern times.

Father Scallan is one of five religious vocations in his family, two of whom became priests, two nuns, and one a brother in a religious order.