Greetings everyone,

The planning for the June 4th event on Parliament Hill was quite modest. We ordered a large cloth banner of the Holy Face, a banner of Our Lady of Sorrows, some Holy Face medals and some literature about the devotion. I advertised the event on a popular website and posted the event poster on social media.

In all my years of organizing events, the turn-out had always been decent for these events. We attracted a couple of hundred of participants at least. The procession in honour of St. Joseph a couple of months ago, for instance, had a couple of hundred people show up in cold and rainy weather. So initially I thought we would have at least that many for this event. (In 2005, for the March for Marriage and Freedom, 20,000 people showed up!). But as the weeks preceding this weekend passed by, I sensed that this event would not be well attended at all. In my prayer time, I received an answer to my protestations to the Lord: “How many were with Me when they laid Me in the tomb?” Not very many, Lord. Not very many at all. That was just the way it was destined to be. It was rather fitting, actually. The low turnout – a dozen or so people at any one time on the Hill – didn’t bother me that much, to be honest. Our small group only cared about planting the divine image of Jesus on Parliament Hill for a good long time, and let Jesus do the rest. We were there a good six hours. What God did with that time and who He chose to draw to Himself was His business. It turns out as I reflected on those hours which went by lightning fast, there were definitely inspiring events and blessings. Let me share some of them with you.

The morning started bizarrely enough, however. I arrived behind City Hall to park my van as I had a couple of months ago during the Rosary Convoy event. When I arrived, however, I noticed the street that I had parked on had been restricted. You could not even stop, never mind park on that side of the street. As I was reversing, I saw a by-law cop come racing towards me…as if I had committed some kind of first degree crime. “Easy guy. I just saw the sign”, I thought to myself, “I’m just pulling away.” As he saw I was leaving, he went along his way without any further incident. I found a spot on another nearby street. After I had parked and opened the trunk to collect my stuff, this other car pulls up right behind me. I thought he was just parking. But I noticed that his car kept idling for an extended period of time. After a couple of minutes of trying to figure what I was going to carry and what I was going to leave behind, I looked back and saw the guy looking intently at me. I briefly looked at him and I thought to myself, “Why do I get the vibes that you’re a Mason?” I turned back to finish up gathering my stuff and as I did, he raced off. This was rather bizarre. Very bizarre actually. From the “By law officer-bat-out-hell-speeding-toward-me” to our oogling friend…it was quite the beginning to the day.

The next stage of the adventure occurred at the Tomb of the Unknown solider where we invoked St. Joan of Arc, our patron saint, St. Michael, St. Joseph, Our Lady, and the Canadian Saints and Blesseds as well as reciting other prayers. These were my opening remarks:

Dear Heavenly Father,

We stand here together as your sons and daughters in front of this monument which represents the ultimate sacrifice of this nation. We stand here with great sadness and sorrow as our country begins to descend into totalitarianism and communism, under the guise of a vicious health cult and its vaccine mandates. Our institutions have fallen, and have abandoned the fundamental principles which have undergirded our laws and way of life:

• Respect for the rule of law
• Respect for the dignity of the human person
• Respect for the inviolability of the human conscience
• Respect for the exercise of authentic human freedom

We are losing our country, Lord. We have no other recourse except for you, and to humbly turn to you as we invoke your Holy Name and unveil your Holy Face to save us from this present darkness – the atheism, the blasphemy, and the disrespect of your Holy day.

On April 9, 2005, on the anniversary of the Battle Vimy Ridge during the first World War where Canadians died defending our freedoms, 20,000 Canadians assembled on the grounds of Parliament Hill to defend the natural definition of marriage. This is what I said to those assembled:

Marriage and freedom are built on the same foundation of truth. If, as a nation, we deny the very union which sustains our country, what hope will we have in defending our country against attacks on civil and religious liberties? If we will not defend marriage, then we will not preserve freedom. If our government can redefine something so basic and timeless as marriage, they can also re-define our freedoms.
…when a nation fails to recognize the most basic objective moral and physiological truths, democracy itself will be emptied of its power so that only an empty shell will remain. And when a strong wind blows, I ask you, what will happen to that empty shell?

We are now living the answer to that question, brothers and sisters.

We are experiencing the consequences of rejecting God and the elevation of evil. To preserve genuine freedom, we must acknowledge whose image we are made in. If we do not acknowledge that we are made in God’s image, then we necessarily concede we are made in our own image – invented by human will which is governed and controlled by a corrupt State and corrupt institutions at the service of a health cult.

At the end of the day, we will either humble ourselves and obey God by living freely in the truth, or we will be ruled by our own passions, confusing freedom with license, and therefore consenting to be controlled by power hungry elites under the guise of “health” and “security”.

We turned our backs on God who proposes that we should live out our freedom within the necessary boundaries of truth. So we received the just recompense for this betrayal: artificial boundaries and health encroachments imposed by a Godless State.

In the 1840’s in revelations to St. Mary of St Peter, our Blessed Lord revealed to this humble nun that Communism represents the most offensive sin against God by denying the first three commandments concerning the honour due to Him. He therefore proposed to her that humanity needs to turn to His most Holy face as a reparation for atheism, tyranny and communism. It is this devotion now more than ever which needs to be spread as the most effective response to these great evils. And that is what we are doing here today. We are using the Golden Arrow to fight the poisonous arrow of totalitarianism to regain our dignity and freedoms.

So, Lord, we are here to plead for your mercy for our country, to give us hope to use your Holy Face as that Golden Arrow you promised to Sr. Mary of St. Peter to pierce this present darkness. Hear our prayer for this once great nation. Bring us to repentance so we may once again glorify your Holy Name and honour thy Holy face. Grant us victory for your Name’s sake. Let your face shine today on Parliament Hill and let your graces and favour flow from it, granting us true faith and true freedom. Amen.

FULL VIDEO OF EVENT HERE:

 

Throughout the day we had to fight a strong wind current with the banner. One might think that we were causing a “disturbance” in the spiritual realm, but I happen to think more positively about the strong wind. It was, after all, the eve of Pentecost. Come Holy Spirit, come and cleanse the filth from our home and native land. Blow it away to the four corners of the earth!

 

 

On the way to the Hill, we prayed the Seven Sorrows Rosary, a beautiful meditation on the seven sorrows which Our Lady experienced in her life. One of our members suggested this devotion to be inserted alongside the devotion to the Holy Face. It has been a powerful witness and blessing as our little group has been praying it for many weeks leading up to this past weekend. Our Lady’s last sorrow was leaving Jesus in the tomb. How appropriate, then, that the event after Our Lady’s last sorrow would be the Resurrection of her Son, the greatest event the world has ever or will ever know! Pictured below: Our Lady of the Holy Face.

When we arrived at the Hill, we planted the poles on the ground and there we stayed until shortly after Noon hour, when we met a young lady. More on that in a bit. We finished the Seven Sorrows Rosary and continued with the program, including the recitation of the Golden Arrow Prayer which our Lord asked to be recited and the Consecration to the Holy Face, among other prayers including beautiful hymns throughout the event. When we sung the hymns, I noticed that those assembled on the Hill who were not part of the event took more notice. Something to remember for the next event on June 18, for sure! More beautiful voices, please!

After the public prayers had ended, we began our next stage of the event. We chatted, privately prayed, and meditated. Here are some of the other observations and encounters I experienced:

Snap Snap – I noticed that people were taking a lot of pictures of our banner. Not too many people approached us, but there were a lot of pictures taken and, as you can tell, the image on the camera is very pronounced and defined even more so than when one is looking at it with the naked eye. Who knows what might happen in the future with all those curious on lookers and their pictures of the Holy Face? Image taken and stored on a phone. A divine image. Like a spiritual time bomb. They will look at it. Show their friends. Show their families. Share it on social media. Maybe they’ll google the story behind it. Maybe become interested…Maybe something more will happen.
Double Booked – At about Noon hour, a young lady approached me and asked if I had a permit to be on the Hill. I confirmed that I did. She nervously explained that she too had a permit and they were holding a freedom rally in an hour. “Not a problem”, I said, “I will simply move back. There’s lots of room to be here.” She smiled. It gave me an opening to explain that we were there to fight the vaccine mandates as well, but through a spiritual lens with the devotion which I briefly explained to her. “We won’t win this without God because at the end of the day it is He who defends our freedoms. When we rely on the State (or man) we will descend into tyranny and enslavement.” I then offered her some literature and a Holy Face medal which we had been distributing on the Hill.
Quebecer with a St. Benedict’s Cross – A young man with a Quebec flag draped over his back approached us. He was with the freedom group. He even had a St. Benedict’s cross around his neck. He did not know about the devotion to the Holy Face so we explained it to him. He took some literature and a medal and thanked us. Even among practicing Catholics, we need to get the message out, as many of own are not aware of this powerful devotion – a devotion for our times that desperately needs to be spread.

No Idol Worshipping Here – Another Freedom Rally participant approached us later on as well. He was an older guy, wanting to know more about the image. So I explained a little bit about the scientific evidence around the image but then brought it back to the relevance of the image to our freedoms. One thing I learned over the years is always bring your audience back to the issue that interests them if you want to make an impact. Once I gave him the pitch, I looked to close the deal: “Can I offer you a medal of the Holy Face?” His answer made me chuckle: “No, I don’t believe in idols.” I responded: “But this is not an idol. The real idol we face is the State and the worship of Big Pharma. That’s the real idol. You believe in the bible, yes? Then think about St. Paul’s handkerchief in the book of Acts and how it was used to heal people. The theology behind holy objects is merely an extension of the Incarnation where God takes matter and unites it with the spiritual and the divine. The thing in itself has no power, but through God it can be made powerful.” He looked at me pensively, thanked us for our efforts, and quickly departed.

“Selling” Like Hot Cakes – We had purchased some Holy Face Medals and literature for the event. I also had some “Trucker Rosaries” from the Convoy days which I brought with me. (They were “Trucker Rosaries” because a few of us delivered Rosary packages to the Truckers in their rigs, with a note to the Truckers which began “Dear Patriotic Trucker and Friends”. I can hardly keep my composure just thinking about the interaction we had with them in that Canadian folklore moment.) We distributed a lot of medals and rosaries. We did not sell them, of course, but I found myself continually reaching into my bag. It was a “hot” commodity.

30 Years Away – One devout woman came up to me and asked for a medal, rosary and literature for a woman who was with her, and had been touched by the Holy Face, had been away from the Church for 30 years, and wanted to come back. Praise God!

Praying the Rosary Every Week on Parliament Hill – I met another another man whose family who has been praying the Rosary behind Parliament Hill every week for many months because of the state of our country. This man told me that he was not particularly religious but his wife had been encouraging him to pray the Rosary and he started and it had a huge impact on his life. He told me that there is a great evil in our Parliament. “You got that right, brother”, I thought to myself. “We need to keep up the pressure.” Most Catholics are simply clueless of what we are facing and when the hammer drops, it will be too late for them and for us. We need to fight now with the weapon Our Lord has given to us for this particular threat. And woe to us if we do not wield it.

Continuous Prayer – During each hour, we would form two lines on either side of the image so as not to obstruct the view. We alternated between the Golden Arrow Prayer and Rosary and the Litany to the Holy Face:

10AM – Golden Arrow Prayer, Rosary (Joyful)
11AM – Litany to the Holy Face
Noon – Golden Arrow Prayer, Rosary (Luminous)
1PM – Litany to the Holy Face
2PM – Golden Arrow Prayer, Rosary (Glorious)
3PM – Litany to the Holy Face & Concluding Prayers

We’ll Be Back – This was our first run. We will be back on the Hill on June 18. Not worried about the numbers but it would be great if we had a couple of dozen people to keep Our Lord’s image company as we take back the Hill for him. The light infantry is doing a stellar job, but more boots on the ground would be great.

A Picture from Afar: Leaving you with one final impression. I have been particularly taken aback about the pictures of the image. They appear to be very striking and defined. One of our members took the picture below of the Holy Face from Wellington Street. It is particularly powerful in my opinion, especially from such a distance. The features are even more defined than if you are 7 or 8 feet away from it. Look at the eyes and eyelids below. Amazing!

In her Immaculate Heart,

 

John Pacheco
St. Joan of Arc Community