St. Veronica of Jerusalem COLLECTION (JM 60)

Who was she? The nameless woman healed of a hemorrhage of blood (Luke 8:43–48)? One of the women who followed him during his ministry? Just one of the bystanders? This side of heaven we will never know for sure anything about her. She’s not mentioned by name in any of the four canonical Gospels. Nevertheless, she will forever be remembered by the Sixth Station of the Cross for her simple, spontaneous gesture: She pushed past the crowd and the guards to offer a cloth, probably her veil, to a convicted criminal on the way to his death, death on a cross, that he might wipe his bloody face. Tradition calls her St. Veronica of Jerusalem (1st century); and the man, of course, was Jesus, who miraculously left his likeness on the cloth. Today, St. Veronica—the name given her means “true icon”—is revered as patron saint of photographers, laundry workers, and rectory housekeepers. + Feast: July 12