What was Veronica thinking when she stared into the eyes of Jesus as he made his way to the Crucifixion? Imagine the scene: Jesus has fallen for the first time. He is completely spent, walking beside Simon of Cyrene, his “voluntold” helper. Mary, his mother, mournfully looks on, and all he can do is continue down this weary road.
He was a man despised and rejected, a man of sorrows (Isa 53:2–3). Veronica, too, felt sorrow over the persecution of this just man: a man who, if tradition is to be trusted, healed her by the mere passing glance of a cloak tassel (Luke 8:43–44). She felt his struggle in her core—was there anything she could do? She had a linen cloth and his face was dripping with sweat. As he struggled by her, their eyes met.
Those eyes.
Those sad, beautiful eyes.
Without exchanging a word, she saw his sadness, but a sadness flowing from the holiest of loves that mourned the sins of man (ST III, q. 46, a. 6, ad 2). She couldn’t make out their color behind the blood-matted hair, but they beckoned to her. Veronica recalled Psalm 27 from her childhood—“seek his face; your face, O Lord, do I seek!” (Ps 27:8).
So, she wiped his face. It was only meant to be a compassionate gesture to help him who had helped her. The guards didn’t care and shoved Jesus farther along, where she watched him fall a second time. After he dragged himself out of sight, Veronica looked back at the linen cloth still in her hands and there, in the middle, was a face. It was not just stains of sweat and blood, but the living, vivid face of Jesus Christ! How could this be, but by the grace of God?
She cried. In the throes of his Passion, Jesus could do nothing but think of others—indeed, even of her! He had given her a gift of his loving mercy. Not wanting to harm the miraculous image on the cloth, she used her sleeve to wipe her own eyes, and, after a while, the fog of tears lifted, and she looked back at the image.
Those eyes.
There they were again. They were the same eyes she stared into as Jesus passed by just moments before. They stared back at her again, straight into her soul, unflinching. She could see in them the sorrow that he had experienced so many times: when Judas betrayed him, when Peter denied him, at his mother’s dolors, and on and on.
And still, there was something else. Was it a glimmer of triumph? Yes, she saw a pair of eyes that knew something fantastic. She saw the eyes of her messiah, the one spoken of in the Scriptures who would make of himself a sacrifice to reconcile humanity to God (ST III, q. 49, a. 4). They were the eyes of the Savior of the world!
And she wept, but this time, with tears of joy.
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Image: Juan Antonio Vera Calvo, Saint Veronica shows The Holy Face to the Virgin Mary and Saint John
