Saint Veronica – The woman who dried the face of Jesus

Saint Veronica is a legendary woman who followed Jesus’ on his journey to Golgotha, where he would be crucified. On the way, the woman is said to have dried Jesus’ sweaty and bloodied face with a cloth. She then found an image of his face on the cloth. In art, therefore, Veronica is often depicted as a grieving woman holding a cloth with an image of Christ’s face on it.

Veronica’s story is not mentioned in the Bible but is part of the traditional fourteen stations marking Jesus’ martyrdom passage through the Via Dolorosa to the place of crucifixion. According to tradition, she stepped on Jesus when he succumbed to the weight of the cross, which he had to carry himself.

In Old St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, from the eighth century A.D., a cloth was kept that was claimed to be the cloth of Veronica. The relic was venerated until at least the fourteenth century which was also due to the fact that it was claimed that persons who had beheld the cloth could not die a violent death. According to some accounts, the cloth was lost in the sixteenth century during the looting of Rome by German and Spanish soldiers. Today there are still several churches that claim to possess the cloth. The most famous of these is the Capuchin monastery of Manoppello in the Apennines. As recently as 2006, Pope Benedict XVI visited this church to venerate Veronica’s cloth.

‘The True Image’

Veronica’s name is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible. There is also no historical evidence to suggest that this is a historical figure. Her name seems to refer to the event during the Stations of the Cross. In fact, Veronica is probably derived from vera ikon which means as much as “the true image. In ancient versions of the legend, Veronica is also sometimes called Berenike, which stands for “the bringer of blessings”. The name Veronica appears in legends from the fifth and sixth centuries. She also used to be identified with a woman who suffered from severe hemorrhages and was healed by Jesus. This history is described in the Gospel of Luke (8:42-48). According to some accounts, Veronica was the wife of Zacchaeus, a tax collector mentioned in the New Testament.

Veronica is the patron saint of cloth sellers, linen seamstresses, laundresses and photographers. Her name day falls on Shrove Tuesday, the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. Feb. 4 and July 9 and 12 are also named as days of remembrance.

Lorem Ipsum is slechts een proeftekst uit het drukkerij- en zetterijwezen. Lorem Ipsum is de standaard proeftekst in deze bedrijfstak sinds de 16e eeuw, toen een onbekende drukker een zethaak met letters nam en ze door elkaar husselde om een font-catalogus te maken.