A Vatican official says the ancient tradition of devotion to Veronica’s Veil and to the Holy Face of Jesus is a sign of hope and an invitation to return to the essentials in a world constantly connected and on the move. Source: Crux.
“Ultimately, Veronica’s gesture is a gesture of hope. Why? It makes us understand that man wants to support the other, that women want to support the other. This is hope,” said Franciscan Fer Enzo Fortunato, spokesman for St Peter’s Basilica, a position created by Pope Francis earlier this year, and editorial director of St Peter’s Square magazine.
While the Gospels don’t explicitly refer to the Veil of Veronica – an ancient Christian devotion to what is believed to be the divine imprint of Jesus’s face onto the veil of a widow named Veronica who used it to wipe his face while carrying the cross to Mount Golgotha, where he was crucified – Fr Fortunato said it is “a beautiful devotion.”
Veneration of the veil “brings us back to the heart, beyond the veracity of the relic,” to the gesture itself, he said.
The Veil of Veronica is an ancient devotion in the Catholic Church, and while there are several alleged versions of the veil, the one conserved in St Peter’s Basilica has been present since the 7th century, more than 1300 years.
It is placed in a silver reliquary and stored inside one of the columns surrounding the main altar in St Peter’s Basilica, above a statue of Veronica holding a veil, and displayed once a year on the fifth Sunday of Lent, the last Sunday before Palm Sunday, which marks the beginning of Holy Week.
This year the veil was displayed on Sunday during a liturgy in St Peter’s Square, which was followed by Mass presided over by Italian Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, archpriest of St Peter’s Basilica.
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Veil of Veronica a sign of hope for modern times, Vatican official says (By Elise Ann Allen, Crux)
