veronica

I started at the bottom of the path leading up to Mt. Angel Abbey, following the stations of the cross. My heart sank with each station, each image of Christ so alone, so incredibly alone, and yet continuing through his passion out of love. I came to the station of St. Veronica. I felt myself drawn into the image. This woman, bent down in such instinctive compassion, wiping the face of Christ of its rivers of tears, streams of blood, and perspiration of the deepest physical, emotional, and spiritual pain. In the path of greatest suffering ever walked, she saw him. She came to him, she reached out and touched him. Oh to be like St. Veronica and to touch Jesus in his pain, and find our own with his.

I was aware of an approaching woman walking a dog, descending the hill at a brisk pace like the many travelers who walk this path every day. I did not turn from St. Veronica in front of me, prepared to let the walkers pass me by without the interruption of my sacred moment. But the stout little beagle came up sniffing my ankles, and the woman quickly introduced the dog, saying, “Oh, this is Charity! She loves people.” I smiled and greeted them both, reaching down to pet the dog, accepting the end of my serenity. Her gray curls bobbed as she told me that she and Charity walk here every day, and they go to mass just down the hill at seven each morning, and that Charity had just rolled in something foul the day before but she’d washed the dog in water and vinegar and hoped that all the smell was gone, though she hadn’t let any of the children on their way to school pet her because of the smell and then had completely forgotten and should have warned me but now it was too late and I must be sure to wash my hands promptly, and that she was sorry for interrupting my solemnity. I assured her not to worry, I would wash my hands, and that I was just as happy to meet her as to gaze at the image. As she prepared to leave, she asked my name, and I in turn asked hers. “Veronica,” she said. She laughed brightly at the expression on my face, and said as she turned, “You can remember it because we met here at the station of St. Veronica!” “Yes,” replied, “it – it must be Providence!” And then they were gone.

It was providence, and I listened. The wind in the trees, the buzz of the wasp, the distant tractor hum, and the pitter-patter of Charity’s distancing paws spoke gently, Sacred. It is all sacred. Yes, perhaps I could be the next St. Veronica, or perhaps I won’t. Perhaps I had just met her. Perhaps each soul I saw had a saint within it, a sacred center should I choose to see it. And if so, then it may be that reaching out to touch the pain and face of Christ will not make me St. Veronica, but will reveal to me my sacred self.