The story of Veronica, whose act of compassion left the wounded face of Jesus imprinted on the veil with which she wiped his bleeding face, is a mixture of tradition, legend and devotions that developed over the centuries from one end of Europe to another.

There is no ascertainable historical accuracy attached to any of the tellings, let alone to any of the “veils” themselves, but there is a great deal of spiritual truth to be recognized here. The truth is that nothing we do for the suffering other ever goes unnoticed or unnoted. The kindness we bring to great moments of pain and grief marks us and lasts forever not only in the heart of the person whose pain we assuage but in our own soul as well.

Veronica has become part of the universal spiritual psyche in the Stations of the Cross because the witness of Veronica to the power of witness stands for all to see. What does Veronica do? Not much. What does Veronica mean to the spirit of the stations? Close to everything.

Here is a woman who will not allow the story of the journey to Calvary to be romanticized, to go untold, to be overlooked or forgotten. The image on the veil remains forever a reminder of the unmitigated horror of which injustice is capable. The woman’s veil stands as mute witness to the depths of the demonic present in the human condition once we permit it to be unleashed. The veil remains a witness to the crime of all times—the destruction of goodness at the center of us, in us, around us forever.

Compassion and witness take the stage of our hearts here. Her act of compassion, we know, puts us to shame. How often do we stop to mend the broken in the streets? Her unblinking witness puts us on notice: for the sake of what life lesson would we draw attention to ourselves? For the sake of the ongoing valor of the world, to what kind of care would we bend our own lives so that the world would not forget? Stolid in her performance, the woman stares into the heart of humanity, challenging us to justify such an act as this senseless, unjustified act of brutal violence. Neither can be erased. Not the brutality, not the courageous compassion. Both of them prod our conscience and break our hearts forever.

—from The Way of the Cross: The Path to New Life by Joan Chittister, art by Janet McKenzie (Orbis)