A Woman of Great Faith and Courage

Did you ever wonder why at a Traditional Mass the altar boys hold up the priest’s chasuble during the consecration at the elevation of the host and chalice?  This practice would have originated out of necessity because the chasuble was formerly made of heavily embroidered and stiff material. Later the pattern and material used for the vestments changed, but the practice remained because it had begun to be associated with one of Christ’s miracles from the Gospels.

Any guesses which miracle? It’s the cure of the woman who was troubled with an issue of blood. (Side note, I had a minor revelation when I realized recently that “issue” did not mean problem, but rather flow. It makes so much more sense now.) The Gospel of Mark gives more detail than the other Evangelists do, and as it’s not the version that’s used in the traditional Sunday lectionary, I’ll include it here:

and a great multitude followed Him, and they thronged Him. And a woman who was under an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things from many physicians; and had spent all that she had, and was nothing the better, but rather worse, when she had heard of Jesus, came in the crowd behind Him, and touched His garment. For she said: If I shall touch but His garment, I shall be whole. 

And forthwith the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the evil. And immediately Jesus knowing in Himself the virtue [grace] that had proceeded from Him, turning to the multitude, said: Who hath touched My garments?

And His disciples said to Him: Thou seest the multitude thronging Thee, and sayest Thou who hath touched Me? And He looked about to see her who had done this. But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before Him, and told Him all the truth. And He said to her: Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole: go in peace, and be thou whole of thy disease.

So here we see a woman who has been hemorrhaging for twelve years, unable to find relief through medicine, and her faith in Christ was so strong that she was confident He would heal her if she only touched the hem of His garment. She must have had a great deal of courage and determination to make her way through the crowd and past to Apostles in order to reach Him. But when she does, He turns to her and says, “Be of good heart, daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole” (Matt 9:22).

So when the altar boy lifts the hem of the priest’s chasuble, it’s a reminder of that woman’s great faith in Christ’s divinity, and an affirmation of our faith in Christ’s True Presence in the Eucharist. But the beauty of this symbolism goes even deeper. According to tradition, this woman of great faith is identified as being the same woman who pushed her way through an even greater crowd and past armed Roman soldiers so that she could wipe Christ’s face on His way to be crucified. She is found in every church at the Sixth Station of the Cross—St. Veronica.

St. Veronica is not mentioned in the Evangelists’ accounts of the Christ’s Passion, but in the apocrypha. (These are texts supposedly written by Biblical figures, which are not included in the canon of the Bible. Some are heretical, but some contain much of what has come to be considered tradition, such as the stories of Sts. Joachim and Anne.) In addition, Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich includes St. Veronica in her account of her visions of Christ’s Passion, and Sr. Marie of St. Peter, who started the devotion to the Holy Face, saw St. Veronica wiping Christ’s face in a vision. We do not know St. Veronica’s real name, as the name we use for her is derived from the name first given to the veil: vera icon or “true image.” (In Dante’s Paradiso he writes of someone praying before “the Veronica.” The veil had been on display in the Vatican in 1297 and Pope Innocent III granted an indulgence to those who prayed before it.) Despite the fact that we know so little about her, the Church has recognized Veronica as a Saint, and has made her the patroness of laundry workers and photographers.

Though we do not know with certainty any of the details of St. Veronica’s life, these two brief episodes give us a wealth of material for meditation and much that we can strive to imitate. We can picture this woman, Veronica, who for years has been suffering from excessive bleeding. She touches Christ’s robe and is healed. Later, she sees Him carrying His Cross, and without a second thought she goes to him and wipes His precious blood from His face with her veil. Now, at each and every Mass said throughout the world, ever since day since the institution of the Mass itself, we commemorate these events when the altar boy, who represents each of us, touches the garment of the priest, the alter Christus, when he lifts the chalice containing Christ’s precious blood.

May St. Veronica intercede for us to find healing in Christ, and help us to imitate her courage in our daily lives!