No Veronica in Bible

For years, I attended the Way of the Cross, every Friday in Lent from ABC/First Stage to College Exhibition, and listened to the priest reading, “The Sixth Station. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus. We adore Thee O Christ and praise Thee, because by thy holy cross, thou hast redeemed the world.” He then asked the congregation to visualise the scene, to meditate and pray from the heart.

Everyone sang slowly and mournfully, “At the cross her station keeping/Stood the mournful mother weeping/Close to Jesus to the last.” After this we moved on to the other eight stations. Nowadays, there is an additional 15th station which goes, “Jesus rises from the dead.”

According to tradition, when Veronica placed her handkerchief to Jesus’ face, the impression of his face remained on her kerchief. Whatever became of that kerchief nobody knows. In my play We Crucify Him, I have Naomi say to Veronica, “You should keep this and pass it on from one generation to another so they all may see it.”

Yet, that is not the only scene in “The Way of the Cross” that is not in the Bible. The fourth station states “Jesus meets his sorrowful mother.” It is only once in the gospels from Gabbatha to Golgotha that his mother Mariam or as we say in English Mary, is mentioned. John records it in Chapter 19 Verse 26. “When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, “Woman, behold thy son.”

In We Crucify Him, I wrote about the fourth station. Naomi tells Bartholomew that she saw Jesus’ mother there and she said softly to Naomi, ‘It is so sad to see my son, who never sinned, suffer like this for the sins of others.’ Naomi goes on to say that Jesus spoke to his mother briefly telling her, “Mother, I die so that man will live,” Mary wanted to touch her son, but a Roman soldier pushed her back into the crowd.

Also, sad to say, the 13th Station which goes, “Jesus is taken down from the cross and laid in his Mother’s arms,” is not in the gospels. The first half of the sentence is there alright but ‘laid in his mother’s arms’ or words to that effect, are non-existent. Probably the masterpiece by the Renaissance artist Michelangelo called “La Pieta” (1499) which shows the dead body of Jesus lying on his Mother’s lap, influenced the creation of those lines.

The Way of the Cross was my guiding light in the writing of We Crucify Him. In other words, I took it step by step and used a number of descriptive adjectives to make the narrative forceful and vivid. As the director explains to the priest on the night of the dress rehearsal, “Father, there is no one playing Christ.”

The priest Fr David was puzzled and rightly replied, “But this is a passion play and Christ is the Central figure.” Immediately, the director explains, “You see Father, the play is more in the nature of narration. The action itself takes place off stage so to speak.”

Fr David thought this was rather an unusual approach and replied,” Very interesting! We would not see anyone carrying a cross and being nailed to it?” The director — Harry goes on to say, “Not on the stage but we hope the audience would see it in their imagination.”

The Confirmation class teacher explained, “The word ‘apostle’ comes from the Greek apostolos meaning ‘one who is sent as a messenger’ and is mainly used for the 12 disciples selected by Jesus. Now, who can tell me what the word ‘epistle’ means?” Right away, a girl answered, “The wife of an apostle.”