Catholic Charities: The veil of accompaniment

BY SUSAN MONTALVO-GESSER,J.D., DIRECTOR OF CATHOLIC CHARITIES

In our faith tradition there is a saint, Veronica, whom we hear about when we pray the sixth Station of the Cross. As the story goes, Veronica was so overcome by the sight of Jesus carrying his cross, covered in sweat, blood, and pain on the road to be crucified, that she used her veil to wipe the blood from his face. Jesus left his holy face as a perfect image on her veil. Many people likely watched Jesus carry his cross, and were likely frozen by the trauma they were witnessing… afraid to come forward to do anything, the situation feeling too big and people were powerless. After all, the crucifixion was inevitable. But Veronica let her love and empathy overwhelm the trauma and did something no one else would. She loved Jesus in the best way she could at that moment. She had to know that even after she wiped his face, the blood and sweat would return. Her effort could be seen a fruitless, but God recognized it as incredible – deserving of a miracle.

In Catholic Charities’ disaster relief services, although the journey is long, we usually get to see success at the end of the road. Through our CAP (Counseling Assistance Program), where those suffering from mental illness and trauma receive accompaniment from a qualified therapist, we do not see the results or even know names, but we know we are often helping people through some of their most trying times. In our housing services, we also get to shelter people and return them to dignity.

But in our immigration services department, often there is no light at the end of the tunnel. We work in broken systems, in a broken society with problems we do not have the power to solve. How do we keep from falling into despair, or being frozen, or cynically working where we cannot do a lot to change the “big picture?”

The answer lies in Veronica. We wipe their faces.

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