Picture in Focus: The Divine Face by Marie Sena

August 26, 2018

Picture in Focus: The Divine Face by Marie Sena

Just as the Eastern Orthodox venerate icons of The Savior Made Without Hands, Western Christians have their own miraculous image of Christ on a cloth, known as the Veil of Veronica, the subject of this week's new face of Jesus from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection.  The origin of this supernatural portrait of Christ is remembered in the Sixth Station of the Cross in the Holy Week devotional cycle, when a pious woman of Jerusalem took pity on Christ as he made his way to Golgotha and wiped his face with a cloth on which his features miraculously appeared. She has come to be known as Veronica, a variation of the Latin for "true icon." The Veil of Veronica is distinguished from its Orthodox counterpart by Christ's Crown of Thorns. In this variation by Southwest American Saint-Maker Marie Sena, the holy cloth is held by angels and surrounded by instruments of Christ's passion like the spear that pierced his side, the sponge with vinegar he was offered, and the cock that crowed at Peter's betrayal.  The free-standing panel can be found in the gallery of the New Mexican Saint-Makers page in the Schools of Sacred Art Section. (John Kohan)