Veronica: Name Day and Patron Saint

St Veronica, also called Bernice, is the woman in the Gospels who suffered for twelve years from a flow of blood. She had spent all she had on physicians, and instead of getting better she grew worse. Hearing of Christ, she believed that if she could only touch His garment she would be made well. She came up behind Him in the pressing crowd, touched His clothing, and at once the bleeding stopped. The Lord knew that power had gone out from Him and asked who had touched Him. Trembling, she came forward and told Him the whole truth, and He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.” The Synaxarion of St Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain says she came from Paneas, also called Caesarea Philippi. In gratitude she set up before her house a bronze statue of Christ, with a figure of herself kneeling before Him; the historian Eusebius writes that he saw it there himself, and that an herb unknown to physicians grew at its base and was said to cure many illnesses. She lived on in the faith of the early Church and died in peace after a life pleasing to God. The Orthodox Church does not identify her with the Veronica of the veil venerated in the West. The Church keeps her memory on 12 July (25 July on the Old Calendar). The faithful ask her prayers in long and wearing illness, when doctors can do no more, and for a faith that reaches out to Christ.

What the faithful pray for

• the long and chronically ill
• women suffering from illnesses of the body
• those whom doctors have not been able to help
• courage to come to Christ and tell Him the whole truth
• gratitude for healing received