After a night of dreadful suspense and anxiety, Our Lady has made her way to the city to find out all for herself. Like Peter, she has come "to see the end." Magdalene and John are with her; the sorry little group stands here at the street comer, waiting for the procession, Or, rather, heedless of everyone and everything except the central Figure.
Mary is here to meet Him the criminal, as men impiously declare on His way to death. Thousands of times I have implored her to be ready to meet me at that supreme hour. I too am her son, sorely in need of her encouragement and protection at all times but most of all at death. And if on the way men hurl at me the epithet "criminal," dare I gainsay the accusation? A criminal, yes, but repentant, a sinner but mindful that my God will never despise a humble and a contrite heart. "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us, sinners, now and at the hour of our death." May death for me be my Fourth Station!
The dying, tottering Christ stumbles on as best He may. Veronica sees Him, perhaps from the window of her house, and, with true womanly instinct, pulls the veil from her head, hurries out and makes her way through the crowd and wipes away some, even a little, of the blood and sweat and spittle. More she would gladly do but they will not permit it.
Jesus can see better now. The way He must walk is clearer. The eyes that were blinded He can now open more fully and watch the path and the place for His feet.
In every meditation on the Passion the soul meets its Veronica. For this story of love and suffering is a light to the soul, showing it the way, the truth, and the life. The way, it sees, is the way of the Cross which Jesus travelled. The truth is the astonishing fact that it itself is loved thus, and by the GodMan loved. The life is that life purchased for the soul by the death of the Saviour: grace here and glory hereafter.
Times there have been and times there will be when the road seems to stretch endlessly and the soul feels it cannot keep going on. It may be assured that the burden it is asked to carry will never prove to be beyond its strength. For His own wise reasons a loving Father may allow it to go almost to the last gasp, but then He sends Veronica. With her towel she wipes the face of the sufferer, removing some, even a little, of the darkness. Another glimpse of what lies beyond Calvary is granted to the soul and with it new courage to persevere.