Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia
Praised be Jesus and Mary.
Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Veronica,
not Veronica who presented the veil to Jesus,
but Veronica Giuliani, a 17th century Franciscan mystic.
And she was born into a wealthy family.
Her mother died when she was four years old.
And she had five children.
And before she died, she assigned each of her children
to one of the wounds of our Lord.
And she assigned Veronica to the wound in our Lord's sacred heart.
She was the youngest.
And she could have a little temper every now and then.
She would stomp her feet.
But after...
After her mother assigned her to the wound in the sacred heart
and passed away, she changed.
And she wanted to devote herself to Christ.
But her father wanted her to marry
and presented different suitors before her.
And her father wasn't too happy that she wanted to enter the convent.
And he insisted that she marry.
But she got so sick at his insistence
that he realized that it was God's will.
For her to become a nun.
So she joined the Capuchin Poor Clares.
And through her prayers and asceticism
and longing to suffer in union with Christ,
Christ allowed her to share in his salvation.
Through his sufferings.
Through his stigmata.
And of course, through all this mystical phenomena,
the bishop was prudent in wanting to know
whether this was from God or from Satan.
And he ordered her superiors to put her to a test.
To test her humility.
So she was assigned a sister to take care of her.
But the sister was put under obedience
to treat her like she was an imposter.
And she suffered all of this very patiently
and accepted it from the hands of God.
Just as we heard in this morning's first reading
that St. Paul says,
you know,
we are crushed and full of doubts,
but we never despair.
No matter how many trials we have,
we have that great consolation of our faith.
And we know that we can unite our sufferings with our Lord.
Just as he tells us in today's gospel,
that it's not an option.
We have to deny ourself.
We have to die to self if we wish to live.
So let us pray to St. Veronica today
that we may
embrace our crosses,
that God sends our way
and not reject them
because they are our stairway to heaven.
you