Catholic Vancouver August 23, 2022
Parish lifts the veil on image of the Holy Face of Christ
By The B.C. Catholic
To help keep Christ at the centre of their lives, the parishioners of St. James in Abbotsford have enthroned a replica of the Veil of Manoppello above the tabernacle, a relic described by Saint Padre Pio as the true face of Christ and “the greatest miracle in our possession.”
The enthronement was spearheaded by Ethelyn David, a local member of the Order of Malta who is partially responsible for organizing previous enthronements at Immaculate Conception in Delta and St. Patrick’s in Vancouver. Like many people, she has found great consolation and faith through her devotion to the Holy Face of Christ.
On Aug. 6, the veil was enthroned in St. James during evening Mass, as well as St. Francis De Sales Parish in Burnaby earlier that morning. Mass was officiated by St. James pastor Father William Ashley and Father Benifacio Sarte Lopez, who travelled from Manoppello in Italy to over see the enthronement.
The image now on display is a Church-approved replica. The actual veil resides in Manoppello, in Santuario del Volto Santo Church, run by the Capuchin friars.
The actual Veil of Manoppello is one of the “acheiropoieta” – images not made by human hands – recognized by the Church. Others include the Shroud of Turin and the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe given to Juan Diego.
Historically, the Veil of Manoppello is difficult to track. Local legend states that it was delivered to Manoppello by a mysterious and nameless pilgrim in 1506. The man gave it to a Dr. Giacomo Antonio Leonelli who unwrapped it inside the local church. When Leonelli saw the image, he ran outside to find the stranger, but the man had disappeared. The veil has been in Manoppello ever since.
In the late 1990s German Jesuit Heinrich Pfeiffer, professor of art history at the Pontifical Gregorian University, proposed the image was in fact the Veil of Veronica – a legendary cloth said to hold the image of Christ’s face before his crucifixion – which he said was then wrapped around Christ’s head in the tomb.
The well-known story, absent from the biblical narrative itself, has a woman – usually named Veronica – wipe the blood and sweat from an exhausted Christ as he carries the cross to Calvary. She is rewarded for her charity with an image of Christ’s face on the cloth.
The name Veronica does not necessarily belong to a real woman and is made up of two words – the Latin word ‘vera’ (true) and the Greek word ‘iconica’ (image) – and can literally be translated as “the true image.”
Whether the account is true or not, a number of images show up throughout history claiming the mantel of Veronica’s veil, and Pfeiffer simply offers the most recent, and perhaps the most persuasive, contribution to the conversation.
One interesting artistic fact about the Veil of Manoppello is that it can be superimposed over early Christian depictions of Christ inspired by the face found on the Shroud of Turin – as well as the face on the shroud itself. This is not the case with other icons claiming to be the Veil of Veronica, and it lends some credibility to Pfeiffer’s proposal.
During the Mass at St. James, Father Lopez thanked St. James pastor Father William Ashley for welcoming the Holy Face of Jesus into the parish, telling the parishioners that their openness to the face of Jesus will allow God to do great things through them.
“I think God has a plan for you here,” he said to the congregation. Father Lopez believes there are many powerful people in the Church who would like to ignore the Manoppello veil in an attempt to appeal to modern sensibilities. He said there are also many who would like the Church to stop talking about miracles and sacred mysteries.
Such an attitude was prevalent in 2006, he said, when Pope Benedict XVI courted controversy with his widely publicized visit to the image on the 500th anniversary of its arrival in Manoppello. While Benedict’s address made no mention of the veil or whether it is the true image of Christ, he did thank the Capuchins for their care for the shrine where so many had sought “the face of Christ.”
After Mass, Father Ashley repeated Father Lopez’s sentiment that the enthronement will be a blessing to the parish. “Anything that emphasizes Christ helps the parish,” he told The B.C. Catholic. “We are blessed to have the face here.”
A personal miracle of Manoppello
Father Bonifacio Sartre Lopez has dedicated his life to the promotion of the Holy Face of Jesus and the Veil of Manoppello, but it wasn’t always this way.
The first time he saw the veil, he was skeptical and thought it was too ugly to be the real face of Christ.
That was until he was asked by the previous rector of the Shrine of the Holy Face in Manoppello, Padre Carmine Cucinelli, to translate for him when the veil was enthroned at St. Patrick’s Church in Vancouver in 2015.
Father Lopez was nervous. He had lived most of his life in Italy and was worried that this English wouldn’t be adequate.
A few weeks before the event he received a card in the mail with the message “don’t be afraid” written inside. He didn’t take the hint.
A few days later he found himself standing in front of a statue of Saint John Paul II, with his well known quote from the New Testament: “Be not afraid.”
The priest remembers having trouble sleeping until one night he saw the Veil of Manoppello and heard a voice say, “Do not be afraid.” He was unfazed, and despite all of these messages he went to the enthronement with a pit in his stomach.
“Three times I heard ‘do not be afraid,’” Father Lopez said. “I was afraid because I was arrogant and I had come to rely only on myself.”
When Padre Cucinelli began to speak at the event, Father Lopez claims he didn’t translate. Instead, he heard the English in his mind which he repeated to the congregation.
After the event Padre Cucinelli came up to him to offer his thanks and asked him if he had been comfortable reading the English translation of the speech he had had in front of him. No miracle is too small for God, it would seem.
Father Lopez said the experience didn’t just instill a love for the Face of Christ and the Veil of Manoppello, but it taught him a valuable lesson about prayer and relying on God for all things.