St. Veronica Reusable Grocery Bag

While the official Roman Catholic patron saint of church cleaners is Blessed Theobald Roggeri (Italian, d. 1150; Feast: June 1), a case can be made for St. Veronica of Jerusalem as the informal patron saint of the lay churchwomen who volunteer to help with the task in parishes everywhere. Who was St. Veronica? The nameless woman healed of a hemorrhage of blood (Luke 8:43–48)? One of the women who followed him during his ministry? Just one of the bystanders? This side of heaven we will never know for sure anything about her. She’s not mentioned by name in any of the four canonical Gospels. Nevertheless, she will forever be remembered by the Sixth Station of the Cross for her simple, spontaneous gesture: She pushed past the crowd and the guards to offer a cloth, probably her veil, to a convicted criminal on the way to his death, death on a cross, that he might wipe his bloody face. Tradition calls her St. Veronica of Jerusalem (1st century); and the man, of course, was Jesus, who miraculously left his likeness on the cloth. Today, St. Veronica—the name given her means “true icon”—is revered as patron saint of photographers, laundry workers, and rectory housekeepers. + Feast: July 12 + Image Credit (JM 60): Antique image of St. Veronica of Jerusalem, originally published in chromolithography by Josef Müller Art Publisher, Munich and New York, first quarter of the 20th century, from the designer’s private collection of religious ephemera. This is just one of over sixty images in a very popular style of devotional prints issued in several sizes and formats by Müller at the turn of the last century.