Veronica: The Gaze That Would Not Look Away:
A Somatic Meditation Through the Mystery of Touch, Courage, and
the Imprint of the Suffering of Christ Through the Lens of Spiritual Trauma
By Ashley E. Schumacher, MS, LAPC
Music Suggestion: ‘Kyrie Eleison’ by Salt of the Sound
youtu.be/NJMqWfs0zQ4?si=Q-SCsmHfSnfIfJzW
Begin wherever you are.
You do not need to be composed.
Or spiritually ready.
Or emotionally strong.
Let the breath you are already breathing be enough.
Let the stillness or the shakiness be sacred.
There is no performance here. Only presence.
And perhaps, permission.
To feel. Or not feel.
To come close. Or stay at the edge.
There is a crowd.
You are among them.
You hear the noise, the jeering, the press of bodies.
Some part of you recognizes this chaos—not as something ancient, but as something strangely close.
The injustice, the distortion of what is holy, the mockery dressed up as righteousness.
Let yourself take in the atmosphere, not all at once, just a thread of it.
You don’t have to bear the whole weight.
Breathe.
Notice where your body goes—
Does your throat tighten?
Does your jaw?
Does your chest want to cave, or your legs to run?
You are safe.
Let your body notice that.
Let it respond however it needs.
You see Him now.
Jesus.
Face swollen, streaked with dried blood.
Eyes half-closed, yet still seeking.
You may feel the pull to look away.
So much has been done to His body.
So much done in His name.
Perhaps you know what it’s like
to be crushed under the weight of other people’s holiness.
To be silenced by scripture.
To be invisible in the sanctuary.
Perhaps you know the violence of those who claim to speak for God.
The wounds inflicted not only by actions, but by words— by the twisting of truth, by the abuse of sacred authority, by the weaponization of belief.
Let yourself notice what arises.
The ache.
The anger.
The silence.
The sorrow.
You don’t need to fix or resolve it.
Just stay.
Now you see her.
Veronica.
She doesn’t shout.
She doesn’t wait for approval.
She simply steps out.
Not because she is unafraid,
but because something in her refuses to watch Love suffer alone.
Her hands tremble, maybe.
She isn’t sure if what she’s doing will help.
She doesn’t have certainty.
Only love.
She approaches Him.
She reaches.
She lifts the cloth.
And she touches His face.
Not to cleanse.
Not to erase the blood.
But to be near.
To say with her body: I see you. I will not look away.
Where does that land in your body?
Her gesture.
His face.
The silence between them.
What stirs in you as you witness this?
You are allowed to pause here.
To let your breath steady.
To let your body soften.
Or hold tension.
Both are holy.
He does not speak.
But something passes between them.
And when she pulls the cloth away—His face remains.
Not in radiant light.
But in blood and tenderness.
In suffering and truth.
A face imprinted on her veil.
On her soul.
The imprint of trauma is not always a scar— sometimes it is a face.
Sometimes it is a Presence that refuses to leave.
What has been imprinted on you?
What faces have you touched?
What wounds have touched you?
And what has remained,
even when everyone else walked away?
Stay with that.
You are not alone.
This is the sacred moment when solidarity becomes sacrament.
Veronica’s veil bears the face of the crucified— and in doing so, bears the weight of all who are wounded and unseen.
It holds the weeping face of the abused.
The rejected.
The poor.
The scapegoated.
The survivors whose stories were “too much.”
It holds your face too.
You, who have loved the Church and been wounded by her.
You, who dared to see Christ in desecrated places.
You, who bear invisible imprints others refuse to see.
Perhaps you have known the crushing weight of spiritual betrayal— the hands that should have held you, but instead held the sword.
The words meant to nurture and heal, but which instead left you broken.
Let yourself feel the sorrow of this.
The rejection.
The isolation.
The unanswered questions.
The silence where there should have been comfort.
This is the sacred wound of spiritual trauma— the place where you were meant to be loved, but found only abandonment, neglect, or worse.
And yet, in the midst of that wound, there is a Presence that refuses to leave.
A Presence that, like Veronica, chooses to step out, chooses to see you, to touch you, to refuse to turn away.
This is the solidarity that lives in Christ’s face, in Veronica’s veil, and in you.
This is the preferential option for the poor— an invitation to stand with the suffering, to touch their pain as your own, to bear their grief, to see their dignity when others turn away.
Let that call be present in your heart now— a call to stand beside those who suffer, to wipe away their tears, to carry their wounds as your own.
Let yourself rest here.
Let yourself be seen.
You may place your hands gently on your own face now.
Not to change it.
Not to fix it.
Only to say:
I see you. I honor you. I will not turn away.
Let that be enough for now.