Some cities seem to burst with saints. Home to well-known twentieth century saints like St. Faustina Kowalska, and St. Maximilian Kolbe, and St. John Paul II — as well as older saints less familiar to Americans, like St. Stanislaw and St. Jadwiga — Krakow is one of those cities.
Seen through the lives of the saints, Krakow comes alive. Even a simple walk through the streets of the old city becomes a pilgrimage; the place brings to mind the saints who loved it so, and their lives draw the mind higher to God, to whom they gave everything.
Throughout the three weeks I spent in Krakow this summer, I was immersed in the lives of the Polish saints and continually inspired by their witness to the life of faith. There were no particular moments of great spiritual profundity, but rather a simple and undeniably deepened appreciation for the long history of the Christian faith. Century after century, men and women have found something worth living for — and dying for — in Christ and his Church. (RELATED: Poland’s Piles of Crutches)
When my three weeks came to an end and I flew to Italy to spend a few days at a friend’s place in Tuscany, I thought that my pilgrimage had come to an end. Instead of visiting any of the major Catholic destinations in Italy — Rome, Assisi, Siena, or Bologna, to name a few — I’d simply spend a few days enjoying the pace of Italian life in a small town far away from more likely vacation destinations.
But, unexpectedly, the pilgrimage continued in the town of Lucca.
Finding the Volto Santo
In an afternoon visit to that small town in northern Tuscany, I learned that Lucca has been a pilgrimage destination for over a millennium. The town is home to the oldest wooden work of art in Europe: the Volto Santo, which translates to “the Holy Face.” The Volto Santo is a massive wooden crucifix with ancient origins that has been venerated by the residents of Lucca and neighboring cities for centuries.
Nearly eight feet tall, the Volto Santo looms large both in real life and in the mythology of northern Italy. According to medieval legend, the crucifix was carved by Nicodemus, the Pharisee-turned-disciple in the Gospels, after the death of Christ. The story goes that Nicodemus carved the corpus from memory but struggled to complete the face, even though he was one of the Lord’s followers. He prayed for divine assistance, and awoke the next day to find that angels had carved the statue’s face in the perfect image of Jesus.
Carbon-dating has revealed that the statue actually dates back to the eighth century, but the legend still contains a seed of truth: the Volto Santo shows the face of Christ to all who see it. For centuries, pilgrims have traveled to Lucca to visit the statue, and the town celebrates the statue each year in September with the Luminara di Santa Croce festival, when all electric lights in the town are extinguished and the faithful process through the streets with candles.
The beautiful Cattedrale di San Martino, built in the 11th century, is home to the Volto Santo. The ancient crucifix is usually hung in a special chapel where pilgrims can pray before the statue, but not so during my visit to the church. Rather than hanging on display, the Volto Santo had been moved to the transept-turned-laboratory for restoration and preservation.
The Volto Santo is 1300 years old, but the church in Lucca is unwilling to let it become simply an artifact of history. Through preservation, the artisans repair the inevitable wear of time and give new life to the statue so that it might continue to draw pilgrims and visitors to the church towards the true holy face — that of God.
And whether or not our daily pilgrimages are intentional or otherwise, the story of the Volto Santo reminds us that every day is a step in the journey towards heaven. Though my official time of pilgrimage in Krakow — and now in Italy, too — has ended, I am called to still press on, to discover what is good and beautiful, and to orient my life in pursuit of it. We are called to this pilgrimage.
Mary Frances Myler is a writer from Traverse City, Michigan. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame. Follow her on Twitter at @mfmyler.
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