History of the Smiling Young Lord — Richard V. Barry

In a small, backward eastern European country at the early part of the sixteenth century a young peasant of pious disposition and creative musings convinces himself and others that a mysterious face has miraculously appeared among the leaves and boughs of a knarred old tree. With a leap of imagination he asserts that it is the face of Jesus as a young man. The need to satisfy inner longings and find spiritual solace for increasing multitudes of would-be believers results in many unexpected events. The expanding fame of this miraculous apparition has international consequences and affects many lives through the ensuing centuries, up to the present time. Simple faith is pitted against worldly ambitions with conflicting and surprising results. Good-hearted people, when caught up in the emotional, political and religious maelstrom that surrounds this apparition are innocently let astray. And who is to say if any apparition is powerfully effective because it is real or because so many people feel in their hearts that it is real. Age-old questions of faith versus reason are clearly at play, and meaning is in the message that eventually goes forth to the world.