"On the first day of the week,
Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning,
while it was still dark,
and saw the stone removed from the tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter
and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them,
'They have taken the Lord from the tomb,
and we don’t know where they put him.'
So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb.
They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter
and arrived at the tomb first;
he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in.
When Simon Peter arrived after him,
he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there,
and the cloth that had covered his head,
not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.
Then the other disciple also went in,
the one who had arrived at the tomb first,
and he saw and believed.
For they did not yet understand the Scripture
that he had to rise from the dead" (Jn 20:1-9)
While the Church has not confirmed that the Shroud of Turin IS the aforementioned "burial cloths", "the Man of the Shroud invites us to contemplate Jesus of Nazareth. This image, impressed upon the cloth, speaks to our heart and moves us to climb the hill of Calvary, to look upon the wood of the Cross, and to immerse ourselves in the eloquent silence of love....looking upon the Man of the Shroud, I make my own the prayer which Saint Francis of Assisi prayed before the Crucifix:
Most High, glorious God,
enlighten the shadows of my heart,
and grant me a right faith, a certain hope and perfect charity,
sense and understanding, Lord,
so that I may accomplish your holy and true command. Amen" (Pope Francis, 3/30/13)
Even among non-believers, reasons for identifying the Shroud of Turin as the "burial cloths" are compelling.
As per Raymond Arroyo, the Holy Face of Manoppello is “An image of the face of Christ which is rumored to be either the veil of veronica or the cloth that laid over Jesus’ face in the tomb.”
"'Your Face, O Lord, I seek': seeking the Face of Jesus must be the longing of all of us Christians; indeed, we are 'the generation' which seeks His Face in our day, the Face of the 'God of Jacob'. If we persevere in our quest for the Face of the Lord, at the end of our earthly pilgrimage, He, Jesus, will be our eternal joy, our reward and glory for ever: "Sis Jesu nostrum gaudium, qui es futurus praemium: sit nostra in te gloria, per cuncta semper saecula" (Pope Benedict at Manoppello, 9/1/06).
Another candidate for "the cloth that had covered His head" is the Sudarium of Oviedo:
"A little-known relic in Oviedo, Spain, [is] called the Sudarium, the cloth said to have covered Jesus’ face after He was crucified....Although there is no facial image on the Sudarium, it does contain a distinct facial impression....when the image on the Shroud was placed over the stains on the Sudarium, there was an exact correlation between the stains on the Sudarium and the image of the beard of the man on the Shroud....Juan Ignacio Moreno, a magistrate in Burgos, Spain, and a leading advocate of the Sudarium’s authenticity, offers this answer to the mystery of both the Shroud and the Cloth of Oviedo: 'The Sudarium is a relic rediscovered for Christians fighting a new fight. It is a love letter to our time from God: a tantalizing puzzle saved for the minds of men that have made science and knowledge their god.'" (Mary Jo Anderson, The "Other" Shroud of Christ, Catholic World Report, 4/1/15)
We need to let Christ's Resurrection transform us, to stand up for the Truth in the public square!
No comments:
Post a Comment