May 13
This is the day the Lord has made for us to venerate the Shroud. There is an interesting local history.
I had forgotten that there was no unified country in Italy until the middle of the 19th Century. There were a multitude of city-states, dukedoms and the Papal state that all operated autonomously until unified under the House of Savoy. The jurisdiction of the House of Savoy extended from Southern France to the Piedmont area. This connection with France was the conduit for the Shroud to travel from France to Italy and then, in the 20th Century, to be given to Pope John Paul XXIII. Turin was the capital of the Kingdom of Piedmont and became the capital of unified Italy in 1861 under Victor Emmanuel II.
When Rome was captured in 1870, the capital was moved to Rome. Pius IX became the last Pope with significant temporal authority tied to papal territory. We got into line to see the Shroud about 10:35am and entered the Cathedral about 2.5 hours later. The line was never ending. We moved 4 or more abreast over about 2km. It was a line of New Testament Babel with German, Polish, Italian,
English and French speakers --- different languages all unified in one Faith --- this is the Catholic Church.
As we entered the Cathedral, there was a short movie that presented the Shroud and location of important portions of the Shroud. We were filtered into 4 separate lines as we approached the Shroud. There was a live video feed of the Shroud that was majestic in its simplicity --- a sepia image floating against a black background. This preparation helped orient the eyes for the brief time we would have close to the Shroud.
At 12:30pm, I stood in awe and saw the face of God from about 10’ distance. Even though the (negative) image is faint, you can clearly see the front and back view of a naked man, hands folded across his groin. The face swollen and serene, the body surprisingly muscular, the beard and hair arranged, the wounds screaming pain.
It was the wounds that will stay in my memory – the large, round wound on the wrist and foot, the gouge in the side, the blood on the forehead and arms, the scores of linear wounds on the front and back that covered the body with dots and dashes. This man was scourged naked.
My allotted 3 minutes passed quickly and I was ushered from the Church. It was surreal. I had seen Him, the body and blood of Jesus. Images of the Shroud are posted in the Church of St. John where the Shroud was originally housed. The wounds are more pronounced in the positive image
that reflects white on black.
I had time to reenter the Cathedral and spend time with the Shroud, now from a distance of 150 meters. In the Gospel of John (chapter 20), he tells of running to the tomb, looking in and seeing the stripes of burial cloth and the cloth that covered Jesus head and “He saw and believed.” The beloved disciple did not believe until he saw the shroud. I expect John, having witnessed the Passion, knew there were only two ways Jesus was getting out of the tomb --- he was going to rise or his body would be stolen. The burial cloths in the tomb indicate the body was not stolen.
The Shroud of Turin May 2010
To see the face of Christ, to see the wounds he suffered -- the wounds of the scourging were particularly visible as dots and dashes that covered His body.
Not an I blinded eye
came to read
the silent summation
of your dying
on that Thursday
You ascended.
Shredded flesh on
shredded linen,
The Morse Code
of "I am risen."
Dying shameful
Buried well.
Joyful crying on a day
of acclamation
with this pilgrim ecclesiae
Confident in a conviction
that nothing can prevail
Not then, not now
not even to the
Gates of Hell
We completed a walking tour of the area surrounding the Cathedral, staying more or less ahead of a thunder storm, and ended up at the Basilica of Mary Our Help.
Much to my surprise, this Basilica contains the reported incorrupt bodies of St. John Bosco,founder of the Salesian Society, and St. Maria Mazzarello, foundress of the Salesian Sisters.
Turin, as an industrial center, attracted migrants and poorer families. Since adult males were at war with Napoleon, Turin factories became a major consumer of child labor. St. John Bosco and St. Maria Mazzarello focused on care to the child workers and abandoned youth. He died in 1888.
Mass was celebrated by Fr. Scott Courtney. If there is a God in heaven (and I know there is), here is a priest who must become a Bishop. We need men like him who can feed the sheep and steer the Church through secular seas. Over the rest of the pilgrimage, we celebrated Liturgy in some astounding places, but never did the location outshine the glory of Fr. Coutney’s celebrations. My only concern is that any Episcopal background check would reveal he is a Cubs fan, a fact in many circles that would be construed best case as bad judgement and worst case as a constant near occasion of sin. I wonder if he knows the Cubs used to be the Chicago White Stockings.
