The Shroud: Icon of Christ, Written in Blood

Artistic Image By Dianelos Georgoudis (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0]
via Wikimedia Commons

“When Simon Peter arrived… he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head… rolled up in a separate place.” Jn 20:6-7

Jesus knew that even His most trusted disciples had little faith. He understood our human need for tangible signs of His presence, and He provided them abundantly.  One such miraculous sign is the burial shroud of Jesus, left behind in the empty tomb. The disciples “did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead,” yet seeing the empty tomb and the burial cloths convicted them of the truth of the resurrection.

A special on EWTN this month, “The Holy Winding Sheet,” presented an interesting idea about the Shroud’s purpose for today’s world. They suggested that this image was given for these times, when so much of our communication and learning comes through the images that fill our computer and television screens. The image on the Shroud of Turin, which tells the story of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ in stunning visual detail, was only fully revealed on the eve of the 20th century, when the first photo negative of the Shroud was created and viewed.  

Every detail of the passion is confirmed by the image. St. John Paul once stated, “The Shroud is an image of God's love as well as of human sin... The imprint left by the tortured body of the Crucified One… stands as an icon of the suffering of the innocent in every age." Pope Benedict described the Shroud as the "Icon of Holy Saturday... corresponding in every way to what the Gospels tell us of Jesus", "an Icon written in blood, the blood of a man who was scourged, crowned with thorns, crucified and whose right side was pierced."

 Jesus invites us to believe, yet He will not force us. He leaves that final choice to us, as He did for Thomas, saying, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe” (Jn 20:27).

Our Lord gave us this miraculous image to help our faith. We can see Him with our own eyes. Do not be unbelieving, but believe!
 
 
 

 

 

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