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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