Jesus' Crown of Thorns was More Like a Helmet Than a Ringlet | The Shroud of Turin Suggests
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
164.53801
Summary
The Shroud of Turin is the most studied artifact in the world, bar none. It is the burial cloth of Christ, and I m going to give you a glimpse into its history, which you can trace right back to the beginning, and the incredible discoveries that show you what the crown of thorns actually looked like.
Transcript
00:00:00.080
What do we know from science and what do we know from faith? Many assume that these are
00:00:04.960
incompatible or in conflict, but here what's so remarkable is that again and again,
00:00:09.920
not only are they compatible, they're mutually illuminating.
00:00:20.400
Hey my friends, do you want to learn about the greatest mystery on earth? The most studied
00:00:27.360
artifact in the world bar none? That's something called the Shroud of Turin. It is the burial
00:00:35.440
cloth of Christ and I'm going to give you a glimpse into its history, which you can trace
00:00:41.760
right back to the beginning and the incredible discoveries that show you what the crown of
00:00:49.360
thorns actually looked like. By the way, it's not just this. What Jesus lay in his thing about
00:00:55.600
rigor mortis that he went through and about how he was crucified. You're going to want
00:01:02.080
to stay tuned to this episode of the John Hanna Weston Show.
00:01:06.640
Mighty nations stumble. World war threatens. There's destruction on the battlefield and
00:01:12.320
also in the womb. And all this is happening because man has forgotten God. Pope Pius XI said,
00:01:18.160
men must look for the peace of Christ in the kingdom of Christ. And he urged that the faithful give
00:01:25.680
public honor to Christ the King so that individuals and states would submit once more to the rule of
00:01:31.440
their savior. And that is why LifeSite News is raising up the image of Christ the King across the
00:01:37.440
United States. Our billboards have already proclaimed the rule of our divine savior to tens of thousands of
00:01:43.680
Americans. And you can help us reach millions more. Only when Christ the King reigns over our
00:01:50.160
hearts and our minds will there be peace among nations and peace in our homes. Please pledge your
00:01:55.600
support today for these billboards at lifefunder.com slash Christ is King.
00:02:03.840
Before we get to our experts, let's begin as we always do with the sign of the cross.
00:02:08.000
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
00:02:14.000
Let's go around here and take a look at some of the amazing images that are here that are
00:02:19.680
reproductions of the actual Shroud of Turin, and get to hear from the experts what they mean,
00:02:26.960
what they signify, and the incredible discoveries that science has been able to make to show us the
00:02:33.120
reality of his death, crucifixion, and resurrection. So like one of the things we're going to learn
00:02:39.600
about is that the Shroud gives evidence that the crucifixes we all see in our churches, they're not
00:02:46.720
nearly what Jesus suffered. It's much more relevant, it's much more real, as you saw in the Passion of
00:02:51.280
the Christ. Look, these are images based on the Shrouds. You can see the actual evidence for these
00:02:58.000
horrific wounds. They're everywhere. They take up his whole body, his legs, his torso, all sort of
00:03:06.480
lacerated. It's just incredible. This is not pretty. It is the visual that we have the evidence for,
00:03:18.000
And this is Nora Creech. She is the one actually responsible for this display here at the National
00:03:25.840
Eucharistic Congress. And she's been working with the Shroud for a long, long time. So Nora,
00:03:33.920
if you can tell us first, what is most striking? I know you've devoted so much of your life to this.
00:03:39.840
What's most striking about the Shroud and this to you?
00:03:43.280
Well, the connection of the Shroud to the Gospels. It's a tangible evidence that our faith is true.
00:03:50.320
And the more you start examining the Shroud and the closer you look at the Shroud with the Gospels,
00:03:56.000
the more you say, wow, this is amazing that God left us this beautiful representation of what He
00:04:03.840
suffered for us. And then that He triumphed over that brutal, agonizing death that He suffered. And
00:04:12.080
the image was made at the moment of His resurrection. So it's, it's a real
00:04:18.560
Hmm. A couple of things that are so striking here. One is that you have a representation of the
00:04:24.000
Crown of Thorns. That's totally different than the Crown of Thorns. It's not like the normal round,
00:04:32.000
Why is that? And how does that square up? And why from the Shroud do you get that?
00:04:35.360
Well, it's more like a cap of thorns, like you said. So it, the, there's the theological significance
00:04:41.120
is very deep. You can go all the way back to Genesis three, where with the fall and the,
00:04:46.080
the consequences of our sin were thorns and thistles. The ground itself produced thorns and
00:04:51.680
thistles. So that was the consequence of our sin. And so Jesus is actually taking our sin upon His head
00:04:59.040
and wearing it to the cross. Nobody else in recorded history was crowned with thorns. And then
00:05:04.880
the shape of the crown is the cap, which is like what the high priest wore. They wore more of a cap,
00:05:10.400
not, not a circlet like we are so used to seeing. So you have Jesus wearing our sins as the high
00:05:16.640
priest going forward to be enthroned on the cross. Whoa. One of the other really striking aspects here is
00:05:25.360
the image of the crucifix. Cause it's totally different. It's one of the arms is sort of
00:05:32.320
bent and the other one's straight, like you assume. And how do you get that from the Shroud?
00:05:36.880
And why is that thought to be the way it was? So you're referring to the Ricci crucifix,
00:05:41.360
which we have a copy of here in the exhibit. And Monsignor Giulio Ricci started the center in Rome,
00:05:48.080
which started to study very intensively the Shroud in a forensic way. So he was one of the first
00:05:54.560
researchers to really look at the wounds on the Shroud and what it told us about Jesus,
00:05:59.360
actual torture and death. And so what he discovered is that the blood flows on the forearms
00:06:05.600
indicated that that is the position that the body was in when Jesus actually died on the cross. So we
00:06:12.480
know from, from forensic studies that Jesus had to move, rotate around those nails and his wrists in
00:06:18.800
order to lift himself up to breathe and then to lower down to exhale. So there was this constant
00:06:25.280
movement. So there's two different blood flows on the forearms. And then once he died, that his head
00:06:32.000
was tilted down and to the right. And, and that's what's reflected on the Ricci crucifix.
00:06:37.600
There's so much, we can only touch a tiny bit of what's going on, but this is meant to engender a thirst
00:06:44.160
for it and also to get through some of the disbelief. Cause I know there's a lot of fakes and saying
00:06:49.360
that, you know, it's fake. And we had a big national geographic thing years ago that said,
00:06:52.560
oh, that's all nonsense. And they tested parts of it that weren't not even part of it really. But anyway,
00:06:59.920
what would have caused you to devote so much of your life to this?
00:07:04.480
So it actually goes back to when I was a teenager in high school. So I grew up in Colorado and a member of
00:07:10.800
my church community was on the Shroud of Turin research project team. And so when he came back
00:07:16.320
from Turin, after spending that time intensively studying the Shroud, he started giving lectures
00:07:21.760
in our community and my dad was very interested. So I would go to the lectures with my dad.
00:07:27.440
And so it was just a really great bonding between my dad and myself. And then I became good friends
00:07:33.440
with this researcher. His name is Rudy Dichtel. And he ended up teaching at my university,
00:07:39.040
University of Colorado. So when I would have a research paper to do, I would go to Rudy and
00:07:44.960
he would loan me his information that hadn't even been published yet. So I remember walking across
00:07:52.080
campus carrying a bust of Jesus that had been cut from cardboard based on the three-dimensional
00:07:59.200
information that's encoded in the Shroud. And so it goes all the way. It's been a passion of mine for
00:08:04.800
my whole life. And then I had the great gift of being a part of the first course in English of
00:08:10.880
the post-baccalaureate certificate. So I was able to take that and then they asked me if I would help
00:08:16.880
them. And of course, I was so honored. Beautiful. What could you say about
00:08:22.720
the Shroud's help to you in your devotion to our Lord?
00:08:28.320
For me, I think I was praying about that this morning that Jesus said, for those who have eyes
00:08:37.200
to see and ears to hear, here he is. He has shown us his face. He's shown us his blood poured out for
00:08:44.160
our salvation. And when I see it, I can only say, my Lord and my God, and thank you. And it's just,
00:08:53.280
it's such a profound experience to be in the presence of Jesus, to seek his holy face, and to
00:08:59.920
know that he's still with us. He abides with us through the Eucharist. He hasn't left us alone.
00:09:06.400
And it's a wonderful way to feel his presence. Absolutely beautiful.
00:09:12.560
Nora, thank you so very much. Oh, you're welcome. Thank you.
00:09:14.720
For all this, for doing this, and for your gracious hosting, so.
00:09:17.040
Well, thank you very much. I hope you've enjoyed being here.
00:09:19.760
And so this is Father Andrew Dalton, and he is a professor in that school,
00:09:25.600
Regina Postolorum, but also in that specialty diploma program that they have now, Athonia,
00:09:34.160
It means burial cloths or linen cloths in Greek. It's just the word that we find in John 20,
00:09:39.360
where the empty tomb is discovered, or so we say. It's not so empty, actually. His body isn't there,
00:09:45.120
so in that respect, it is empty. But it's actually remarkable that one-third of that gospel passage
00:09:50.160
talks about the contents of the not-so-empty tomb, right? And so what's there? The linen cloths.
00:09:56.160
The linen cloths are described in great detail. That word is othonia, unlike in Matthew, Mark,
00:10:01.760
and Luke, when the burial is described, the word there is sindon, or shroud, which is singular.
00:10:08.400
Okay. And then this word is plural linen cloths. That's significant because it includes this idea
00:10:14.800
of the linen strips. Jesus was bound. His body was bound with these aloes and myrrh.
00:10:21.760
And so that requires at least one more strip, right? And so on the shroud, you see evidence
00:10:29.280
that the beard, there's depression in the beard. They kept the mouth shut. They wrapped around the
00:10:35.920
legs such that there's an interruption in the body image between the knees and the ankles.
00:10:40.240
Okay. Okay. As you can tell, Father is a biblical scholar. He's also a theologian. But, Father,
00:10:48.080
tell us scripturally how this lines up. Because the shroud was discovered, I mean, in popular,
00:10:55.600
you know, history, we know from what, the 1500s or something like that?
00:10:58.880
Well, even earlier, actually, because in 1356 or thereabouts, it's on display in northern France
00:11:05.680
Oh, wow. In the hands of Geoffroy de Charny. Okay.
00:11:08.640
And he has ties to these European knights that likely were involved in the Fourth Crusade.
00:11:17.920
Oh, wow. This is where the speculations begin, however, because we really don't know. Between 1204
00:11:23.840
and 1354, thereabouts, exactly the chain of custody, we do know that when it shows up,
00:11:30.560
and here we have all the documentation at this point, medallions even in the Cluny Museum in Paris,
00:11:36.720
show attestation of the de Charny family with the empty tomb. It's on public display.
00:11:42.160
So from there, we know every baby step forward of the shroud that eventually ended up in Turin,
00:11:47.440
but that's not until like the 1570s. Right, right, right. Okay. So biblically speaking,
00:11:52.720
then, what do you most see? Like when you looked into this and saw it, you're like, whoa,
00:11:59.200
from the scriptures, you can see this on the shroud or on the body as taken. You can get the image from
00:12:05.600
the shroud. Yeah. So there are two things. I mean, one is what we know from the scriptures,
00:12:10.960
and that's the pursuit of faith, right? Especially for those who receive that as the Word of God.
00:12:17.440
And then there's another thing is empirical science. What can we know by studying this
00:12:21.840
archaeological object, which is happens to be the most studied artifact in the history of the world.
00:12:27.680
And so that's, I think, something to always consider. What do we know from science,
00:12:32.560
and what do we know from faith? Many assume that these are incompatible or in conflict. But here,
00:12:37.920
what's so remarkable is that again and again, not only are they compatible, they're mutually
00:12:42.960
illuminating. And so, for example, what we read about in John's Gospel, you really got to pay
00:12:52.240
attention to the segue between the burial, which gives us quite a few details about these linen cloths,
00:12:59.280
and then as we segue into the discovery of the empty tomb. Some of these details are often missed,
00:13:05.600
even by biblical scholars. It's not often considered in light of shroud science. And this is where I say it
00:13:11.600
makes sense of the data points that are observable. Okay, so here are some of them. The first I would
00:13:17.440
point out is that the scriptures say how Lazarus was buried. And Lazarus, he has a sudarium, a face
00:13:26.320
cloth. He has linen strips that bind the hands and the feet. And then when Jesus is buried, it says he was
00:13:33.040
buried according to the custom of the Jews. And so we don't have to research beyond John's Gospel. We know
00:13:40.080
how Jewish burials took place. Remember when Jesus calls out Lazarus, he says,
00:13:45.760
unbind him. Evidently, there was something to unbind. And so it is with Jesus that he was,
00:13:51.920
in the same word appears, he was bound, his body was bound with a hundred pounds of aloe and myrrh.
00:13:58.800
That is 75 of our pounds. The Roman pounds are slightly different. But even still, this is remarkable,
00:14:06.160
that his body is surrounded by a hundred pounds of aromatics. And that's inside the cloth. Now,
00:14:14.240
now get to this point. This is, I'll go right to the main point here. When in John chapter 20,
00:14:21.120
in verse eight, we see, he saw and believed. You got to ask, what did he see so that he believed?
00:14:28.880
Notice that it doesn't say, despite what he saw, he believed anyway. No, it's in light of what he saw.
00:14:34.480
Yeah. And what, what did he see? What in particular did he see?
00:14:38.400
We get one little participle, one little word describing these linen cloths,
00:14:42.560
but we get it three times, or maybe two, depending on how you count it. But they're lying.
00:14:49.200
Some translations add words that aren't there because they don't know how to translate this.
00:14:53.920
They don't know how to make sense of it. But it's not that it's lying on the ground. It's that it's
00:14:59.280
lying flat. That is like a balloon that's lost its air. Because what was inside before, no longer is.
00:15:06.480
Now it collapses. But it's still bound. And I imagine that the allos didn't resurrect. So perhaps
00:15:13.920
they're still inside. Such that what, what he saw, he must have scratched his head. He was there on
00:15:18.480
Friday, John. He saw how the body lay then. He saw the dispositions of the allelands. Now he sees
00:15:24.720
what he saw, except that the pseudarium is now rolled up or folded up and placed on the side.
00:15:32.320
The, the, the cloths are lying there. I think he had reasons to believe. And that's really significant
00:15:40.640
because we as Christians, we know that our faith is based on testimony. It just so happens that there
00:15:46.800
were no eyewitnesses in the moment the cadaver became a living glorified body. But the shroud was there,
00:15:53.600
and these linen cloths wrapped every inch of his body. I think they bear witness first. And these
00:15:59.360
are the first baby steps in belief in the resurrection. That faith is shored up when they
00:16:05.120
have an encounter with the living Jesus. But the first steps are with the evidence that is given
00:16:11.520
in the tomb. Wow. You said pseudarium? What is that? Oh, the pseudarium is the face cloth or the napkin
00:16:18.400
or the handkerchief. There's, there are different names for it. But the, the, the sweat that is
00:16:24.080
sudor in, in Latin. It's a transliteration from the Greek. But we have a cloth that is in Spain to this
00:16:31.040
day. And by the way, its paper trail goes all the way back to the sixth century or 600s at least. And,
00:16:36.880
and there, imagine you fold the cloth just in half and then you press that to the face. And you, the,
00:16:43.360
the blood flows that saturate the beard, when unfolded leave a double imprint. So there's no
00:16:50.960
body image on the pseudarium. There's just a blood stain. But when you superimpose the amorphous shapes
00:16:58.400
of blood stains, we have rivulets in the nape of the neck on the shroud. When you superimpose the blood
00:17:05.600
stains on the pseudarium, they align. Forensic doctors say they covered one and the same person.
00:17:11.680
And you can study that blood. And they've, in fact, Heller and Adler in the States have, have done so.
00:17:16.320
By Mabalone in the, in Italy. And they have different characteristics that they've pinpointed.
00:17:22.880
This is blood of a man. Some have gone out on a limb to say this is even, um, AB blood. They've typed
00:17:29.440
that blood. It's, it's not from a woman. It's from a man in particular. Yeah. There's debate about that.
00:17:34.000
It seems to match up with the Eucharistic miracles as well.
00:17:36.640
Well, this is what's interesting, right? Um, wherever there's been Eucharistic miracles,
00:17:40.880
it's come back AB. Dr. Kelly Kurse is an immunologist who I have great respect for.
00:17:45.760
And he says, look, we, it may be that it's AB blood, but maybe we need to do further testing
00:17:50.560
to definitively say that. And so I, I, I invite the scientific scrutiny. I think that's really good.
00:17:57.520
Because we have excellent science on the shroud. And sometimes we're too quick to, um, put all of our,
00:18:02.560
our chips in something that's actually not definitively proved where there's still room
00:18:06.480
for a little scientific back and forth. And, and that's, that's a positive thing. We should
00:18:11.120
favor that. Cool. Last question, because it just occurred to me. So if the, if the Sudarium was
00:18:17.040
placed over his face, but then he was wrapped in other cloths and tied and so on, how did the Sudarium
00:18:23.280
get out? Yes. It's a valiquet. We don't have a written account of what took place with the Sudarium,
00:18:29.920
except for its discovery on Sunday. When it's discovered on Sunday, the language there is,
00:18:36.320
it had been on his face. Now it's folded up. What happened in between? We don't know. Could it be
00:18:43.520
that the disciples on Good Friday prepared it already and placed it there? Or could it be that Jesus,
00:18:49.600
risen from the dead, rolled it up and folded it up on the side? Exegetes go back and forth on that.
00:18:56.480
I tend to think that if this is the, the, the verse that is said one breath before saying he saw
00:19:03.680
and believed to my mind, that's a suggestion that the gospel writer is suggesting that the agency
00:19:11.360
that requires an agent is Jesus himself. I think it's one, I think Jesus risen from the dead placed
00:19:19.120
that there. I can't prove that. And you know, maybe it's otherwise, but I think he's trying to give
00:19:24.160
you the evidence that is, um, that suggests that there are reasons to believe Jesus is back and
00:19:30.080
he's out and about. He's, he's moving things. I, I can't prove that, but I think it's a,
00:19:35.040
I think it's a valid argument and I know, uh, biblical scholars that make that argument.
00:19:38.960
Beautiful. Father Dalton, thank you so very much.
00:19:42.560
Dr. Cheryl White, professor at Louisiana State University, is a professor of history
00:19:47.840
who has been working on the Shroud and is able to tell us some history about it.
00:19:55.040
So tell us if you would, what, what to you is most striking about the Shroud? How do we,
00:20:00.720
I was talking with, uh, Father Dalton and he was saying about the history of the Shroud that was
00:20:06.240
first discovered in the 1300s publicly, but you know, how do we trace it backwards? How do we get
00:20:12.800
Yeah. Well, we know that there is something that John describes in chapter 20 of the gospel,
00:20:18.240
right? That there is a linen in the tomb. So we know that in 33 AD, there is a Shroud that's behind
00:20:26.000
in the tomb. We must assume that that would remain in the apostolic community. They would have kept it.
00:20:32.080
Then we have a record of a transfer of an image of our Lord that took place in about the year 70,
00:20:38.400
from Jerusalem to Antioch. Saint Athanasius of Alexandria tells us this.
00:20:43.520
Then from 70 AD until about the sixth century, we know it's in Antioch.
00:20:50.240
Then there's a record in the sixth century that there's something being venerated there in Edessa
00:20:55.360
called the Acariapoitus or the image made without human hands. So that image was then transferred
00:21:05.360
to Constantinople in 944. We have a direct historical record that the Emperor Constantine VII received
00:21:11.280
into his collection, the burial linen of Christ. From 944 until 1204, it's in that city. Now,
00:21:20.000
this is interesting because this historical narrative I just gave you is not, our vocabulary is limited.
00:21:25.680
You know, we're not calling it the Shroud of Turin, but it's clearly a burial linen. And this is the
00:21:31.200
best part of it. At every place I just said, Jerusalem, Edessa, Jerusalem, Antioch, Edessa,
00:21:38.160
and Constantinople, the Shroud of Turin bears pollens from those places. Scientifically,
00:21:43.040
we know the environmental journey of the Shroud. There are pollens on it that place it in specific
00:21:47.680
places. So, for instance, someone had it in Jerusalem because there's pollens that are unique
00:21:54.720
to that area. It was in Antioch. It was at the Straits going into the Dead Sea. There's a very
00:22:01.120
specific pollen that places it there. So, this is CSI, right? There's an environmental journey of the
00:22:08.720
Shroud that we can align with what we know historically. Scientifically and historically.
00:22:13.280
Yes. Which is the beautiful harmony of what we do in Shroud studies is we all depend upon each other.
00:22:19.040
Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. What, as a historian, what has, other than that journey,
00:22:24.560
what has struck you most about the Shroud? Probably it is the way I have seen it affect
00:22:30.960
people. And if you, I will say this, no one is ever left indifferent. And it doesn't matter if
00:22:36.160
you're among the faithful or the unfaithful. If you're a believer or a non-believer, it leaves
00:22:40.800
no one indifferent. You cannot have an encounter with this image and not ask an important question
00:22:46.960
of yourself. Maybe two important questions. What does it mean and who is it? Yeah. Absolutely beautiful.
00:22:56.000
One last thing. The image of our Lord that's sort of reconstructed or made from the Shroud is
00:23:02.480
incredible. This is like a life-size image with all sorts of markings on the body. Right. But it
00:23:08.400
purports to be how they found our Lord or how our Lord was situated in the Shroud at death. Right.
00:23:15.920
How do they know that? How, how can that be? Because it's a beautiful image and, and it's neat,
00:23:21.760
but how do they know that's the way our Lord is? So the forensic body model is from information
00:23:26.160
extracted from the 1976 VP8 analysis of the Shroud, which is what first told us that image
00:23:32.480
characteristic, that there is spatial information embedded in the linen itself. If you look at the
00:23:37.920
linen, there are places where it's very dark and dense. That's because it directly contacted the body.
00:23:43.440
There are places where the image is not as dense and that's where there's a little more distance from
00:23:47.200
the body. So that spatial information creates a map. And from that map, we can then extract,
00:23:55.280
this is the position the body had to have been in when it was wrapped in the linen. Wow. Okay. So part
00:24:02.400
of it is weird because as we're looking at the image now, you can see it. The head is sort of elevated.
00:24:07.600
The legs are kind of bent and elevated a bit. Yes. The hands are, are down. So why is it not flat? Because,
00:24:14.720
because the body was in rigor mortis when the image was formed. So rigor mortis sets in a few hours
00:24:20.160
after death, but it does not resolve until about 48 to 72 hours. So this image was created within a
00:24:26.720
three day window of this man's death. Oh, wow. So then how did the arms, presumably Jesus was on, I don't
00:24:36.560
know, Jesus was on the cross and then, and then would, would the arms have been in rigor mortis? Someone,
00:24:40.960
yes. So we, we do know that someone probably forced the arms into position where they are folded over
00:24:46.640
the lower pelvis region. Uh, and we even have evidence on the shroud because of a contact blood
00:24:51.760
stain, uh, on the back of the knee that someone attempted to force his legs down too. But
00:24:57.920
as you can see, when you look at the forensic body model, there's a flexion of the neck
00:25:02.720
and the knees and the feet that clearly shows forensically rigor mortis.
00:25:08.720
The stunning effect of that just on a human level is so weird because the death would be so
00:25:16.000
vivid. Not only that you see the dead body of your son or your friend or your, your, your, your Lord,
00:25:21.920
the rig mortis is such a harsh reality of death. And it's so it's, so that pain that, uh,
00:25:31.840
could totally understand why the apostles were like, no, he's dead. He's dead. We've been there,
00:25:35.440
done that. He's dead, dead. Any, any last thoughts you want to tell us? Only that, um, I, I do hope that
00:25:42.000
if people see this and don't know much about the shroud, that they will seek out information about this.
00:25:47.200
It's an interesting, um, sort of, I, I think reflection for all of us that throughout the ages,
00:25:54.720
man has always been seeking his face. The, the, the histories of the Old Testament speak of it.
00:26:02.800
The psalmist writes about it. Um, the prophets foretell it. And in the shroud, you see, you encounter
00:26:09.760
the face that we've always sought. Hmm. On that, then I have one more question for you.
00:26:16.720
That face, um, which matches up perfectly with the, uh, shroud image. What is that? And then,
00:26:28.160
if you can also tell us about the superimposition onto the divine mercy face, that would be awesome.
00:26:33.200
So the, the very first, um, depictions of Christ in art, of course, are in the catacombs. And, and
00:26:39.520
Christ appears like a young Roman man. He's indistinguishable from anyone else. But suddenly,
00:26:44.880
beginning about the sixth century, after Christianity is no longer persecuted, you begin to see a very
00:26:49.760
radically different image of Christ, one that is more Semitic looking, one where he has long hair
00:26:54.240
and a beard, a plucked beard, a swollen eye. So, so for instance, the, the icon, the early iconography
00:27:00.400
that you see of Christ, um, sort of sets the standard then for how he is depicted in art.
00:27:06.960
That is modeled on the face of the man of the shroud. Someone had seen that image. It was the model
00:27:12.800
for what became the face of Christ. And, uh, and then of course, Saint Faustina and her vision
00:27:18.560
of divine mercy, um, was very specific about, uh, about having to go back and get, and get clarity
00:27:24.720
on what this image was supposed to be. It's very, very specific. It took a long time for the artist
00:27:30.320
to render exactly what she envisioned. And, uh, it has been demonstrated, uh, Adriana Kutis of Turin,
00:27:37.920
who's, who's done a good bit of work on this, has demonstrated that the divine mercy image and the
00:27:42.560
shroud image are in perfect alignment. It is so great to have with us Father Raphael Pasquale,
00:27:48.880
who is actually the, the founder of the Athonia Institute, which is actually part of Regina Apostolorum,
00:27:56.160
a Rome university where they studied a lot on the shroud. And then eventually, thanks to Father,
00:28:03.680
it became its own diploma, gathering the top experts of all the world, especially in Turin,
00:28:10.560
where the shroud is retained, of course, and therefore the grant, granting a diploma just
00:28:16.160
on the study of the shroud. And it is huge as we'll learn in this episode. Father Raphael, good to be
00:28:21.440
with you. Thank you. Tell us a little bit about this, this display here and, uh, why a new display on the
00:28:27.280
Shroud? So we began 2006 with a, uh, first exhibit in Jerusalem, in Notre Dame of Jerusalem Center,
00:28:37.520
with Father Hector Guerra, who, who has the idea to do this. And the, there were some other exhibits,
00:28:45.200
the second one in Rome, also in the States, in, in Poland, Portugal, and so. And we, uh,
00:28:53.840
uh, see, we need, uh, to do a new version because there are some, uh, new discoveries and we, uh,
00:29:03.360
need also to present the message in a, a more graphical and, uh, modern view, no? So, uh,
00:29:10.400
in one side, we want to, to show what is the shroud to the general public. But as you say, uh, we want
00:29:21.280
also to prepare person to know more profoundly, uh, the, what is the shroud in a very interdisciplinary
00:29:30.000
view, you know? So, diverse perspectives, historical, scientific, theological, spiritual, pastoral, and so.
00:29:37.760
Beautiful. Um, why did you call it Othonia? What is Othonia? Othonia is a Greek word that we find in
00:29:45.840
the Gospel of St. John. When the, Peter and John went to the, uh, sepulchre, they saw the Othonia
00:29:55.760
Kaimena, Kaimena, the, uh, the, uh, cloths, uh, lying in, in, in, in the place with the body was, uh,
00:30:05.120
where the body was released, no? And so, for them, it was the, uh, a sign to, to understand that the Lord was, uh,
00:30:16.640
recent. Indeed. Indeed. Now, the, the Church has studied the shroud for a long time now. Of course,
00:30:22.960
there's been many more recent advancements, which have really exploded. Yeah. But one of the things
00:30:28.640
I would love to learn from you is what the popes have said over the centuries about the shroud.
00:30:34.960
I can see mostly the most recent popes. I will begin with the Holy Father's Saint,
00:30:42.800
John Paul II. Mm-hmm. He went twice to Turin to, to visit and to venerate this, the shroud. And the
00:30:51.520
message, uh, in two occasions were, were very beautiful. The first time it was in 1980. And he, he,
00:31:01.920
so, um, presented the shroud as a very important relic that, uh, speaks about the,
00:31:09.440
the mystery of the passion of the Lord, uh, the, the passion, the death and the, uh, uh, resurrection
00:31:19.680
of the Lord. So is the whole mystery of the salvation in, in some way condensed in, in the shroud.
00:31:27.520
And he presents the, the shroud as a witness, a witness, silent witness, but that is saying a lot.
00:31:37.440
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's a, a very good image. And the second time, uh, there were a message,
00:31:43.600
very beautiful. It, it was in 1998. Um, and he presented the shroud as a, uh, a mirror of the
00:31:55.360
gospel in one side because the, that the gospel says about the passion we can see in this shroud.
00:32:03.520
Mm-hmm. And, uh, uh, also as a, uh, as a challenge for the intelligence because the scientific
00:32:10.320
people, uh, uh, is wondering how it's possible to have a kind of image like this. Mm-hmm.
00:32:17.360
This, this, the message for the Holy Father John Paul II. Pope Benedict, uh, 16, went to, uh, to
00:32:26.000
to Turin in 2010 and he spoke about the Shroud as the message of the Holy Saturday, the mystery
00:32:37.220
of the silence of God in the Holy Saturday. And it was a very profound message. He was
00:32:45.200
very impressed to be there in Turin in front of the Shroud. And he showed how he believes on the Shroud
00:32:56.980
praying in front of this relic. And so this message was very beautiful also.
00:33:07.140
Beautiful. One of the things I wanted to ask you about specifically, you mentioned Pope St.
00:33:11.300
John Paul II talked about how it's a silent message, but it's so full. It's so true because
00:33:18.440
when you look at it with the naked eye, you see, and when you know what it is, you still
00:33:24.840
love. That's our Lord's suffering is in some way represented. When you see the film, you're
00:33:31.740
given more. But then with all the scientific discoveries now, it's just incredible. It's
00:33:38.220
unbelievable. Really, really. It's so. I think it's like a codex. You have now the possibility
00:33:49.360
to read and to understand because we have the technology, the knowledge to discover all this.
00:33:58.360
Yeah. It's an unpacking from true science that you get from what looks like a simple cloth to a book.
00:34:08.500
And books of information gleaned from this is absolutely beautiful. Father, thank you so much for bringing this to light,
00:34:15.500
for really pushing that this becomes known because it's such a beautiful relic for the whole church.
00:34:23.500
I think needed so much right now. Yeah, I agree. Thank you very much. Thank you, Father. God bless. God bless you, too.