The image on the Shroud

It is possible to be a Christian all your life, and never once consider the historicity of Jesus Christ. You can know Him, love all His teachings, and follow in His ways, and never reflect that he actually lived here on earth in a very definite place, at a very definite time.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. (Jn 1:14)

Jesus lived in history, in our history. We know this not just because of the testimony of the four Gospel writers. We also have the evidence of His life on earth through physical artefacts, the relics of His passion and death. Once you begin to take this in, your faith life experiences a major uplift: suddenly the Person of Jesus is more concrete – your relationship with Him will never be the same again!

Grzegorz Górny and Janusz Rosikoń who produced the book Guadalupe Mysteries: Deciphering the Code that we briefly looked at previously are also behind another very thought-provoking production, Witnesses to Mystery: Investigations into Christ’s Relics. This looks into each of the known modern-day relics of the Passion of Jesus, what part they played in the Passion, what we know of their subsequent history, where they are now, and what scientific investigations have been performed upon them.

First in any list of passion relics has to be the Shroud of Turin. Since it was first photographed in 1898, revealing a “positive” image on the photographic negative, it has been subjected to study in many different fields from forensic medicine through optical science to botany.

You’ve probably heard about the radiocarbon dating tests that implied the Shroud was made in medieval times. These are the only tests that suggest the Shroud is not the authentic burial cloth of Jesus. Górny and Rosikoń do a good job of demonstrating why these radiocarbon tests must be discounted:

If a material becomes contaminated with 14C particles 500 years after it was made, then tests would indicate that it is 500 years younger than it really is. Fabrics can become contaminated in this way much more easily than other materials, since they are able to absorb liquids containing traces of carbon. … For the dating to be precise, a test subject must therefore be thoroughly cleansed … In the case of woven materials this is especially difficult, since … carbon molecules are able to embed themselves deep within the fabrics’ structure.

Górny and Rosikoń, Witnesses to Mystery: Investigations into Christ’s Relics, pages 65, 68.

Like the miraculous image of Guadalupe, there are aspects of the Shroud which defy scientific analysis. What do we see on the shroud? Most obviously, burn marks, from a fire in 1532, and the water marks which formed part of the panicked response. Looking more closely, there are bloodstains. But looking yet more closely there are brownish markings which outline a man’s face and body – the image on the shroud. It is this image that is the source of so much attention.

When the shroud is backlit, the brownish markings disappear, but the bloodstains remain. Paint, like blood, is not translucent – so if the markings were painted, they should be visible in backlight. As with the image of Guadalupe, we are once again in the presence of a mystery.

Górny and Rosikoń write about the latest scientific assessment:

To this day the greatest mystery regarding the shroud is how a man’s image could have become imprinted on the cloth. In spite of many detailed tests, modern science cannot explain the process by which this image was produced. Some scientists suppose that the image could have resulted from the emanation of a form of energy. Some believe that the imprint could have been caused by radiation (at an intensity of 1,013 electrons per square centimeter). This radiation must have been emitted vertically, then diffused and absorbed into the air. Although numerous attempts have been made, no one has been able to produce a copy of the shroud that retains all of its characteristics. Modern science, it would seem, does not have the means necessary to replicate this extraordinary and unique object.

The most recent results of tests on the Turin Shroud were published in December 2011 by the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA). After five years of testing, they have concluded that no known method or technique existed before the twenty-first century that could have been used to produce the image depicted on the Shroud of Turin. The depth of the image’s coloring is just 200 nanometers – the width of one of the material’s microscopic cell walls. Scientists believe that a similar effect can be achieved only by using an ultraviolet laser. Modern science has admitted, therefore, that it is dealing with an image that one can indeed describe as acheiropoietos – “made without human hand”.

Górny and Rosikoń, Witnesses to Mystery: Investigations into Christ’s Relics, page 69.

There is, however, a second way of approaching the mystery of the Shroud’s image, and that is to turn to the writings of Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, whom we have considered several times before. After the extensive description of Jesus’s passion and death, the following words come towards the end of a chapter entitled “The Body of Jesus Prepared for Burial”:

Lastly, they laid the Lord’s body on the large sheet, six ells long, that Joseph of Arimathea had bought, and wrapped it closely around it. The Sacred Body was laid on it crosswise. Then one corner was drawn up from the feet to the breast, the opposite one was folded down over the head and shoulders, and the sides were doubled round the whole person.

While all were kneeling around the Lord’s body, taking leave of it with many tears, a touching miracle was exhibited before their eyes: the entire form of Jesus’ Sacred Body with all its wounds appeared, as if drawn in brown and reddish colours, on the cloth that covered it. It was as if He wished gratefully to reward their loving care of Him, gratefully to acknowledge their sorrow, and leave to them an image of Himself imprinted through all the coverings that enveloped Him. Weeping and lamenting, they embraced the Sacred Body, and reverently kissed the miraculous portrait. Their astonishment was so great that they opened the outside wrapping, and it became still greater when they found all the linen bands around the Sacred Body white as before and only the uppermost cloth marked with the Lord’s figure.

The cloth on the side upon which the body lay received the imprint of the whole back of the Lord; the ends that covered it were marked with the front likeness. The parts of this latter, to produce the perfect form, had to be laid together, because the corners of the cloth were all crossed over the body in front. The picture was not a mere impression formed by bleeding wounds, for the whole body had been tightly wrapped in spices and numerous linen bands. It was a miraculous picture, a witness to the creative Godhead in the body of Jesus.

From “The Life of Jesus Christ and Biblical Revelations” Volume 4, page 335

So Sister Emmerich confirms the verdict of science: the image on the Shroud was created supernaturally and remains so to this day.

Let us not ignore the wonder and grace of such a marvellous gift from heaven.