The following is taken from a newsletter called QuidVerum. This is the May 2022 issue:
Just as the tradition of Jesus' birth was handed down by Mary to the Apostles, the Apostles and Mary would have carefully handed down the traditions of Jesus' death. Thus, Jesus' disciples would have been keenly interested in preserving the objects of His humiliation and victory over death - the crown of thorns, the nails, the Cross and the burial cloth and head covering.
The crown of thorns (without the thorns, which were separated from the rush and given to various people throughout the centuries) resided at Notre-Dame Cathedral until 2019 when it was moved to the Louvre; one of the nails is in the Cathedral of Milan; fragments of the Cross reside in various places, the largest of which is in the monastery of Mount Athos in Greece.
That brings us to the burial cloth and head covering of Jesus, known as The Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo, respectively. How Geoffrey de Charny obtained possession of the Shroud is uncertain. De Charney, a French knight who escaped capture during the start of the Hundred Years’ War, built St. Mary of Lirey Church in Lirey, France in 1349. It was believed he was in possession of the Shroud at this time; some six years later in 1355, the first known expositions of the Shroud were held in Lirey.
The Shroud next appeared in Turin in 1473. Turin became the Shroud’s permanent home in 1578. In 1976, a team of scientists, who later formed the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP), spent 120 hours examining and researching the Shroud. What this team and subsequent teams of scientists found and agreed upon is really quite remarkable:
- No pigments, paints, dyes or stains have been found on the fibrils (threadlike fibers).
- Pictures first taken in 1898 led “to the discovery that the image on the cloth is actually a negative … The image becomes positive in a photographic negative,” STURP explains.
- The image has unique, three-dimensional information encoded in it. This is remarkable in that, when a cloth is laid over a person, not all of the cloth touches the body. However, “[i]t is clear that there has been direct contact of the Shroud with a body, which explains certain features such as scourge marks, as well as the blood. However, while this type of contact might explain some of the features of the torso, it is totally incapable of explaining the image of the face with the high resolution that has been amply demonstrated by photography,” STURP concludes.
- The Shroud tests positive for heme, bile, serum albumin and other blood component. The blood is AB positive with human DNA.
- “The blood marks seen on the shroud are consistent with a contact transfer to the cloth of blood clot exudates that would have resulted from major wounds inflicted on a man who died in the position of crucifixion,” STURP notes.
- “There are no chemical or physical methods known which can account for the totality of the image, nor can any combination of physical, chemical, biological or medical circumstances explain the image adequately. We can conclude for now that the Shroud image is that of a real human form of a scourged, crucified man. It is not the product of an artist,” STURP insists.
The image on the shroud appears in the upper 6 microns (the width of human hair) of the cloth — not something an artist can do. Scientists estimate it would take 6–8 billion watts of pure laser light energy for just under 1/40th of a billion of a second (otherwise it would disintegrate) to produce the image. So, the image is nuclear: pure energy and light emanating from Jesus’ body upon His resurrection!
Deposition of Christ - Paolo Veronese
The blood type on the Shroud, type AB, is the same blood type found in blood samples taken from the Sudarium of Oviedo. Jewish tradition calls for the head to be covered after death as the body is being prepared for burial; this head covering is called a sudarium. Jesus’ head was covered after he died and before he was taken down from the Cross. Later, in the tomb, the head covering was placed on Jesus along with the Shroud.
The pattern of blood stains on the sudarium matches the pattern of blood stains on the shroud. The weave of the line uses a "Z twist" indicating it was produced between 400 B.C. and 500 A.D. The Shroud of Turin used the same "Z twist."
The sudarium was placed on the facial image of the Shroud of Turin and St. Veronica's veil, it is apparent that all of them depict the image of the same man.
Veronica Holding Her Veil (Hans Memling, c. 1470)
Veronica's veil is kept in St. Peter's Basilica and displayed once a year on Passion Sunday. The sudarium belonging to Jesus is kept in a reliquary at the Cathedral of Oviedo in northern Spain. It is displayed three times a year: on the feast of the Exultation of the Holy Cross (Sept. 14), the feast of St. Matthew (Sept. 21) and Good Friday. Believing that the Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo are of the same crucified man isn’t much of a stretch of the imagination. But it takes faith to take this story to the most likely logical and intellectual conclusion: that it is in fact proof of the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!
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