Shroud of Turin

I have an admitted fascination with the Shroud of Turin.  I am convinced of it's authenticity - on a gut-level, as well as an intellectual level.  I look at this face, and see my Lord.  I recognize Him.  My heart says "oh yes.  That's Him.  There He is."  When I saw Passion of the Christ - I recognized Him.

When I saw Akiane's picture of Jesus, I recognized him.

  And when I saw "the real face of Jesus" from the History Channel's reconstructing the image on the Shroud of Turin... it was Him again.  

This is not the wan, frail-looking man from so many paintings.   This is the face I recognize from my most vivid dreams. Strong, robust. The face I KNOW. 

That's all highly subjective, though, and far from scientific proof.  My gut, although I trust it, could very well be wrong.  The scientific evidence supporting the Shroud, though, is actually substantive and extremely convincing. 

The most recent finding is this study by Marzio Boi, a university researcher at the University of the Balearic Islands who specializes in palynology, proving that the pollen on the shroud is the same as found on burial sheets in Asia Minor 2000 years.

Other recent findings show how the image was apparently created by a flash of intense radiation, of a quanity that is not currently able to be produced by known methods.  The infamous carbon dating is found to have been accurate - but taken from a sample of cloth that was repaired in the middle ages.  The blood type (AB) is the SAME blood type as found on the Sudarium of Oveido - believed to be the burial face cloth of Christ.  The wounds of the image, which is only microns thick, correspond directly to the wounds of Christ described in the Bible.  The cloth itself is made of a linen found in the burial cloths of wealthy people in an area just east of Israel, at the time of Christ.  I think at this point no one even contradicts the fact that this cloth covered an actual corpse of a crucified man - and is in no way, shape, or form a painting.

A summary of the scientific research can be found here, and at www.shroud.com.  Los Alamos Laboratories and the STURP committee have done extensive research as well. 

It seems to me that the evidence leads to a conclusion that many just don't want to make.  Skeptics say that the Shroud cannot be authentic because the idea that Jesus rose from the dead and left behind an image is IMPOSSIBLE - not because that is not the way the evidence points.  In essence ruling out a hypothesis because in their minds, it "can't" happen.  And generally, they'd be right.  Except this one, isolated time in all of history, when something absolutely FANTASTIC and UNBELIEVEABLE did happen.  And it changed everything.

Thought For The Day... Apostolic Succession

Also known as "WHY I'm Catholic".  I've had responses of surprise, shock, bigotry when people find out I'm Catholic.  I've had comments of "Isn't that really STRICT?", "You know you're going to Hell", "Well, in the Catholic church, if you have enough money, they think they can buy salvation", "The Pope is the antichrist" , "What about the crusades and the inquisition? Pedophile priests? The catholic church is the biggest most corrupt murderer of innocent people in history", and "Catholics think they can earn their way to heaven."   None of that is accurate, and furthermore, none of it matters.  THIS FACT ALONE, stated eloquently by a holy man a mere generation after the death of Christ, impells me to be Catholic.  Because it is God's good pleasure to guide His church.

From St. Iraneous, Bishop of Lyons, in 189 AD:

"It is possible, then, for everyone in every church, who may wish to know the truth, to contemplate the tradition of the apostles which has been made known to us throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by the apostles and their successors down to our own times, men who neither knew nor taught anything like what these heretics rave about" (Against Heresies 3:3:1 [A.D. 189]).

"But since it would be too long to enumerate in such a volume as this the successions of all the churches, we shall confound all those who, in whatever manner, whether through self-satisfaction or vainglory, or through blindness and wicked opinion, assemble other than where it is proper, by pointing out here the successions of the bishops of the greatest and most ancient church known to all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul—that church which has the tradition and the faith with which comes down to us after having been announced to men by the apostles. For with this Church, because of its superior origin, all churches must agree, that is, all the faithful in the whole world. And it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the apostolic tradition" (ibid., 3:3:2).

"Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried [on earth] a very long time, and, when a very old man, gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, departed this life, having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true. To these things all the Asiatic churches testify, as do also those men who have succeeded Polycarp down to the present time" (ibid., 3:3:4).

"Since therefore we have such proofs, it is not necessary to seek the truth among others which it is easy to obtain from the Church; since the apostles, like a rich man [depositing his money] in a bank, lodged in her hands most copiously all things pertaining to the truth, so that every man, whosoever will, can draw from her the water of life. . . . For how stands the case? Suppose there arise a dispute relative to some important question among us, should we not have recourse to the most ancient churches with which the apostles held constant conversation, and learn from them what is certain and clear in regard to the present question?" (ibid., 3:4:1).

"[I]t is incumbent to obey the presbyters who are in the Church—those who, as I have shown, possess the succession from the apostles; those who, together with the suc,cession of the episcopate, have received the infallible charism of truth, according to the good pleasure of the Father. But [it is also incumbent] to hold in suspicion others who depart from the primitive succession, and assemble themselves together in any place whatsoever, either as heretics of perverse minds, or as schismatics puffed up and self-pleasing, or again as hypocrites, acting thus for the sake of lucre and vainglory. For all these have fallen from the truth" (ibid., 4:26:2).

"The true knowledge is the doctrine of the apostles, and the ancient organization of the Church throughout the whole world, and the manifestation of the body of Christ according to the succession of bishops, by which succession the bishops have handed down the Church which is found everywhere" (ibid., 4:33:8).

For more Fathers on Church authority and apostolic succession, go here.

A Very Cool DIscovery

On Holy Thursday of this year, 29 lost homilies of Origen were discovered.  Origen (184-253AD) was an Alexandrian theologian and scholar from the very early Christian church.  Apparently, they were discovered in an 11th century Greek manuscript in Germany.   Experts will be translating the homilies this summer,  in the hopes of having full translations available to scholars in the very near future. 
The entire codex is photographed here.

What a treasure!   Can't wait to read the translations when they become available!