He is Risen as He said

1 Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.




2 And a certain man alame from his mother’s womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple;



3 Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked an aalms.



4 And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us.



5 And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them.



6 Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have agive I thee: In the bname of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.



7 And he took him by the right hand, and alifted him up: and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.



8 And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God.



9 And all the people asaw him walking and praising God:



10 And they knew that it was he which sat for alms at the Beautiful gate of the temple: and they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him.



11 And as the lame man which was healed held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the aporch that is called Solomon’s, greatly wondering.



12 ¶And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our aown power or holiness we had made this man to walk?



13 The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath aglorified his Son Jesus; whom ye bdelivered up, and cdenied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go.



14 But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a amurderer to be granted unto you;



15 And killed the aPrince of life, whom God hath braised from the dead; whereof we are cwitnesses.



16 And his aname through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the bfaith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.



17 And now, brethren, aI bwot that through cignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers.



18 But those things, which God before had ashewed by the mouth of all his bprophets, that Christ should csuffer, he hath so fulfilled.



19 ¶aRepent ye therefore, and be bconverted, that your sins may be cblotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the dpresence of the Lord;



20 And he shall send aJesus Christ, which before was preached unto you:b



21 Whom the heaven must receive until the times of arestitution of all things, which God hath bspoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.



22 For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A aprophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you.



23 And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be adestroyed from among the people.



24 Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise aforetold of these days.



25 Ye are the achildren of the prophets, and of the bcovenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be cblessed.



26 Unto you first God, having raised up his aSon Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.



....

Regina Coeli



Queen of Heaven, rejoice, alleluia. / For He whom you did merit to bear, alleluia.



Has risen, as he said, alleluia. / Pray for us to God, alleluia.



Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, alleluia. / For the Lord has truly risen, alleluia.



Let us pray. O God, who gave joy to the world through the resurrection of Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, grant we beseech Thee, that through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, His Mother, we may obtain the joys of everlasting life. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.



Mystery solved? Turin Shroud linked to Resurrection of Christ

The Turin Shroud has baffled scholars through the ages but in his new book, The Sign, Thomas de Wesselow reveals a new theory linking the cloth to the Resurrection.

Black and white: The haunting face is now the most familiar image of the Shroud, representing for many the true face of Jesus By Peter Stanford

7:00AM GMT 24 Mar 2012

1230 Comments

For centuries the Turin Shroud, regarded by some as the burial cloth of Jesus, by others as the most elaborate hoax in history, has inspired extraordinary and conflicting passions. Popes, princes and paupers have for 700 years been making pilgrimages the length of Europe to stand in its presence while scientists have dedicated their whole working lives to trying to explain rationally how the ghostly image on the cloth, even more striking when seen as a photographic negative, and matching in every last detail the crucifixion narrative, could have been created. And still a final, commonly agreed answer remains elusive, despite carbon-dating in 1988 having pronounced it a forgery.

“That’s what first attracted me,” says Thomas de Wesselow, an engagingly serious 40-year-old Cambridge academic. “I’ve always loved a mystery ever since I was a boy.” And so he became the latest in a long line to abandon everything to try to solve the riddle of the Shroud.

Eight years ago, de Wesselow was a successful art historian, based at King’s College, making a name for himself in scholarly circles by taking a fresh look at centuries-old disputes over the attribution of masterpieces of Renaissance painting. Today, he still lives in the university city – we are sitting in its Fitzwilliam Museum café – but de Wesselow has thrown up his conventional career and any hopes of a professorial chair to join the ranks of what he laughingly calls “shroudies”.

“In academia, the subject of the Shroud is seen as toxic,” he reports, “and no one wants to open the can of worms, but try as I might I just couldn’t resist it as an intellectual puzzle.”

For most “shroudies”, though, it is more than just intellectual. It offers that elusive but faith-validating proof that Jesus died exactly as the gospels say he did. But again it gets complicated, for the Vatican, since 1983 the owner of this hotly disputed icon, disappoints “shroudies” by limiting itself to declaring that the burial cloth is a representation of Jesus’s crucified body, not his actual linen wrap. And it has accepted the carbon-dating tests as conclusive.

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De Wesselow dismisses those tests as “fatally flawed”. So, although he describes himself as agnostic, he now finds himself in the curious position of being more of a believer in the Shroud than the Pope. His historical detective work has convinced him, he insists, that it is exactly what it purports to be — the sheet that was wrapped round Jesus’s battered body when it was cut down from the cross on Calvary.

But that isn’t the half of it. His new book, The Sign, the latest in a long line of tomes about the Shroud, makes an even more astonishing claim in its 450 pages (including over 100 of footnotes). It was, suggests de Wesselow, seeing the Shroud in the days immediately after the crucifixion, rather than any encounter with a flesh and blood, risen Christ, that convinced the apostles that Jesus had come back from the dead.

If true, I point out, he is overturning 2,000 years of Christian history. But he doesn’t even blink over his teacup. He’s either a very cool, calculating chancer, single-mindedly out to make a quick buck with an eye-catching theory that caters for gullible readers of the likes of The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail or Erich von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods, or he’s absolutely sincere. “I am an art historian,” he responds calmly, “not a theologian, so I can approach the problem from a new angle.”

It feels like we’ve reached a moment for laying our cards on the table before we start examining the details of his theory. The exact nature of the Resurrection troubles me, as it does many Christians. Was it physical, against all the laws of nature but as the Church claims, or was it “symbolic”, as the Bishop of Durham, David Jenkins, famously suggested in 1984?

Jenkins’s use of the phrase “a conjuring trick with bones” may have caused outrage – and was, he said later, a misquotation – but his willingness to question a “literal” resurrection did not put him so far outside the Christian mainstream as is often suggested.

“For my part I come from a standard Church of England background,” says de Wesselow (who was raised in Winchester; his exotic surname results from his Frenchified Russian ancestry). “Church was a familiar, likeable institution but it hasn’t impinged on my life too much.” The first challenge he faces is how to place the Shroud in first-century Jerusalem. The standard historical record of the Shroud – broadly endorsed by carbon-dating – traces its first appearance back to the 1350s in rural France, when a knight called Geoffrey de Charny put it on display in his local church. “But where did he get it from?” de Wesselow asks, perfectly reasonably.

He highlights a connection between the French knight and the Crusaders who sacked Constantinople in 1204. “And we have a description of a cloth, that sounds very like the Shroud, that had been seen before that in Constantinople, described as the burial cloth of Jesus, that then goes missing and is never heard of again.” So, de Wesselow’s theory is that it was taken to France by the Crusaders as looted bounty.

But what were the origins of the cloth in Constantinople? This brings us to the oddly named “Holy Mandylion” (man-dill-e-on), a long lost relic in Eastern Christianity, said to be the imprint of Jesus’s face. “The Mandylion was brought to Constantinople in 944,” says de Wesselow. “That is recorded. It was an object of fascination, said not to be made of paint but of blood, and described as a landscape shape, rather than a portrait.”

The legend of the Mandylion is also given a reworking by de Wesselow. That cloth looted in 1204 was, he proposes, also the Mandylion. Its landscape format, he suggests with the aid of diagrams, was the result of it being the top fold of a bigger cloth – what we know as the Turin Shroud.

It is an intriguing theory, with plenty of circumstantial evidence in those 100 pages of notes, and even mention of possible sightings back in the mid-sixth century, but nothing more precise. At the risk of sounding like an accountant, that leaves us 500 years short of first century Jerusalem.

“Yes,” de Wesselow replies, with just a hint of impatience, “but we are sitting here in the Fitzwilliam Museum and in its display cases are plenty of objects whose exact provenance includes long gaps. That happens very often in art history. A Caravaggio turns up in the 19th century and we have no idea from where, but we can use science and detective work to attribute it to him.”

In the case of the Shroud, that science includes two tests: one for pollen in the fibres that shows the cloth to be more than 1,300 years old, published in a peer-reviewed journal in 2005 “but ignored despite being good science”: and another by a textile expert, during a 2002 restoration, that found parallels between the Shroud’s warp and weave and those of first century Jewish cloths.

What is becoming plain in our discussion is that in making his claims, de Wesselow has done very little first-hand research himself. His contribution has to be to gather up the work of others, re-examine past investigations (he draws heavily on the digging done by British author, Ian Wilson, a key figure before the carbon-dating tests, now living in retirement in Australia), and then tease out new conclusions. He is, essentially, taking existing pieces of a jigsaw and assembling them in a new and startling pattern.

It is not a description he particularly likes when I put it to him, but neither does he substantially contradict it. Instead he admits to a dislike of the popular “personal quest” genre of books that walk and talk their way through whole continents attempting to solve, among other subjects, the mysterious configuration of the pyramids or the fate of Atlantis.

“That always seems to me a very artificial way of going about it,” says de Wesselow, whose research by contrast was largely done at his desk or in libraries, save for one episode he recounts in the book when the connection between the Shroud and Resurrection came to him in a kind of eureka moment in the garden of his Cambridge house.

Having established – at least for the purposes of argument – the Shroud in first century Israel, it is now time to turn to his potentially even more earth-shaking theory, namely that the Resurrection was a kind of optical illusion.

Christianity teaches that Peter, James, Thomas, Mary Magdalene and up to 500 other disciples saw Jesus in the flesh, back from the dead, in the ultimate proof that he was God. De Wesselow rejects this “divine mystery” in favour of something that he believes is much more plausible.

What the apostles were seeing was the image of Jesus on the Shroud, which they then mistook for the real thing. It sounds, I can’t help suggesting, as absurd as a scene from a Monty Python film.

“I quite understand why you say that,” he replies, meeting me half way this time, “but you have to think your way into the mindset of 2,000 years ago. The apostles did see something out of the ordinary, the image on the cloth.

“And at that time – this is something that art historians and anthropologists know about – people were much less used to seeing images. They were rare and regarded as much more special than they are now.

“There was something Animist in their way of looking at images in the first century. Where they saw shadows and reflections, they also saw life. They saw the image on the cloth as the living double of Jesus.

“Back then images had a psychological presence, they were seen as part of a separate plane of existence, as having a life of their own.”

I am struggling. I have this picture in my mind of the apostles, gathered in an upper room in Jerusalem, being inspired to go out on missionary journeys that resulted in a Church that now numbers a third of the planet in its ranks. And they are looking not at the astonishing sight of Jesus himself, back from the dead, but at a cloth. “If you think yourself into the whole experience of the apostles,” de Wesselow persists, “going into the tomb three days after the crucifixion, in the half-light, and seeing that image emerging from the burial cloth…”

But, I interrupt, if his logical approach is to be taken at face value, wouldn’t they also have seen the decomposing body of Jesus, and know that far from coming to life again, he was well and truly dead?

“But that isn’t how they understood resurrection. The earliest source we have on Jesus is Saint Paul [his epistles predate the writing of the gospels] and there in 1 Corinthians 15-50 — the reference is seared on my memory — you have him saying explicitly that resurrection is not about flesh and blood.”

De Wesselow can quote the relevant gospel passages as readily as any Christian preacher. In the book, he takes each and every New Testament reference to the risen Christ – plus a few from the extracanonical texts of the first and second centuries that were excluded from the Authorised Version of the Bible – and rereads them to fit in with his thesis.

After eight years working on it, Thomas de Wesselow could go on and on into infinite detail, far too much to take on board at one sitting. Yet for every answer – or “new way of understanding” as he prefers to put it — another question inevitably arises.

That, of course, has long been the pattern with all attempts to explain the Shroud. So when, for example, carbon-dating located it between the 13th and 14th centuries, scientists then tried – and so far have failed – to show how any medieval forger could have made such an image, with its effect of a photographic negative anticipating the invention of the camera by 500 years.

Perhaps, I venture, the Turin Shroud is destined always to remain a mystery “No,” replies de Wesselow, suddenly fierce and passionate. “I’m an optimist. I think we have to try our best to understand things. I don’t believe in just leaving problems alone.”

....

 

Taken from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9162459/Mystery-solved-Turin-Shroud-linked-to-Resurrection-of-Christ.html

Jesus Christ's "selfless, servant" leadership has much to offer as a role model.

Easter's message of hope at a time of reflection

• From:The Australian 
• April 07, 2012 12:00AM

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THE mysterious life, violent death and reported resurrection of a man who lived in the Middle East 2000 years ago is on the minds of many Australians this weekend, not only at church services but at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, where thousands of people have used the extended Easter opening hours to marvel at the Renaissance masterpieces of Raphael, Botticelli, Bellini and Titian.

Jesus Christ features in many of the 15th- and 16th-century works - in some as a plump infant snuggling up to his mother, in others as a young man wearing a crown of thorns and nailed to a cross, beside two thieves. Whatever their philosophical and religious significance, the images possess a beauty and express a poetry that transcends faith. Their popularity is a reminder of the central place of the Judeo-Christian heritage in Western civilisation.

The cultural diversity of our secular nation is reflected in the ways Australians will spend the Easter weekend. We are united, however, in rejoicing in our freedom and tolerance, however we choose to exercise that precious gift. Some will spend time with family or relaxing on the beach: some will be working; Christians will stand in reverence at the sacrifice of the Son of God; Jews will remember with thanks the release of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt. The Last Supper, of course, was a Passover meal, a tradition observed by Jewish families and communities since about 1300 BC to commemorate the liberation of the people of Israel, who were led out of slavery in Egypt by Moses. One of the most important Jewish religious festivals, Passover coincides with Easter this year.

The high point of the Christian calendar, Easter has drawn large crowds to Palm Sunday services last weekend, to the Mass of the Last Supper on Thursday and to the Stations of the Cross yesterday. Outside small churches and cathedrals, the faithful, the curious and a few doubting Thomases will gather tonight as the darkness is broken by Paschal fires at the start of the Vigil celebrating Christ's resurrection and the triumph of life over death, hope over despair.

Regardless of whether we celebrate Passover, Easter, neither or both - as many interfaith families do - the four-day holiday affords precious time to reflect. Easter, as Melbourne's Catholic Archbishop Denis Hart said, was a time to think about "ultimate things" and not to be cluttered with consumerism and distractions. Sound religious values such as forgiveness, atonement, hope, tolerance and generosity are also the hallmarks of civilised secular societies, and encourage us to take stock of our own lives and our society. Such values preclude us from giving up on complex problems such as how best to help the 90,000 Australians, including children and other victims of domestic violence, who are homeless every day and how to relieve the poverty and despair still afflicting too many Aborigines in remote areas of the nation. No Australian of good conscience feels comfortable while such challenges remain unsolved. We also have our fair share of problems, as church leaders point out today, arising from greed, self-interest - including that of politicians - excessive gambling and the misuse of the internet for bullying. Adelaide's Anglican Archbishop Jeffrey Driver was right when he said that Christ's "selfless, servant" leadership has much to offer as a role model.

Like Anzac Day, the major religious festivals are attracting an upsurge in younger observants, and Jerusalem, like Gallipoli, is now a popular place of pilgrimage for young Australians who want to see the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The trends suggest that many young people are more comfortable with secular and religious tradition than their baby-boomer parents and more in tune with the enduring power and purpose of sacrifice. For all that, the churches are fighting an uphill battle to draw them into the pews more than twice a year.

It is human nature to wonder about the meaning of life and death, and the overlaps and apparent contradictions between science, faith and reason. For those who have faith in the gospel narrative, Easter is about the tangible expression of God's inexhaustible love for mankind. For everyone else, the Renaissance artworks can be an enrichment to the soul, offering a glimpse of an extraordinary, enduring myth.

A happy and safe Easter from The Weekend Australian.

Preach Jesus Christ to the Whole World



Pope Benedict XVI Urbi et Orbi (Easter 2011)

....

The resurrection of Christ is not the fruit of speculation or mystical experience: it is an event which, while it surpasses history, nevertheless happens at a precise moment in history and leaves an indelible mark upon it. The light which dazzled the guards keeping watch over Jesus’ tomb has traversed time and space. It is a different kind of light, a divine light, that has rent asunder the darkness of death and has brought to the world the splendour of God, the splendour of Truth and Goodness.

Just as the sun’s rays in springtime cause the buds on the branches of the trees to sprout and open up, so the radiance that streams forth from Christ’s resurrection gives strength and meaning to every human hope, to every expectation, wish and plan. Hence the entire cosmos is rejoicing today, caught up in the springtime of humanity, which gives voice to creation’s silent hymn of praise. The Easter Alleluia, resounding in the Church as she makes her pilgrim way through the world, expresses the silent exultation of the universe and above all the longing of every human soul that is sincerely open to God, giving thanks to him for his infinite goodness, beauty and truth.

“In your resurrection, O Christ, let heaven and earth rejoice.” To this summons to praise, which arises today from the heart of the Church, the “heavens” respond fully: the hosts of angels, saints and blessed souls join with one voice in our exultant song. In heaven all is peace and gladness. But alas, it is not so on earth! Here, in this world of ours, the Easter alleluia still contrasts with the cries and laments that arise from so many painful situations: deprivation, hunger, disease, war, violence. Yet it was for this that Christ died and rose again! He died on account of sin, including ours today, he rose for the redemption of history, including our own. So my message today is intended for everyone, and, as a prophetic proclamation, it is intended especially for peoples and communities who are undergoing a time of suffering, that the Risen Christ may open up for them the path of freedom, justice and peace.

May the Land which was the first to be flooded by the light of the Risen One rejoice. May the splendour of Christ reach the peoples of the Middle East, so that the light of peace and of human dignity may overcome the darkness of division, hate and violence. In the current conflict in Libya, may diplomacy and dialogue take the place of arms and may those who suffer as a result of the conflict be given access to humanitarian aid. In the countries of northern Africa and the Middle East, may all citizens, especially young people, work to promote the common good and to build a society where poverty is defeated and every political choice is inspired by respect for the human person. May help come from all sides to those fleeing conflict and to refugees from various African countries who have been obliged to leave all that is dear to them; may people of good will open their hearts to welcome them, so that the pressing needs of so many brothers and sisters will be met with a concerted response in a spirit of solidarity; and may our words of comfort and appreciation reach all those who make such generous efforts and offer an exemplary witness in this regard.

May peaceful coexistence be restored among the peoples of Ivory Coast, where there is an urgent need to tread the path of reconciliation and pardon, in order to heal the deep wounds caused by the recent violence. May Japan find consolation and hope as it faces the dramatic consequences of the recent earthquake, along with other countries that in recent months have been tested by natural disasters which have sown pain and anguish.

May heaven and earth rejoice at the witness of those who suffer opposition and even persecution for their faith in Jesus Christ. May the proclamation of his victorious resurrection deepen their courage and trust.

Dear brothers and sisters! The risen Christ is journeying ahead of us towards the new heavens and the new earth (cf. Rev 21:1), in which we shall all finally live as one family, as sons of the same Father. He is with us until the end of time. Let us walk behind him, in this wounded world, singing Alleluia. In our hearts there is joy and sorrow, on our faces there are smiles and tears. Such is our earthly reality. But Christ is risen, he is alive and he walks with us. For this reason we sing and we walk, faithfully carrying out our task in this world with our gaze fixed on heaven.

....

Unity With the Heart of Christ: Fulton Sheen



….







Pope John Paul II said that on Mt Tabor, Jesus was Transfigured: when we go before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament it is Jesus who transfigures us. This was the shine on Bishop Sheen's entire life - his daily Holy Hour in the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament- as a young student in France he spent countless hours at Montmartre in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. His two favourite places in the world were Lourdes and Montmartre: Lourdes because Our Lady appeared there; Montmartre because for over 100 years there has been Perpetual Adoration. For this reason he thought it was the most important place in the world.



When I [Father Martin Lucia] met [Archbishop Fulton Sheen] in the autumn of 1970, I had just been ordained on April 3rd of that year and I was in the city of Phila¬delphia at the same time. He was there to give a day of recollection to the Priests at Villanova Universi¬ty - he was gracious enough to meet with me and answer my question which was this: if he were newly ordained and just starting out, what would he choose to dedicate his Priesthood to for the rest of his life according to the greatest need of the church at this time? Without hesi¬tation he said "To make every parish a Montmartre by having a chapel of perpetual Adoration."



His concern was that adoration of the Blessed Sacra¬ment had disappeared with the confusion that followed the Second Vatican Council and the greatest need in the Church was to evangelize the people on the importance of the Blessed Sacrament. He explained to me that the Council was a universal call to holiness and the surest path to holiness was time spent with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. The Bishop gave me his own copy of Mysterium Fidei -"The Mystery of Faith"- where he had underlined the vital parts with a red pencil.



He pointed out to me that Pope Paul declared in this letter that the aim and purpose of the Council was for a new era of Eucharistic love - adoration and understanding to prevail and pervade the entire church but as the Pope wrote, this goal was not be¬ing realized - during the entire conversation the Bish¬op was serious and never departed from the theme of putting the two aspects of mission together - evangelization and the Eucharist - so intent was his tone that he seldom looked at me but rather looked away in an effort to emphasize both the urgency and the need for a mission to offset the damage of those who mis-understood and misrepresented the spirit of the Council.



At the time the Bishop spoke to me, there were no problems with a shortage of vocations or low at¬tendance on Sunday, the topic of the Bishop's talk to all the Priests that day was Priesthood is victimhood, this was the answer to the identity crisis Priests were having at that time.



I have reflected on the wisdom of the Bishop’s words for the last 40 years. The last talk the Bishop gave that day was on devotion to Our Lady. He began as usual with Lovely Lady, Dressed in Blue.



This was the reason given as to why they want¬ed perpetual Adoration in their dioceses. Bishop Sheen was so effective when he spoke because his words had the unction of the grace of his Holy Hour and the very reason why he opened his mouth to speak was to inspire his listeners to do the same. God gave fire to his words because his words were directed toward bringing everyone to the Heart of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. In 1976 the Bishop was invited to speak at the International Eucharistic congress held in the very place where I first met him and he talked about Perpetual Adoration. There he said he would give a challenge to each Cardinal, each Bishop, each Priest, each Nun and to each lay person to make a daily Holy Hour. This, Jesus said, was the one thing necessary. It is choosing the best part because each moment spent with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament deepens the union between Christ and your soul, each moment bathes your soul with glory making it everlastingly more radiant in heaven, each Holy Hour consoles the heart of Jesus for those who reject him. Each Holy Hour brings a soul to heaven that otherwise would have gone to hell as you pray for the one in most need of God's mercy.



I consecrated the mission to her Immaculate Heart and began the mission of trying to find a par¬ish Priest who would have a chapel of perpetual Adoration as the dear Bishop had encouraged me to do.



Almost ten years went by before I met a Parish Priest in Deer Park Texas that said yes. The day I met him was the day Bishop Sheen died. Until then I had gone throughout the United States knocking on every door I could find. No door opened until the Bishop himself could join the mission from a far more effective vantage point. Since that first chapel opened, over 3000 chapels have since been estab¬lished all over the world: this has resulted in both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict expressing a desire that every parish in the world have perpetual Adoration.



A very significant fact is this: in my travels to various parts of the world, I discovered that the local Bishop of the diocese who invited me was influenced and impacted by a retreat given by Bishop Sheen and each Bishop I met made a daily Holy Hour himself as a consequence of a talk or retreat by Bishop Sheen.



In uniting your heart with the Heart of Jesus, all humanity is brought closer to the Heart of God. The best way to honour Bishop Sheen is to respond to his message of the daily Holy Hour and to pro¬mote the cause of perpetual Adoration in your par¬ish according to the light and graces Mary has given you.



Fulton J. Sheen Society Inc.



Newsletter



Volume 11 issue 4



Spring Edition

Website: http://www.sheensociety.org.au/

“The Sign of the Cross Is Inscribed upon the Whole Cosmos”

So do we read in Former Pope Benedict XVI’s The Spirit of the Liturgy (2000 Ignatius Press). And we thank The Adoremus Bulletin (February 2012), sent from St. Louis Missouri, for providing this excerpt.

The Fathers belonging to the Greek cultural world were more directly affected by another discovery. In the writings of Plato, they found the remarkable idea of a cross inscribed upon the cosmos (cf Timaeus 34ab and 36bc). Plato took this from the Pythagorean tradition, which in its turn had a connection with the traditions of the ancient East.

 

First, there is an astronomical statement about the two great movements of the stars with which ancient astronomy was familiar: the ecliptic (the great circle in the heavens along which the sun appears to run its course) and the orbit of the earth. These two intersect and form together the Greek letter Chi, which is written in the form of a cross (like an X).

 

The sign of the cross is inscribed upon the whole cosmos. Plato, again following more ancient traditions, connected this with the image of the deity: the Demiurge (the fashioner of the world) "stretched out" the world soul "throughout the whole universe".

Saint Justin Martyr (d. ca. 165), the Palestinian-born first philosopher among the Fathers, came across this Platonic text and did not hesitate to link it with the doctrine of the triune God and His action in salvation history in the person of Jesus Christ. He sees the idea of the Demiurge and the world soul as premonitions of the mystery of the Father and the Son - premonitions that are in need of correction and yet also capable of correction. What Plato says about the world soul seems to him to refer to the coming of the Logos, the Son of God. And so he can now say that the shape of the cross is the greatest symbol of the lordship of the Logos, without which nothing in creation holds together (cf I Apo1. 55).

 

The Cross of Golgotha is foreshadowed in the structure of the universe itself. The instrument of torment on which the Lord died is written into the structure of the universe. The cosmos speaks to us of the Cross, and the Cross solves for us the enigma of the cosmos. It is the real key to all reality. History and cosmos belong together. When we open our eyes, we can read the message of Christ in the language of the universe, and conversely, Christ grants us understanding of the message of creation.

From Justin onward, this "prophecy of the Cross" in Plato, together with the connection of cosmos and history that it reveals, was one of the fundamental ideas in patristic theology. It must have been an overwhelming discovery for the Fathers to find that the philosopher who summed up and interpreted the most ancient traditions had spoken of the cross as a seal imprinted on the universe.

Saint Irenaeus of Lyons (d. ca. 200), the real founder of systematic theology in its Catholic form, says in his work of apologetics, the Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, that the Crucified One is "the very Word of Almighty God, who penetrates our universe by an invisible presence. And for this reason He embraces the whole world, its breadth and length, its height and depth, for through the Word of God all things are guided into order. And the Son of God is crucified in them, since, in the form of the Cross, He is imprinted upon all things" (I, 3).

This text of the great Father of the Church conceals a biblical quotation that is of great importance for the biblical theology of the Cross. The epistle to the Ephesians exhorts us to be rooted and grounded in love, so that, together with all the saints, we "may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge" (3:18f).

There can be little doubt that this epistle emanating from the school of Saint Paul is referring to the cosmic Cross and thereby taking up traditions about the cross-shaped tree of the world that holds everything together-- a religious idea that was also well known in India.

Saint Augustine has a wonderful interpretation of this important passage from Saint Paul. He sees it as representing the dimensions of human life and as referring to the form of the crucified Christ, whose arms embrace the world and whose path reaches down into the abyss of the underworld and up to the very height of God Himself (cf De doctrina christiana 2,41, 62; Corpus Christianorum 32,75f).

 

....

[End of quotes]

The Eastern Orthodox Church has traditionally understood the tree of life in Genesis as a prefiguration of the Cross, which humanity could not partake of until after the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus.[4]

 

One of the hymns chanted during the forefeast of the nativity of Christ says:

 

“Make ready, O Bethlehem, for Eden hath been opened for all. Prepare, O Ephratha, for the tree of life hath blossomed forth in the cave from the Virgin; for her womb did appear as a spiritual paradise in which is planted the divine Plant, whereof eating we shall live and not die as did Adam. Christ shall be born, raising the image that fell of old”.[5]

 

The cross of Christ is also referred to as the tree of life, and in the service books, Jesus is sometimes likened to a "divine cluster" of grapes hanging on the "Tree of the Cross" from which all partake in Holy Communion.

 

This theme is also found in Western Christianity. By way of an archetypal example consider Bonaventure's "biography" of the second person of the Trinity, entitled "The Tree of Life." [see Cousins, The Classics of Western Spirituality Series] ….

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chotyniec4.jpg

The Holy Shroud of Jesus Christ



A Shroud Of Mystery!



An amazingly detailed picture of a bearded man who had been beaten about the body, crowned with thorns & pierced with nails through the wrists & the feet," is how Newsweek magazine described the Shroud of Turin. For centuries, this unique burial cloth has generated intense controversy. Many scholars, historians, scientists and theologians have been convinced that it is the cloth in which Jesus Christ was wrapped after his crucifixion, and that by some unknown process his image was transferred onto it.



In 1889, something extraordinary happened. Technical progress had made it possible for the first photograph of the the Shroud to be taken. As the photographer, Secundo Pia, examined his first glass-plate negative, he almost dropped it in shocked excitement. What he saw was not an unrealistic and confusing photographic negative, but a clear positive image. Highlights and shadows were reversed from those on the cloth, & were far more lifelike & realistic, & the positive image of a man's face was clearly visible. Pia's sensational photograph showed that the actual image on the Shroud was a negative image!

How could a negative image be produced on a piece of cloth centuries before the invention of photography? Scores of specialists from all over the world began to earnestly study the mysterious Shroud. Attempts made by skilled painters showed that no artist was able, even when using a model, to convert a human face by the process of the mind into a negative image, & paint it. Leo Vala, a noted photographic expert who pioneered the development of 3-D-photography, recently told Amateur Photographic magazine,

"I can tell you that NO ONE could have faked that image. NO ONE could do it today, even with all the technology we have."



The educational magazine, National Geographic, reports that the face on the Shroud, hauntingly serene in death, would grace a masterpiece of art. The body, anatomically correct, bears the frightful marks of scourging, crucifixion, & piercing--perhaps by thorns & lance. It would appear to be a portrait, uncannily accurate when matched against the Gospel accounts, of Jesus of Nazareth. Indeed, many believe that this stretch of ivory-coloured linen is the very cloth that Joseph of Arimathea placed under and over the body of Jesus in the rock-cut tomb of Golgotha nearly 2.000 years ago. (See Mark 15:46).



In 1978, the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) came into being. Scores of the World's top scientists, pathologists, textile experts, chemists, physicists & photographic specialists obtained permission to spend five days thoroughly examining the mysterious cloth in Turin, Italy.

National Geographic reported, "Perhaps never before had an object of art or archeology been subjected to such exhaustive examination. The scientists bombarded the relic with ultraviolet radiation, X-rays, and examined it microscopically & took photo micrographs. With sticky tape & a vacuum device, bits of dust, pollen & other particles were captured for analysis." Their conclusions were startling.



"I was convinced it was a forgery"



confesses Dr, John Heller of Yale medical school, the blood expert of the team. Today he admits,



"NO QUESTION IN MY MIND! There was a scourged, crucified man in the Shroud."



STURP team member, Dr. Robert Bucklin, chief pathologist of the Los Angeles city morgue, states:



"If I were asked in a court of law to stake my professional reputation on the validity of the shroud of Turin, I would answer very positively & firmly that it is the burialcloth of Christ. It's Jesus Whose figure appears on the Shroud. It is not a matter of faith to me, it's just a matter of common sense. Knowing what we know, who else could this have happened to?"



One of the World's top investigative dentists, Dr. Max Frei of the University of Zurich, a specialist in tracing where a fabric has been, through microscopic pollen analysis, declares:



"My tests have convinced me that this Shroud is IN FACT the cloth in which CHRIST'S BODY was wrapped. I have isolated from the Shroud more than a dozen pollen grains from plants that grow only around Jerusalem & its deserts."



The STURP scientists concluded that the image on the Shroud could not be the work of a painter or artist, for it is too thin, & lies only on the very topmost surface of the threads, nor has it soaked into or left any deposits between the threads as would happen had it been painted. The scientists also agreed that the dark stains that permeated the image were human blood. But the question that haunts them & that has eluded their grasp is, what then could have created this mysterious image?

The general consensus is that the molecular composition of the image is similar to faint scorch of some kind, yet the scientists cannot determine by what means such a delicate image could have been made. It is now being suggested that an unknown energy force was applied to the lifeless body wrapped within the Shroud, & that a burst of extremely high intensity heat or light for an extremely short duration--probably milliseconds--somehow caused the Shroud to become a primitive polaroid film. Robert Dinager of the Los Alamos scientific laboratory in New Mexico stated,



"It seems as if the image possibly came from some short-term pulse of energy. You could say it was instantaneous. It would have had to be a pretty good amount of energy, but not too much or it would have destroyed the cloth."



For those who believe the Bible, the answer to this riddle is apparent: At the climactic moment that Jesus dead body was quickened to life, this "photograph" was left behind on His burial cloth as a silent witness of the greatest miracle that ever took place: The resurrection of Christ!



NEW EVIDENCE THAT THE SHROUD IS REAL



National Enquirer 20/11/79



The image of a coin placed over the right eye on the figure on the burial cloth actually shows the coin was minted near the time of Christ's death, according to Rev. Francis L. Filas, S.M., a top expert on the Shroud. With the assistance of coin expert Michael Marx, Father Filas has identified the image of a coin imprinted on the shroud as a coin minted only between A.D. 29 and 36. Christ died in A.D. 30. Placing coins on the eyes of the dead was an ancient burial custom in Christ's time, according to Father Filas, professor of theology at Loyola University of Chicago.



Using high quality, high contrast photos of the shroud, Father Filas and Michael Marx deciphered that the coin clearly features a tiny staff, called a "lituus," bordered by four Greek letters. That staff and the Greek letters were found only, on coins minted during Pontius Pilate's governorship of Judea, from A.D. 29 until A.D: 36.



"All coin experts agree that Pontius Pilate alone issued a coin with the staff on the back of it." Said FATHER Filas.



Marx, a coin expert for more than 35 years and owner of M. and R. Coins and Stamps in Oak Lawn, Ill. Concurs with the theologian.



"As a coin expert, I can confirm that the coin that appears on the cloth is one of the coins issued only during the last seven years that Pontias Pilate was governor of Judea--A.D. 29 to 36," he said.



"The markings on the coin date the shroud within that seven years period. The shroud is obviously real."



And Dr. Nancy Waggoner, curator of Greek coins at the American Numismatic Society, confirmed that the coins with the lituus on one side fall within the time of Pontius Pilate's governorship.



DNA Tests Find Jesus' Blood On Turin Shroud





Electronic Telegraph



The Turin Shroud will be at the center of fresh controversy when a scientist details his claims to have isolated DNA from the "blood of Jesus." In his book, The DNA of God?, DR Leoncio Garza-Valdes, a former professor of microbiology, describes tests carried out by colleagues at the University of Texas which show that the "red" areas on the cloth, far from being paint, are ancient blood stains of a group consistent with a Jewish male. The book details the experiments which show that the "blood" on the shroud is ancient and contains XY chromosomes--which establishes it as human and male. The tests were conducted by a team headed by Dr Victor Tryon, director of the Center for Advanced DNA Technology at the University of Texas Health Science Center.

Gene segments from the stains showed that the blood came from a male with an AB blood type, common among Jewish people. Dr Garza-Valdes, a practicing Catholic, said that the placing of the blood traces strongly indicated that the body was that of Jesus.



"Not many people in the first century suffered all those lesions, the crucifixion wounds, the crown of thorns, the spear wound in the right side of the chest, the flagellations," he said.



A list of definitive results from research carried out this century:



The image is not a painting, and it was left by the corpse of a man who was beaten and crucified. Computer processing has shown that the image has three-dimensional properties, something which neither paintings nor standard photographs possess.

Pollens have been found on the cloth, strongly supporting the view that the Shroud spent time not only in Europe but also in the Near East.

Tests on traces of blood from the Shroud have revealed the presence of human blood from blood group AB.

In 1988, carbon-14 dating was carried out on a fragment of the Shroud. The results date the fabric to between 1260 and 1390 AD

The scientific community itself now questions these results, and more recent experimental studies have reopened the debate.



Characteristics of the Shroud image include:



"CLEAR IMAGE. The body image is so well resolved that even features as detailed as the lips are discernible. This remarkable property revealed by photography is way beyond all attempts at artistic imitation or laboratory reconstitution.



SUPERFICIAL IMAGE. The body image penetrates the cloth no more than a few fibrils and is limited to the crowns of the threads. The body image fibrils are individually colored but their coloring does not follow the bends or crevices connected with the intersecting threads of the weave. Furthermore, the fibrils are not cemented and there is no additional pigment to account for the macroscopic image color.



THREE DIMENSIONAL IMAGE. The intensity of the frontal body image correlates overall with expected separation distances between an assumed body and the enveloping cloth. This correlation is independent of implied body surface composition such as the skin, hair, etc.



ABSENCE OF SIDE IMAGES. There are no side images to be seen surrounding the front and back body images, not even in the region the two heads.



OXIDATION. The chemical formation of the body image is due to a change in the cellulose of the cloth, in particular a conjugated carbonyl structure associated with dehydration.



BLOOD. The red image stains are formed of blood and/or blood derivatives.



VERTICAL ALIGNMENT OF THE IMAGE. The Shroud is draped naturally over a body lying horizontally, but the frontal body image aligns vertically over corresponding features on that body.



WEIGHTLESSNESS. Maximum intensities of the front and back images are practically equal."

- Bruno Bonnet-Eymard, "Physics and Chemistry of A Glorious Body and of A Glorious Blood"



"The arms would be too long if the Shroud Man would be flatly reclining. The arms, however are entirely parallel with the surface of the Shroud and we see them in linear full length. The torso, the thighs, the lower legs on the other hand we see shortened by geometric perspective and not in full length. They stand at an angle to the surface. "

- Isabel Piczek, "Is the Shroud of Turin a Painting?"



Height calculations of the figure on the Shroud vary greatly due to the difficulty of taking into account factors such as the foreshortening of the legs, the extended position of the feet, and any possible stretching in the cloth. The most common estimate is 6 ft 11 in. Proportionately, however, the head on the Shroud is 1/9 of the body instead of the average 1/8. Using this as a basis for estimation of height, Picknett and Prince concluded:



"Our calculations put the height of the man on the Shroud - at the front - at 203cm...Put in imperial measurements we calculate that the front image is 6 ft 8 in and the back 6 ft 10 in"

- Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince, Turin Shroud - In Whose Image? The Shocking Truth Unveiled (1994)



If Jesus was treated according to Jewish burial practices, "signs of the bandages around the hands, feed and head ought to appear on the Turin Shroud.

"They do not. If the shroud had been tied down there would be clear crease marks, which there are not. It did not fall closely over the sides of the body, and this agrees with the temporary nature of Joseph's and Nicodemus' attentions, for they expected the final burial to be made after the Passover. Then the body would have been more securely wrapped."

- Alan Millard, Discoveries From the Time of Jesus













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