The Voice of Christ
The Catholic Online Magazine
For the reality of the Passion of the Christ:
The
Stations of
the
Cross
In
the
Light of
the
Shroud
What better way to
comprehend the true reality of the Passion
of Christ
than to compare the traditional Stations
of the Cross
— handed down to us by St. Francis and the Franciscans — than by
comparing them with the scientific and medical Truths found in more
than 600,000 hours of peer-reviewed research surrounding the Shroud
of Turin.
For
it is the very burial cloth of Jesus, proven not only by the Image of
the Holy
Face
imprinted on the linen, but by the fact that the Saints themselves
have instinctually venerated this sacred relic.
The Shroud
shows us the Passion
of Christ
unlike anything in mankind’s history, and unlike a movie, presents
accurate details of a Sacrifice no normal person could endure. Not
since the eyewitnesses to the Crucifixion of Jesus has anyone been
able to comprehend the true depth of what our Lord went through.
In this Light, let us then examine each Station and what the Shroud
can visually show us as believers in the 3rd Millennium.
THE
FIRST
STATION:
JESUS
IS CONDEMNED TO
DEATH
From the Image of Jesus on the Shroud
of Turin
we can contemplate what His Body looked like at this point as Pilate
asks the people of Israel what he should do with their Messiah.
Jesus is 6-feet tall. The Roman
scourgers had our Lord bend over a 3-foot pillar to endure the
whipping — a whipping they administered to the front and back of
Jesus’ Body. No normal person would have survived this
scourging.
Jesus receives, from the marks visible on His
cloth, at the very least, 120 blows to His Body. It was against
Mosaic Law to punish anyone with more than 40 lashes; yet Jesus is
suffering under Roman law, where there is no limit. Usually, the
Romans did not have to crucify anyone after they had whipped them so
severely: under these circumstances, the victim normally died
before they could make it to a cross.
Researchers, in trying to comprehend in our
modern understanding the severity of this beating, have likened the Scourging
of Christ
as equivalent
to a person being shot seven times by a .44-caliber Magnum!
No one usually survives one shot from a .44, let alone seven!
This proves that Jesus is unique, for He is True
God and True Man.
One last point on this Station, Jesus is
wearing a Crown
of Thorns,
but that is only a symbolic statement. Our Lord is actually
wearing a Cap
of Thorns.
Pollen found on the Shroud
proves the cloth was in Israel as the evidence of the thorn bush that
makes up the Cap of Thorns comes from a plant that only grows in
Palestine.
This thorn bush grows 2– to 3-inch-long
spikes — a very vicious plant. Experts believe had the Roman
soldiers tried to fashion this Cap of Thorns around our Lord’s Head,
they would have lacerated their hands. It is theorized,
therefore, that the soldiers probably whacked the Cap of Thorns into
Jesus’ Head using their swords to accomplish the task and then tied
it to keep it in place.
THE
SECOND
STATION:
JESUS
CARRIES HIS CROSS
While we should always love, honor and
venerate the Stations
of the Cross,
there is a mistake in the Sacred art when it shows Jesus carrying a
T-shaped Cross. The Romans never had their prisoners carrying
the stipe — that was to heavy for any individual to carry and was
placed in the ground by soldiers and horses waiting for its next
victim. The
Romans had their prisoners carry a crossbeam across their shoulders,
weighing anywhere from 75 to 100 pounds. The Shroud,
unlike the Stations, is archaeologically correct, as it clearly shows
Jesus carrying His Crossbeam across His shoulder.
This Crossbeam is irritating Jesus’ back.
To understand how painful this is, think of how much a splinter can
hurt and we can’t wait for a loved one to remove it for us. Jesus
cannot remove the splinters of His Crossbeam and they are rubbing
against the very wounds that have ripped parts of His flesh out from
the scourging He received at the hands of the soldiers.
In fact, Jesus once told a visionary that His
right shoulder blade was His most severe wound, causing Him the most
agony. We can see the Truth of this when we look at the dorsal
Image on the Shroud.
Interestingly, this part of the shoulder is know in Latin as the “scapula.”
What did Mary give us as a gift to help save us from the fires of hell
and Purgatory? The “Scapular”!
Most
people refuse to wear this piece of cloth because it “irritates”
their back — a spiritual message to remind us of the Crossbeam of
Christ which irritated His scapula!
THE
THIRD
STATION:
JESUS
FALLS THE
FIRST TIME
On the right knee of the Shroud,
we can see a severe skinning of the kneecap and researchers discovered
dirt in that area that matches the type found in Jerusalem.
On the Shroud,
Jesus also has three distinct facial bruises — bruises
which could only have occurred if our Lord fell with His hands tied
behind His back!
This is exactly what the Romans did to their prisoners on their way to
crucifixion. They tied the crossbeam across the condemned
person’s back and then tied their hands behind as well. Jesus
cannot, unlike anyone can in a normal reaction when one falls, use His
hands to break His fall onto His Holy
Face.
These facial bruises upon His Face
prove the Sacred Tradition that our Lord fell three times on His Way
to the Cross!
THE
FOURTH
STATION:
JESUS
MEETS HIS SORROWFUL MOTHER
It’s important to remember that Mary, the
Mother of Christ, had not seen Her Son since the night before when He
was arrested after His Last Supper. Mary, as His Mother, would
have had the responsibility — as Jewish tradition dictates — to
prepare this Passover meal for Her Son and His Apostles.
Now, instead of the shining countenance She
had seen on Holy Thursday, Her Son appears with a Cap of Thorns
puncturing His skull; His Blood dripping profusely from His Face;
His Body mangled and torn with pieces of skin missing from the
scourging He endured. And finally, His Crossbeam — the foster
Son of a master carpenter — cruelly tied behind His back with His
hands as well.
The Lord’s nose was already bleeding, as is evident from the Image
on the Shroud,
from being struck in His Face
most
likely from the blow by the servant of the high priest.
Mary
knows She cannot save Jesus from Rome’s murderous soldiers as She
once saved Him from Herod’s murderous soldiers. Mary knows it
is the Father’s Will that Her Son be Crucified for the sake of
mankind. Mary has only one recourse — She prays intently to
Her Father and Her Spouse to give the graces necessary for Her Son to
complete His Sacred Mission.
THE
FIFTH
STATION:
SIMON
OF CYRENE
HELPS JESUS CARRY HIS CROSS
The
fact that Jesus is able to carry on this far again proves He is no
ordinary man. At the same time, He is about to do something
extremely symbolic. He is going to let an ordinary man help Him
carry His Cross! But even in pulling the Cross from the Lord’s
shoulders, once again, the pain rips through our God’s Body as the
wood ravages the wounds Jesus endured since being tied to a 3-foot
pillar and aggravated in every step He has thus far taken.
The reason the Roman soldiers will allow this
is because Jesus is tied to the thieves in a chain gang as He carries
His Cross. Every time our Lord falls He is holding up this
procession of the condemned. A stranger in the crowd is pressed
into service.
Simon was compelled to carry Jesus’ Cross.
Our Lord calls us to carry our own crosses. In the symbolism of
this Station, we must never — especially in Light of the Passion
of Christ
captured on the Shroud
— reluctantly bear the burden of our own cross! The Shroud
clearly proves, as an example to all, the Lord wants us to take up our
Cross and follow Him!
THE
SIXTH
STATION:
VERONICA
WIPES
THE FACE
OF JESUS
This is one of the most important Stations as
Jesus, for the first time in history, leaves the countenance of His Holy
Face
on a cloth. In the Old Covenant, because the Blood of Christ had
not yet been shed, the world was not allowed to see the Face
of God.
But in the New Covenant, from the time Jesus appeared in the Manger,
the world can gaze upon the
Face
of its Savior.
We can talk until we are blue in the face
about the science of the Shroud
and how it proves the Passion, Death and, most importantly, the
Resurrection of Christ. But
that means nothing!
What it really boils down to is what
does anyone say who gazes upon His Face?
We have not left the Face
of Jesus
on the Shroud
— God has!
And just as He captured His countenance on
Veronica’s Veil, Jesus captured His Holy Resurrected Face
on His burial cloth. That Holy
Face
looks at every human being on this planet and asks the simple question
Jesus asks in the Gospels: “But
whom do you say
I AM?”
And only the individual can answer that question as Veronica did when
she went to wipe the sweat, Blood and tears from Jesus’ eyes on His
way to Calvary.
THE
SEVENTH
STATION:
JESUS
FALLS
THE SECOND
TIME
The Crossbeam is no longer on His shoulders,
but the weight of His agony and intense bleeding continues to weaken
the human Body of Christ. As the Shroud
proves, Jesus is loosing every drop of His Blood, just as the
Israelites were instructed that the lamb used for the Passover seder
must first be drained of its blood.
When Jesus falls again, He is still in the
chain gang with the two other prisoners who are going to be crucified
on His left and right. As Jesus holds up the chain gang, the
Roman soldiers whip Him again, causing more open lesions on His Body.
Just the week before, Mary, His Mother, who continues to accompany Her
Son on His Way
to the Cross,
had seen Him enter Jerusalem in triumph and greeted as a King.
Now the only vestiges of Christ’s Kingship
remain under the guise of the Cap of Thorns upon His Head — a cap
that continues to cause massive bleeding across our Lord’s Face
with its visible rivulets apparent on the Shroud
today.
THE
EIGHTH
STATION:
THE
DAUGHTERS
OF JERUSALEM
WEEP
On the Shroud,
we see the incredible power of God able to Resurrect Himself from the
dead! We also see His innocent Blood, shed as the Lamb
of God
for us in atonement for our sins. In this power of God, Jesus
endured His Sacrifice knowing full well He would be Resurrected and
returned to Glory!
But the Daughters
of Jerusalem
do not comprehend His incredible Wisdom and prophetic knowledge.
Jesus spilled innocent Blood in the City
of Peace;
today, just as the Lord prophesied, Jerusalem continues to be anything
but a city of peace as innocent blood is continually spilled in a war
between the descendants of Abraham over David’s City.
And the Daughters of Jerusalem will continue
to weep over Christ
the King
— whose Resurrection Image on the Shroud
ensures the Truth of this — until that day when Jesus will Reign as
the Son
of David
from His Throne in Jerusalem.
THE
NINTH
STATION:
JESUS
FALLS
THE THIRD
TIME
Our Lord has now fallen three times — once
for the Father, once for the Son, and once for the Holy Spirit.
The evil one does not want Jesus to make it to the Cross, for if He
does, mankind will be redeemed. But the Shroud
proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus did make it to the Cross,
and as John, the Beloved Disciple testified, not only does the Image
prove Jesus was dead on the Cross, but that our Lord rose from the
dead!
Most importantly, despite all the scourgings,
beatings, fallings, and then being Crucified with nails through His
Body, the Shroud
also
proves that none of Jesus’ bones were broken!
Just as Isaias prophesied that the Messiah of Israel’s bones would
not be broken, the medical evidence on the Shroud
proves this biblical Truth!
THE
TENTH
STATION:
JESUS
IS STRIPPED
OF HIS
GARMENTS
We’ve often wondered why the Lord had to do
what He did and if, in His Wisdom, there was not a better way for Him
to redeem mankind. But know we understand, through the Image of
His Body on the Shroud,
exactly why Jesus had to do it this way.
As the Romans strip Jesus of His garments,
every single blood wound is opened again, not only causing tremendous
agony, but again ripping pieces of Jesus’ flesh from Him. The
reason the Lord is allowing this? In reality, Jesus
is giving birth to the Eucharist!
Every drop of Blood and torn piece of Flesh is our God’s way of
ensuring His Body is broken into the necessary molecules and atoms
that will, in the future, make up the Eucharist miracle at every Mass!
Could He have done it another way? Perhaps. But He chose
this way!
Jesus is so intent on this Eucharistic birth
to leave pieces of His Body and Blood for the redemption of mankind
that He leaves significant quantities of His bodily fluids on His Shroud.
These Bloodstains that we see today on the cloth — the actual Blood
that flowed so that God may forgive us our sins — are remarkable on
the Shroud
because not one of them is disturbed in any way.
There
are no broken Bloodstains on the cloth!
This
means the Body of Christ got out of the Shroud
without disturbing the Bloodstains!
That is
a mathematical impossibility!
Surely, if the Body were removed in any normal fashion, the
Bloodstains — as occurs when one takes off a bandaid attached to a
cut — would open and crack. This is not the case with
Shroud,
which proves that those who claim the Apostles stole Christ’s Body
are completely wrong; for, if they had, the Bloodstains, would show
evidence of being disturbed.
Instead, the Shroud
proves Christ got out of His burial cloth without disturbing His own
Blood! The Body of Christ went right through the cloth!
THE
ELEVENTH
STATION:
JESUS
IS NAILED
TO THE CROSS
Here the Shroud
proves something incredibly important. The Gospels clearly teach
us that Jesus was Crucified in the “hands”
— not mentioning the wrist. Yet, the Shroud
absolutely shows that Jesus was Crucified in His wrist!
Does this make the Gospels wrong?
Of course not! There
was no word
“wrist”
at the time the Gospels were written — not in Aramaic, not in
Hebrew, not in Greek, and not in Latin.
The “hand”
to the Gospel writers extended from the tip of the middle finger to
the elbow of the arm. Jesus could have had a nail placed through
his forearm and the Gospels would have still recorded our Lord was
Crucified in His “hand.”
In this lesson, we must seriously consider
how wrong those are who then use the word “brother”
in the Scriptures to insist and teach wrongly that Jesus had “brothers
and sisters”
when, in reality, these people are our Lord’s first cousins!
Also
important in this Station is the fact that the Shroud
clearly shows X-ray information from the internal skeletal structure
of Jesus’ Body!
When we look at the Shroud
and identify the wrist wound, one can make the mistake of then looking
at the fingers of Christ and believing our Lord had long digits!
The Byzantines, who had possession of the Shroud
in the 1st Millennium and called it the “Mandylion”
(Christ’s “Mantle”),
made this mistake and depicted this in their iconography by showing
Jesus with long fingers.
But Jesus did not have long fingers.
The wrist wound on the Shroud
proves that, instead, the metacarpal
bones of Christ’s hands are being imaged
— something that research has proven could only have happened had
X-rays gone through the Body lighting up the internal structure.
What was the cause of these X-rays? While
scientists are not open to speculation, the only logical explanation
is simple: the
Resurrection of Christ
caused this internal imaging to be captured on the Shroud.
A Resurrection process science does not understand nor can duplicate!
But the Image on the Shroud
proves some sort of inexplicable radiation was involved in the
Resurrection of Jesus!
THE
TWELFTH
STATION: JESUS
DIES ON
THE CROSS
This is the most amazing evidence — outside
of the X-ray information — we have on the Shroud.
Evidence that proves Jesus really did die on the Cross. It comes
from the Heart wound itself. Medical researchers who have
investigated the cloth discovered that the wound exhibits postmortem
(after death) evidence in three separate ways.
When we are alive our blood serum levels are
different than when we are dead. In the wrist wound, scientists
identify minimum levels of serum — nothing more than water in the
blood. However, in the Heart wound of Christ, the serum levels
have increased dramatically, 10 times more than those from wounds on
Jesus’ Body where Blood flowed when He was alive! And
to prove no forgery is involved, these serum levels are detected under
the presence of ultraviolet light!
The second fact that proves the Heart wound
is postmortem is that the wound itself does not contain one iota of
swelling. In the Holy
Face of Jesus,
it is apparent that many bruises and wounds occurred while our Lord
was alive, as His facial tissue, as a result of the injuries, swelled
up — a normal reaction for living tissue. But in the Heart
wound no swelling occurred, which proves the Body tissue was dead when
the wound occurred!
Finally, if the Heart of Christ was pierced
by the centurion’s lance when our Lord was alive, the Blood from the
wound would have splattered all over Jesus’ Body as the muscle would
have pumped one or two more times before expiring. The thrust
into the Heart and its Image on the Shroud
shows that the Blood is oozing out of the wound consistent with a body
in crucifixion position and the force of gravity pulling the liquid
out.
The
Heart of Christ had stopped beating when it was pierced with a lance
and the Shroud,
once again, proves it!
THE
THIRTEENTH
STATION: JESUS
IS TAKEN DOWN FROM THE
CROSS
In this critically important Station, we will
turn to the evidence not on the Shroud,
but on another of the cloths which covered Christ on that first Good
Friday. This cloth is known as the “Sudario,”
or
“sweat cloth”
and is mentioned in John’s Gospel as the
“napkin”
that was put around Jesus’ Face.
This cloth exists today and is housed in a
Church in Oviedo, Spain. Shroud
researchers have been allowed to examine it and compare it to the
burial cloth of Christ. As a result, two Jewish scientists, Dr.
Danin and Dr. Baruch, one with the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and
the other with the Israeli Antiquities Authority, have stated that
through their research on the Shroud
and the Sudario
they have discovered that the cloths are “synchronatic.”
What
does that mean? Both cloths have touched the same Body!
How can two scientists from Israel say this about two cloths the
Catholic Church has venerated for two millennia as the burial cloths
of Christ? Simple. Dr.
Danin and Dr. Baruch found the same pollen from that thorn bush plant
that only grows in Israel not only on the Shroud,
but also on the Sudario,
and, most amazingly, both cloths have the same Blood, the world’s
rarest!
Other investigators have discovered that the Sudario’s
Blood flows prove Christ was on the Cross for 45 minutes before His
Body was taken down! And how logical. Remember, Joseph of
Arimathea had to get permission from Pontius Pilate to remove Jesus’
Body from the Cross. And, if someone were to die while we are
waiting for an ambulance to pick up their body, what would we do with
their face? We would, of course, cover it up. And that is
what they have done with the Sudario
—
they have used it to cover the Face
of Christ
on the Cross as they are awaiting permission to take our Lord's Body
down.
The Sudario
is also doing something else extremely important for the 1st-century
Orthodox Jewish men who are going to bury Jesus. It is capturing
the remnants of our Lord’s Blood into the cloth rather than letting
it continue to drip into the ground, where, according to their Sacred
Tradition, they will have to sweep the very dirt to get the Blood into
the Tomb with Christ as the Mosaic Law demands. Far easier for Joseph,
John and Nicodemus to get the Blood of Jesus into a cloth than have to
sweep the dirt later!
THE
FOURTEENTH
STATION: JESUS
IS LAID IN
THE SEPULCHER
This is it — this is the moment the Shroud
has been waiting for! The Body of Christ laid into it so that
not only will the remaining vestiges of Blood be captured, but on the
3rd Day — in the midnight hour of darkness — the Light of the
Resurrection process may be illuminated for all future generations to
see! For
the Shroud
is truly the only temporal witness to the exact moment of
Resurrection!
In addition, the most prominent wound on the Shroud
is the Heart wound. Yet, as Jesus’ Body is laid into this
cloth before He is placed in the Sepulcher, our God’s human Body is
already in a physical state of rigor mortis. This means the
cloth cannot be touching the chest area as it is draped over Jesus’
Head and bent knees; this position forces the Shroud
to float above the Lord’s torso.
So how did the Heart wound become so
prominent? There is only one answer: Someone
had to place their Hand up against Jesus’ Sacred
Heart
wound.
Someone who would have had a last personal moment in holding our
Lord’s Body before the men placed Him in the darkened Tomb.
Someone who would have had a right to touch the Sacred
Heart of Jesus one
last time in remembrance of a bond that was inseparable.
There
is only One candidate for this. Her Name is Mary, the Mother of
Jesus who stood at the Foot
of the Cross
and did not abandon Her Son in His Hour of Sacrifice.
Someone whom the Lord gave to us all as His last dying Will and
Testament. Someone, whom, as the Mother
of Mercy,
was there to witness when the Blood and Water gushed forth from Her
Son’s Sacred
Heart
as a Fountain
of Mercy
for us.
Someone who experienced the Sword
of Sorrow pierce
Her Immaculate
Heart
as Her Son experienced the thrust of the centurion’s lance through
His dead and lifeless Body — a last act to ensure Jesus was dead on
the Cross. This
piercing of the Heart of Christ proves Jesus was not just dead; He was
doubly dead, making the miracle of the Resurrection all the more
incredible to eyewitnesses such as John!
In these Fourteen
Stations of the Cross,
we have shown how the Passion of Jesus is explicitly detailed in the Light
of the Shroud
and borne
out by the medical evidence of modern science.
But we
can never forget that in this Sacrifice, the Shroud
really stands as a living testimony to a Fifteenth
Station of the Cross.
It is, as John Paul II stated it, the Truth that the
Shroud
is a “silent
but eloquent witness to the Resurrection of Christ!”
In this Light, we can never forget that the Passion of Jesus was
designed so that we — if we remain close to Him and His Mother —
might also experience that resurrection of the body which science
cannot understand nor duplicate.
A Resurrection that the Shroud
leaves no doubt as to what occurred on the 3rd Day, the very day that
Jesus rose — a day symbolically much like today as we move further
into the 3rd Millennium of Christianity!
For just as those of long ago, the enemies of Christ today, and of His
Mother, His Body and Blood in the Eucharist, believe that He is dead,
long forgotten and no longer a player to contend with.
As the enemies of Jesus in 1st-century Israel did, today’s enemies
of Jesus have made a drastic mistake. We have only begun the 3rd
Day of Christianity — the 3rd Millennium — and Jesus, as the Shroud
proves, rose on the 3rd Day!
What will our Lord do as we move further into this Millennium
consecrated to His Mother as the Queen
of Peace?
We can only hope and pray that as He showed Himself in the early
morning hours of the 3rd Day to His loved ones, He will soon show
Himself again in the early years of the 3rd Millennium to a world in
desperate need of His Reign!
A Reign that can only come about through the promised Triumph
of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
as our Queen prophesied at Fatima almost a century ago!
Steve Bolettieri
© 2004 Agnus Dei Presents!
Website - greatspiritualbattle.com
© 2004 The Voice of Christ All Rights Reserved
