THE HOLY SHROUD IN MARIA VALTORTA’S VISIONS
(POEM VOL V) [19th February 1944].
The two preparers have finished preparing the bandages.
They come to the table and they denude Jesus also of His veil. They pass a sponge, I think, or a linen cloth, on the body in a very rapid preparation of the limbs dripping from countless parts. Then they spray ointments on all the Body. In fact they bury it under a layer of pomade. First they lift it up, cleaning also the stone slab, on which they lay the Shroud, more than half of which hangs from the head of the bed. They lay Him down again, on His chest, and spread the ointments on all His back, thighs and legs, on all the posterior part. Then they turn Him round delicately, watching that the pomade of spices is not removed, and they spread also the front, first the trunk, then the limbs. First the feet, then the hands, which they join on the lower belly.
The mixture of spices must be as sticky as gum, because I see that His hands remain in place, whereas before they always slid because of their weight of dead limbs. His feet do not slide. They remain in position: one is more straight, the other more stretched.
His head is the last. After spreading it diligently, so that its features disappear under the layer of ointment, they tie it with a chin-bandage to keep the mouth closed. Mary moans more loudly.
Then they lift the hanging side of the Shroud and fold it on Jesus. He disappears under the thick cloth of the Shroud. It is nothing but a form covered with a cloth.
Joseph ensures that everything is in order and on the Face he lays another linen sudarium and other cloths of the kind, similar to wide rectangular strips, that pass from right to left, above the Body, making the Shroud adhere to the Body. It is not the typical dressing as seen in mummies and also in Lazarus' resurrection. It is a rudimentary dressing.
Jesus is now annulled. Even His shape is confused under the linens. It looks like a long heap of cloths, narrower at the ends and wider at the centre, laid on the grey stone. Mary weeps louder.
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…You have seen the crown of bruises round My kidneys. Your scientists, to give proof to your incredulity with regard to that evidence of My suffering, which is the Shroud, explain how the blood, the cadaveric perspiration and the urea of an overfatigued body, when mixed with the spices, can have produced that natural drawing of My dead tortured Body.
It would be better to believe without the need of so many proofs to believe. It would be better to say: "That is the work of God" and bless God, Who has granted you an indisputable proof of My Crucifixion and of the tortures preceding it!
But as now you are no longer able to believe with the simplicity of children, but you need scientific proofs - how poor is your faith, that without the support and the spur of science cannot stand up straight and walk - you must know that the cruel bruises of My kidneys have been the most powerful chemical agent in the miracle of the Shroud. My kidneys, almost crushed by the scourges, were no longer able to work. Like those of people burnt by fire, they were unable to filter, and urea accumulated and spread in My blood, in My body, bringing about the sufferings of uraemic intoxication and the reagent that oozed out of My corpse and fixed the impression on the cloth. But any doctor among you, or anyone suffering from uraemia, will realise what sufferings the uraemic toxins caused to Me, as they were so plentiful as to produce an indelible impression.
RESURRECTION:
Under the Sudarium and the Shroud, the glorious Body is recomposed in eternal beauty, it awakes from the sleep of death, it comes back from the « nothing » in which it was, it lives after being dead. The heart certainly awakes and gives its first throb, it propels the remaining frozen blood through the veins and at once creates the full measure of it in the empty arteries, in the immobile lungs, in the dark brain, and brings back warmth, health, strength, thought.
Another moment, and there is a sudden movement under the heavy Shroud. It is so sudden that, from the moment He certainly moves His folded arms to the moment He appears standing, imposing, splendid in His garment of immaterial matter, supernaturally handsome and majestic, with a gravity that changes and elevates Him, and yet leaves Him exactly Himself, the eye has hardly time to follow the development. And now it admires Him: so different from what the mind remembers, tidied up, without wounds or blood, only blazing with the light that gushes from the five wounds and issues from every pore of His skin.
When He takes His first step - and in the movement the rays emanating from His Hands and Feet halo Him with beams of light: from His Head haloed with a garland, made with the countless little wounds of the crown, but they no longer bleed but only shine, to the hem of His tunic, when, opening His arms, that were folded across His chest, He uncovers the zone of very bright luminosity that filters through His tunic inflaming it like a sun at the height of His Heart - then it is really the « Light » that has taken a body. Not the poor light of the Earth, not the poor light of the stars, not the poor light of the sun. But the Light of God: all the heavenly brightness that gathers in one Being and grants Him its inconceivable azure as eyes, its golden fire as hair, its angelic whiteness as garment and complexion and all that exists, but cannot be described by human words, the supereminent ardour of the Most Holy Trinity, that outshines with its ardent power every fire in Paradise, absorbing Him in Itself to generate Him again at each moment of the eternal Time, Heart of Heaven that attracts and spreads His blood, the countless drops of His incorporeal blood: the blessed souls, the angels, everything there is the Paradise: the love of God, the love for God, all this is the Light that is, that forms the Risen Christ.
But he only sees, heaped on the floor, the linen cloths placed on the Shroud. « There is really nothing, Simon! Mary has seen accurately. Come, come in, look. »
Peter, who is breathless after so much running, goes into the Sepulchre. On the way he had said: « I will never dare to approach that place. » But now he thinks only of finding out where the Master may be. And he calls Him also, as if He might be concealed in some dark corner.
At this early hour in the morning it is still very dark in the deep Sepulchre, which receives light only from the opening of the entrance, where John and the Magdalene now cast a shadow… And Peter finds it hard to see, and has to help himself with his hands to ascertain what the situation is… He touches, trembling, the table of the anointment, and feels that it is empty…
« He is not here, John! He is not here!… Oh! come here! I have wept so much that I can hardly see in this poor light. »
John stands up and goes in. And while he does so, Peter discovers the sudarium in a comer, folded diligently and within it the Shroud rolled up carefully.
« They have really abducted Him. The guards were not here for us, but to do that… And we have let them do it. By going away, we have allowed that… »
« Oh! where will they have put Him? »
« Peter, Peter! This… is really the end! »
The two disciples come out looking annihilated.
…Holy Communion is a miracle of love that I worked for you, men. But at the summit of my thought of love, there was shining the thought of infinite love of being able to live with My Mother and make Her live with Me until we should be reunited in Heaven. I worked the first miracle for the joy of My Mother, at Cana in Galilee. The last miracle, or rather, the last miracles, for the consolation of Mary, in Jerusalem. The Eucharist and the veil of the veronica. The latter, to give a drop of honey to the bitterness of the Desolate Mother. The former, to prevent Her from feeling that Jesus was no longer on the Earth.
Everything, everything, everything, but try and understand this once and for all, you have through Mary! You ought to love and bless Her at each breath of yours.
The veil of veronica is also a goad to your sceptical souls. Since you, o rationalists, o tepid people vacillating in your faith, proceed through arid examinations, compare the face of the veronica with that of the Holy Shroud. One is the Face of a living person, the other of a dead one. But length, width, somatic types, form, distinctive features, are identical. Superimpose the images. You will see that they correspond. It is I. I Who wanted to remind you how I was and how I had become out of love for you. If you had not gone astray, if you were not blind, those two Faces should be enough to bring you to love, to repentance, to God.
5th October 1951.
…(St. Joseph of Aramithea) … “We want You to be able, also with regard to the previous one, to have this souvenir of Him to be shown to the believers, in order to confirm them in their faith, without it grieving You too much. » And Joseph hands Her a bulky roll, that enveloped in a dark red cloth, he had held so far concealed under his mantle.
« What is it? » asks Mary, growing pale. « His garments, perhaps? The one I made for Him for… Oh!… » She says weeping.
« At no price could we find them any more. Who knows how and where they ended up! » replies Lazarus. And he adds: « But this is also His garment. His last one. It is the clean Shroud in which the most pure Lord was enveloped after His torture and after the purification, although hurried and relative, of His members soiled by His enemies, and the summary embalming. When He rose, Joseph took both away from the Sepulchre and brought them to us at Bethany to avoid any sacrilegious abuse of them. Jesus' enemies will not dare too much in Lazarus' house. And less than ever since they heard that Rome censured the action of Pontius Pilate. Then after the first days, the most dangerous ones, we gave You the first Shroud, and Nicodemus got the other and took it to his country house. »
« Really, Lazarus, they belonged to Joseph » remarks Mary.
« That is true, Woman. But Nicodemus' house is out of town, so it does not strike the eye so much and it is safer for other reasons » Joseph replies to Her.
« Yes, particularly since Gamaliel with his son pays frequent visits to it » adds Nicodemus.
« Gamaliel!? » exclaims Mary much surprised.
Lazarus cannot help smiling sarcastically while he replies to Her: « Yes. The sign, the famous sign that he was waiting for, to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, has shaken him. No one can deny that the sign was such as to crush even the hardest heads and hearts and make them surrender. And Gamaliel was shaken, crushed and demolished by the most powerful sign, more than the houses that collapsed on Preparation Day, while the world seemed to perish with the Great Victim. Remorse has torn him, more than the veil of the Temple was torn, the remorse for never having understood Jesus for what He really was. The closed sepulchre of his spirit of an old pig-headed Jew has opened, like the tombs that let the bodies of the just appear, and he is now anxiously seeking truth, light, forgiveness, life. The new life. The one that only through Jesus and in Jesus can be obtained. Oh! He will still have to work hard to clear his ancient ego completely of the rubble of his past way of thinking! But he will succeed. He is seeking peace, forgiveness and knowledge. Peace for his remorse and forgiveness for his stubbornness. And full knowledge of Him Whom, when he could, he did not want to know fully. And he goes to Nicodemus to reach the aim that he is now determined to reach. »
« Are you sure that he will not betray you, Nicodemus? » asks Mary.
« No. He will not betray me. After all he is a just man. Remember that he dared to impose himself on the Sanhedrin, during the infamous trial, and that he openly showed his disdain and disgust towards the unjust judges, by going away and by ordering his son to go away in order not to be an accomplice, not even by a passive presence, in that supreme crime. That with regard to Gamaliel.
Then, with regard to the Shrouds, since I am no longer a Hebrew and consequently no longer subject to the prohibition of Deuteronomy concerning carved images and castings, I was thinking of making a statue of Jesus crucified, as best I can - I will use one of my gigantic cedars of Lebanon - and of concealing one of the Shrouds inside it, the first one, if You, Mother, will give it back to us. It would always distress You too much to see it, because the filthiness with which Israel struck the Son of its God is visible on it. Further, certainly because of the shocks it received when descending from Golgotha, shocks that continuously shifted that tortured Head, the image is so confused that it is difficult to distinguish it. But that cloth, although the image is confused and it is dirty, is always dear and sacred to me, because on it there is always some of His blood and perspiration. Hidden in that sculpture it will always be safe, because no Israelite of the high castes will ever dare to touch a sculpture. But the other one, the second Shroud, which was on Him from the evening of Preparation Day until the dawn of the Resurrection, must come to You. And - I am warning You so that You may not be too deeply moved in seeing it - and you must be informed that the more the days passed, the more clearly His image appeared, as He was after being washed. When we collected it from the Sepulchre, it seemed that it simply retained the impression of His members covered with the oils, and, mixed with them, the drainage of blood and serum from the many wounds. But either through a natural process or, which is much more certain, by a supernatural will, a miracle of Him to give joy to You, the more time passed, the more precise and clear the impression has become. He is there on the cloth, handsome, imposing, even if wounded, serene, peaceful, also after so many tortures. Have You the courage to see it? »
« Oh! Nicodemus! That was My supreme desire! You say that His appearance is peaceful… Oh! to be able to see Him thus, not with the tortured expression that is on Nike's (ie: Veronica’s) veil! » replies Mary, joining Her hands against Her heart.
Then the four shift the table to have more room; then, as Lazarus and John stand on one side, Nicodemus and Joseph on the other, they slowly unfold the long cloth. The dorsal side appears first, beginning from the feet; then after the quasi-junction of the heads, the front side. The lines are very clear, and clear are the signs, all the signs of the scourging, crowning with thorns, rubbing of the cross, bruises caused by blows received or by falls, and the wounds of the nails and of the lance.
Mary falls on Her knees, She kisses the cloth, She caresses those impressions, She kisses the wounds. She is distressed, but visibly happy to be able to have that supernatural miraculous image of Him.
When She finishes venerating it, She turns and says to John, who cannot be near Her, compelled as he is to hold one comer of the cloth: « It was you who told them, John. You alone could tell them, because you alone were aware of this desire of Mine. »
« Yes, Mother, it was I. And I did not even have time to inform them of Your desire, that they agreed to it. But they have had to wait for a suitable moment to do so… »
« That is, a very clear night, in order to be able to come without torches or lamps, and a period of time without the festivities that assemble crowds and notables here in Jerusalem and nearby places. And that out of prudence… » explains Nicodemus.
« And I have come with them for greater safety. As the owner of Gethsemane, I was able to come and see this place without shocking the eyes of anyone… commissioned to watch everything and everybody » says Lazarus concluding.
« May God bless you all. But you have spent the money for the Shrouds… And that is not fair… »
« It is fair, Mother. I, from the Christ, Your Son, have received a gift that no money can buy: life given back to me after four days in a sepulchre, and before that, the conversion of my sister Mary. Joseph and Nicodemus have had from Jesus the Light, the Truth, the Life that does not die. And You… You, with Your sorrow of a Mother and Your love of the Most holy Mother for all men, have purchased for God, not a cloth, but the whole Christian world that will always be greater and greater. There is no money that can compensate You for what You have given. So take this, at least. It is Yours. And it is just that it should be so. Also Mary, my sister, thinks so. That has always been her opinion, since the moment that He rose and even more since He left You to ascend to His Father » Lazarus replies to Her.
« Then let it be So. I will go and get the other one. It in fact grieves Me so much to see it… This one is different. This one gives peace! Because here He is serene, in peace by now. In His mortal sleep, He already seems to be feeling the Life that is coming back and the glory that no one will ever be able to strike and demolish. I now wish nothing else, apart from being reunited to Him. But that will happen when and as God has predisposed. I am going. And may God give you one hundred times as much joy as you have given Me. »
She takes the Shroud reverently, after the four have folded it, She goes out of the kitchen and quickly climbs the little staircase… And She soon comes down again and comes in with the first Shroud, which She hands to Nicodemus, who says to Her: « May God reward You, Woman. We are going now, as it is almost dawn, and it is wise to be home before its light spreads and people come out of their houses. »
The three venerate Her before going out, and then with quick steps, going back along the road by which they came, they go towards one of the gates of Gethsemane, the one closest to the Bethany road.
Mary and John remain at the door of the little house until they see them disappear, they then go back into the kitchen and close the door speaking to each other in low voices.