Secondo Pia as Simon Peter, part Seven the Conclusion

by Paul Badde, from Il Volto Santo di Manoppello the official publication of the Shrine of the Holy Face in Manoppello

"Perhaps it truly was John, the first who 'saw and believed', who previously had left to Peter the privilege of entering before him. John alone had been present at the burial to know that the 'sudarium had been placed on the face of Jesus'. Only an eyewitness of the burial would have been able to know such a detail. Perhaps he had observed how the Magdalen had placed the delicate veil of sea silk (marine byssus) on the Face of Jesus as a last tribute. Peter wasn't there. He wouldn't have known any of this. In any event, John would have immediately shown the veil to Peter in the opposite case. Because 'they hadn't in fact yet understood the Scriptures, that he would rise from the dead', continues John, using the plural. In any case, it had been a questions of mere seconds. But as for the rest of the account? Couldn't it be that all this could have happened differently? No, according to good sense, for whoever takes seriously the cloths and the texts of the Gospel and who has become familiar with the space of the sepulcher; and who still has enough fingers to add one plus one plus one plus one plus one equals five. Putting together all the components -- the eyewitness testimony of John, the space, the hour, the light and the cloths -- taking all these things together, adding as the first or the sixth component the Jewish reserve regarding the ritual impurity of tombs! --then the facts could not reasonably have gone any differently.

The conclusion is that Peter in the sepulcher must have lived an experience similar to that of Secondo Pia at Turin in 1898 when he withdrew the first photographic plates of the Shroud under the red light of the darkroom. Except that Peter's was an experience much more dramatic.

It is indispensable that there should have been a visible sign in the Sepulcher of the incedible event of the night of Easter, and this sign could not be the missing body of Jesus. That which Peter - or John - picked up from its 'special' position in the tomb, and held against the light, was the first testimony of that great event which was happening there. The little sudarium completes and explains the large sudarium. Together they are inserted in the Gospel as a puzzle is completed down to its every last piece.

As has been noted, on the Shroud, that is the large sudarium, one couldn't see anything at first in the narrow and dark chamber, where it was impossible for it to be unfolded. This brings us to the next step. Because not only can we but we must see how Peter and John hurriedly gathered up all these linens to bring them into the light. They had to bring them to a safe place. From that dark tomb nothing must be lost. Nothing should remain. Who knows what things the other cloths might be hiding? But all these are considerations which came forth later. Immediately they understood this: in that chamber death had lost its power. The deceased was no longer dead; those cloths were no longer impure.

The breaching of the presence of Christ into history began with a complete metamorphosis. If the Christ, already beginning with the dawn, had not shown his Face on the Sudarium, they would have left everything there. They were devout Jews. Burial cloths are not to be removed from empty tombs. According to the tradition of the Misnah, judaism is full of rigorous norms that declare the extreme impurity of all that is linked to the dead and their tombs, even after some time has passed. The Shroud, which just a little while later would have shown to the Church of Jerusalem the Passion of Christ in the Scriptures of an image, would not have been saved without the little sudarium on which the risen Christ had already shown his face. Mary Magdalen had left everything and had run to tell the Apostles. So would Peter and John also have done. They would have let everything stay there if the little fabric of light had not struck them. Then they would have simply gone outside in a hurry. But as I've said, the little Veil was there. The photo-image of the Sudarium forms the 'missing link' of the Paschal Vigil, in which is inserted the compelling logic which explains the unfolding of all the actions and the re-actions of those few moments.

Now they have taken the two sudaria with them together with the other cloths. This could have happened only in secret, in the early hours of the morning. And they didn't take them to the authorities but to Mary and the Apostles. 'Then the disciples returned home' writes John. Perhaps this refers to the cenacle on Mt. Sion where four days earlier they had celebrated the Passover with Jesus. Perhaps it was to a grotto-refuge in the garden of Gethsemane where they had found pilgrim lodging for the feast. But 'house' ,it clearly appears, in those days represented not only a habitation but the communion of the Apostles with Mary. It was to them, above all others, that they had brought the cloths that Easter morning. These cloths became, in the heart of the early church, the most precious treasure. Were they not perhaps the first pages of the joyful announcement of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Of course! Because of this it would be necessary to hide them right away and to keep secret not only their origin but even their very existence. Since these first documents of the Gospel of the early church were written on burial cloths, the most impure material of which the Jews were able to conceive. Their preservation would require a very intimate and secret place. Under no circumstances could the news get out. If the knowledge of these cloths amidst the Apostles had gotten out to Jerusalem -- and thus linked to the serious violations of the rules of purity -- the first Christians and also their first 'house' would not have survived the scandal. But John has not completely hidden the mystery. Eight verses following the recounting of the burial cloths he writes in his Gospel that already the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples had locked the doors for fear of the Jews, Jesus entered with a greeting of peace in their midst,breathed on them and said: 'Receive the Holy Spirit' and showed them the wounds which -- in that hour-- had already been 'written' impressed, on the document of the Shroud. The 'fear of the Jews' would have easily induced the disciples to flee to Bethlehem, or to Gaza, or to Jordan, to Jericho or to the hills of Galilee, because they themselves were all jews. In all those distant places they would have all been safe. But their 'fear of the jews', which induced them, surprisingly, to lock the doors on that first Sunday evening, did not have any other reason than that of hiding and protecting the marvelous treasure which they were caring for. This was the so-called 'mystery' of early Christianity, by which, all of a sudden, that which up until then had been considered ritually impure would now be considered the purest relic. So that in this mystery was enclosed the images of light of these cloths, so closed that centuries would be required before the message that they contained would be able to go out from that secret place, and the splendid message of an image 'not made by human hands' would begin to spread everywhere in the Christian house, little by little, like a perfume of incense."