the Holy Shroud - The Shroud of Turin Website

688and the usual ceremonies had to be postponedto the first clay after the hallowedseason of rest. The fact that the women"returning prepared spices and ointments"(Lnke 23, 56) implies that thebody had not been anointed at all. St.John says that "they bound it in linencloths with spices, as the manner of theJews is to bury." (! ohn 19, 40.) He doesnot say that they went through all theoperations after the manner of the Jews.It is rather arbitrary, then, to infer fromthat text that the body was washed,anointed and wrapt with the long linenbands. What would the women come tothe tomb for early on Sunday morning?Still unprepared for the definite burial,the Body of the Savior was laid uponone half of a "clean linen cloth" and thencovered with the other half. This linen,purchased by Joseph of Arimathea onthe spur of the moment (Marll 15, 46),had been profusely spread with the spices(a compound of myrrh and aloes groundand mixed together) provided by Nicodemus(John 19, 39). It is quite certainthat some smaller linens were used besidesthe wide sheet. The hands, reverentlycomposed together, were boundwith a strip of cloth. The napkin referredto by St. John (! ohn 20, 7) wasprobably put about the head to hold thechin into position. A cloth was quitecertainly placed about the loins wherethe hands rested.Joseph, after having thus "wrappedthe body in the clean linen cloth laid itin his own new monument" (Matt. 27,THE t SIGN60) ; "there," adds St. John, "because ofthe parasceve of the Jews, because thesepulchre was nigh at hand." It was,then, but a temporary deposition theyprovided for the body of their belovedMaster, and this in view of the definiteburial they would give It soon after thehallowed repose of the Great PaschalSabbath.THE Body which the Shroud envelopedwas exceptionally fit to producethe amount of ammonia necessary for thereaction. An agony of sorrow and of dismayhad drawn from its pores a heavyperspiration of blood, particles of whichremained hidden along the channels ofthe sweat glands. Then, the scourging,the crowning with thorns, the tragicjourney up Calvary, the crucifixion, theviolent death after hours of untold sufferings.These were the determiningcauses of an abundant emanation of ammoniacalgases which, developing fromthe dissolving urea, reacted with thealoe on the Shroud.The ammoniacal vapors did not equallyreact on the different parts of the sheet.The linen was stained through andthrough; very strongly at those pointswhere there had been actual contact, lessintensely precisely in porportion to thedistance which separated that particularportion of the Body from the surface ofthe sheet. The blood and the bruises actedmost strongly of all, and made darkerand redder stains. The images thusformed present the appearance of aVol. 1 3. No. 11photographic negative, with light andshade reversed from the effect ordinarilyproduced upon our eyes.As to the probability of this theory,which still enjoys the favor of manylearned admirers of the Turin Relic, wewill observe with Doctor Barnes that toreproduce the conditions of the crucifixionis obviously impossible. Once it isgranted that the images like those on theShroud may conceivably have beencaused by slow chemical action of thiskind, there is little to be gained by furtherexperiment. But it will be well to notethat all the four points, mentioned beforein order to prove that in the case of theShroud we are not dealing with anyhuman production, are precisely thosewhich would certainly be present in anysuch work of nature.Does the theory of contact exclude thesupernatural factor?When we think of the unusual processthat has caused the images on the Shroudand consider all the circumstances thatwere necessary for their production, wecannot but admire the Providence of GodWho was pleased to leave to the Churchand to the world the material documentof the Passion and Death of Christ. Andif by a new and no less admirable trait ofHis Providence, it has pleased Him toreveal to us the figure of the sufferingGod-Man, it is doubtlessly in order tocall us to a greater and deeper appreciationof His love for us. "He hath lovedus, and hath delivered himself for us."(Eph. 5, 2.)UNCLE SAM: INVESTORThe Government Enters the Investment MarketBy Gerhard HirschfeldN GW that the wheels of industryare turning again, that more men go towork and larger pay envelopes find theirway into millions of happy homes, oldfriends are showing up again: doubts inthe Government's wisdom, complaintsabout retarding what is convenientlyca1led the natural process of business recovery,and last, but by no means least,a rather tardy self-awakening of privatebusiness, proudly proclaiming its abilityto pull itself up by its own bootstraps.We have not heard much from privatebusiness since the spring of 1933 when itwas not precisely ambitious to get anywhere,except out of the red. Occasionally,it was accused of code violation;more often, it showed itself ready to cooperate,or, at least, careful not to takeany direct attitude toward, in favor oragainst, the New Deal, as long as thecourse of business was not more definitelyascertained.The time has come now when evenconservative business interests admit thegeneral improvement that has takenplace in almost every field and branch.And, with the assurance of a limitedamount of business recovery, there hascome an also limited amount of oppositionon the part of private business.There is, as you can convince yourselfin your daily routine of news digesting,opposition to further restriction of production,to further reduction of workinghours, to code administration, and manyother prominent New Deal measures.One of the more important attacksdeals with the complaint that the Governmentis competing with privatecapital in seeking investment opportunities.The recovery program absorbsmany a million dollars which, in normalyears, would have gone directly to industry.By the middle of next year, it is estimated,the Government will have spentmore than ten billion dollars for purposeswhich, in former years, attractedprivate capital, for instance, loans tobanks, to farmers, to home owners, railroads,mortgage companies, power trusts,and the like. There is truth in thischarge. The Government is, indeed, in-