Homily - The Fifth Sunday of Easter - 7 May 2023

The Fifth Sunday of Easter (A)

Dear brothers and sisters,

It is a plea both meek and moving Saint Philip utters today: “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us” (John 14:8). With these words, he expressed the deepest yearning of the human heart, to look upon the Face of the Creator. David, the great King of Israel, recognized this longing and sang of it to God in words each of us can sing with him: “You have said, ‘Seek my face.’ My heart says to you, ‘Your face, Lord, do I seek.’ Hide not your face from me” (Psalm 27:8-9).

The Lord calls out to each of us; he seeks us, even as we seek him! When Adam and Eve hid themselves from the Lord, he sought them, asking, "Where are you" (Genesis 3:9)? Does he not likewise still call out to each of us? Are these not the very words we so often use when we cry out to him? How often do we cry within our hearts, "O that you would tear the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake in your presence" (Isaiah 64:1)?

King Solomon, David’s son and heir, likewise sang words that may be both addressed by us to the Lord and by the Lord to us: "O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the covert of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet, and your face is comely" (Song of Songs, 2:14). Yet despite the Lord’s longing to see us and our longing to see him, he said to Moses, "[Y]ou cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live," so great is the glory of the Most High (Exodus 33:20). When the prophet Elijah heard the Lord in “a still small voice,” he “wrapped his face in his mantle” lest he see the Face of God (I Kings 19:12-13). Knowing all this, the Apostle said, “Show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Is it true? Is seeing the Face of God enough for us, or do we want something more? To look upon him who is Goodness, Beauty, and Truth, what more could the human heart desire?

Generation after generation longed to look upon the Face of God but none could because of the impurity of sin. King David knew only "he who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false, and does not swear deceitfully" "shall stand in his holy place" (Psalm 24:4, 3). Even so, that ancient king sensed he would come to know the satisfaction of his – and our - deepest longing: "As for me,” he said, “I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with beholding your form" (Psalm 17:15).

It cannot be forgotten that, “because of his transcendence, God cannot be seen as he is, unless he himself opens up his mystery to man's immediate contemplation and gives him the capacity for it.”[1] This is why, in the fullness of time, the only begotten Son of God took on our flesh and was born of the Virgin Mary; he who was invisible made took on a human face and said to Philip, "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). Because of Jesus’ humanity, we can now look upon the Face of God and live, provided we receive his salvation.

Now that he has ascended to the right hand of the Father we still call out to him, "Your face, Lord, I seek!" He has left us the image of his Face in the Shroud of Turin - the linen cloth in which he was buried - and in the Veil of Manoppello - "the cloth that had covered his head" in the tomb and which Saint Peter found "not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place” (John 20:7). The one shows his Face in death; the other, his Face risen from the dead. In Jesus of Nazareth, who died and rose, the Son of God and Son of Mary, we can look upon the Face of God and live. In him, “the human face of God has burst into history to reveal the horizons of eternity.”[2]

In death, each of us will stand before him and see him as he is; we will look upon his Face and he will look upon our faces. What will we see? We know that

before his gaze all falsehood melts away… His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God… At the moment of judgment we experience and we absorb the overwhelming power of his love over all the evil in the world and in ourselves. The pain of love becomes our salvation and our joy.[3]

This is why Saint Philip can say the Beatific Vision, the sight of the face of God, will be enough for us.

If the vision of God’s Holy Face will satisfy the deepest desires of our hearts, why does Jesus tell us today not to let our hearts be troubled (cf. John 14:1)? The reason is twofold:

In commanding them not to be troubled, Jesus placed them, as it were, on the threshold between hope and fear. This way, if they fell into weakness and suffering in their human frailty, the hope of his mercy might help them to recover. On the other hand, the fear of stumbling might urge them to fall less often…[4]

We should not let our hearts be troubled - so long as we acknowledge our sinfulness and confess our sins - because Jesus “is the face of the Father’s mercy” and there is nothing to fear in mercy.[5] Let us, then, seek to be so transformed through the power of his love that we desire nothing else than to see him face to Face knowing that he will deliver us from death (cf. Psalm 33:19). Amen.

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[1] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1028.

[2] Pope Benedict XVI, Prayer Composed Following a Pilgrimage to the Shrine of Manoppello, 2006.

[3] Ibid., Spe salvi, 47.

[4] Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of John, 9. In Thomas C. Oden, et al, eds., Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament Vol. IVb: John 11-21 (Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter Varsity Press, 2007), 120.

[5] Pope Francis, Misericordiae vultus, 1.

Homily - The Solemnity of Pentecost - 5 June 2022

 The Solemnity of Pentecost (C)

Dear brothers and sisters,

“When the time for Pentecost had fulfilled” - that is, today, fifty days after the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus – “they were all in one place together” (Acts 2:1).” There is an important lesson for us in this. Those first disciples were not simply scattered about, each in their own home or on the lake or in the woods; no, they gathered because they knew the importance of being together. This is something we need to rediscover today if we ever hope to live out the call of the Second Vatican Council which urged us to strive “to encourage a sense of community within the parish, above all in the common celebration of the Sunday Mass.”[1]

It goes without saying that fostering this sense of community – of being in union with one another – is made more difficult, if not impossible, if each member of the parish does not come together for the celebration of the Holy Mass. It is within the celebration of the Holy Mass, through the invocation of the Holy Spirit and the words of Institution spoken by the Lord that we receive the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus. Whenever a Christian receives the Eucharist, we can rightly address to him or her the words of Saint Paul: “Christ is in you” (Romans 8:10)! Christ is not simply in me or in you, or you, or you, but in each one of us together; being united to Jesus we are united to one another.

Our coming together, our union with one another, is not brought about simply for sheer force our will; it is brought about by the action of the Holy Spirit. As we celebrate this great Solemnity of Pentecost, it is a good opportunity for us to consider who the Holy spirit is, who it is that unites us.

A few days ago, I stumbled upon a description of the Holy Spirit that immediately struck me as true, even though I could not adequately explain what it meant. The author described the Holy Spirit as “the light and fire of the Face of God” and said that his work is “to sanctify our souls, shining upon us the radiance of His light, transforming us into His own likeness.”[2]

As I struggled and searched to discover just what it meant to call the Holy Spirit the “light and fire of the Face of God” -  a captivating phrase, to be sure - I stumbled upon these words of Pope Saint John Paul II: “The Holy Spirit left the mark of his own divine personality on the face of Christ.”[3] I knew they, too, were true, but they did not help a great deal in my understanding.

Then, finally, while pouring over the writings of Saint Augustine, I found a reference to a verse I had not noticed before from Saint Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians: “For it is God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (II Corinthians 4:6). This, in turn, led me to the writings of Saint Ambrose, whose words and example converted Saint Augustine. (At this point, I felt like Gandalf scouring the ancient texts in the archives of Gondor.)

When he reflected on the notion of “the glory of God in the face of Christ,” he asked, “Who is it, then, who shined that we might know God in the face of Jesus Christ? Who else do we think but the Spirit who was made manifest? …For whose glory is said to give light but that of the Spirit?”[4] Finally, I understood! The Holy Spirit is the light and fire of the face of Christ because it is the Holy Spirit who reveals the glory of the God in Jesus. When the face of Jesus shone like the sun on Mount Tabor, it was because of the Holy Spirit who revealed the fullness of Jesus’ divine glory and power.

While most people at the time of the Apostles looked on Jesus and saw just another man, some looked upon him and saw him for who he truly is: God made flesh. They saw his divinity because their eyes had been opened by the Holy Spirit who revealed his glory to them. This is why we need the light of the Holy Spirit even today; we, too, need to look upon the Face of Jesus and see not just another man, but God himself.

The more we look upon the Face of Christ the more we become like him. The more we look upon the Face of Jesus, upon the Face of Mercy and of Love, the more the Holy Spirit can make us holy. And as we become holy, the light of the Holy Spirit will radiate out from us into a darkened world to give the light of the knowledge of God in the face of Christ in us. “May the Holy Spirit,” then, “who guides the steps of believers in cooperating with the work of salvation wrought by Christ, lead the way and support the People of God so that [we] may contemplate the face of mercy.”[5] Amen.

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[1] Sacrosanctum Concilium, 42.

[2] Patricia Enk, “Restoring the Divine Likeness – Come Holy Spirit,” Illumina Domini, 27 May 2022. Accessed 23 May 2022. Available at https://illuminadomine.com/2022/05/27/restoring-the-divine-likeness-come-holy-spirit/.

[3] Pope Saint John Paul II, Wednesday General Audience, 28 March 1990.

[4] Saint Ambrose of Milan, The Holy Spirit, 3.12.86, 89.

[5] Pope Francis, Misericordiae Vultus, 4.

Easter Homily on the Burial Cloths of the Lord

 The Solemnity of the Resurrection of the Lord

Mass During Easter Day

Dear brothers and sisters,

             There are, regrettably, a growing number of people throughout the western world who doubt the reality of the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus from the dead. There are even a growing number of people who doubt even that Christ Jesus ever lived in our human flesh. Perhaps you know one of these persons; perhaps you are one of them yourself.

             In his homily for Good Friday in the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome, the Preacher to the Papal Household, Raniero Cardinal Cantalamessa – whose name literally means, “sing the Mass” – spoke to our “brother and sister atheists, agnostics, or those still searching for the truth (if any are listening).”[1] In his preaching, he quoted a letter of J.R.R. Tolkien, who said:

 

It takes a fantastic will to unbelief to suppose that Jesus never really ‘happened,’ and more to suppose that he did not say the things recorded all of him — so incapable of being ‘invented’ by anyone in the world at that time: such as ‘before Abraham came to be I am’ (John 8:58). ‘He that hath seen me hath seen the Father’ (John 14:9).[2]

 Why does the author of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings say it takes “a fantastic will to unbelief” to doubt the reality of life, death, and resurrection of Jesus? Leaving aside the various historical, philosophical, and theological arguments, we have another sort of argument, a tangible one.

             At Easter, we often speak of the “empty tomb,” but, in point of fact, the tomb was not empty on that first of the day week after the Crucifixion of the Messiah. We heard a moment ago the account of the tomb provided for us by the Evangelist Saint John.

            “So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb,” he says. He continues, saying, “They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first; he bend down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in” (John 20:3-5). “The tomb was empty, then, inasmuch as nobody was there. It was not completely empty, however;” it contained the various cloths with which Jesus had been entombed.[3] The presence of the burial cloths inside the tomb is also attested to by Saint Luke (cf. Luke 24:12).

             He goes on to say something remarkable, something that is very often overlooked: “When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place” (John 20:6-7). We have, then, here mention of at least three cloths within the tomb: at least two on his body and a third that covered his face.

             But then Saint John says something even more striking: “Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed” (John 20:8). What did he see that caused him to believe? The tomb without the body of Jesus? Certainly not. No, he saw the burial cloths and believed. Why? What was so special about these cloths. You may be surprised to learn that the burial cloths of the Lord Jesus have not been lost to history; we are still in possession of four cloths that were found in the tomb of Christ.

             First, there is a long, thin strip of cloth that was wrapped around Jesus’ chin up to the top of his head to keep his mouth closed in death.

             Second, there is a bloodstained cloth measuring 33 inches by 21 inches called the Sudarium of Oviedo, because it is housed in Oviedo, Spain where it has been since at least the year a.d. 840. It was placed upon the face of Jesus at the moment he died to catch what is called the death blood that came out of his nose and mouth.

             Third, there is a long, rectangular cloth measuring 14 feet by three and a half feet that bears the image of a man who was five feet and eleven inches tall. The man depicted on this cloth was crucified, an image best seen in photographic negatives. Although this Shroud of Turin – so named because it is now kept in the Italian city of Turin - is the most studied cloth in the world, the image found on it cannot be explained.

             Whether considered individually or together, these three cloths cannot be what Saint Peter saw that caused him to believe in the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The first two cloths show nothing but blood and the shroud could not have been unrolled inside the tomb; even if it could have been, it would have been too dark inside to see the image. What, then, did he see? There is a fourth cloth, a hand cloth that had been placed over Jesus’ face, the one found not with the burial cloths, but rolled up in a separate place, because it was quite different the rest.

             This fourth cloth is called the Volto Santo – the Holy Face – and the Veil of Manoppello, because it is housed in the Italian village of Manoppello, where it has been since the sixteenth century. It was kept in Rome from 708 - where it was called the Veronica, the true image - until the sack of Rome by the German emperor until 1527. The cloth itself measures 17.5 centimeters by 24 centimeters and is the largest piece of byssus surviving from the ancient world. As if on the cloth, we see

 

…the face of Christ on a transparent veil in delicate byssus colors, framed by shoulder-length hair parted in the middle and a sparse beard. The left cheek is slightly swollen, the mouth slightly open, and the eyes are open in an expression that is not included in the vocabulary of arrest warrants: perfectly merciful.[4]

 It is the most priceless treasure in the world, the very image of the Face of God, and served as the basis on which artists depicted the Savior for almost fifteen hundred years, but that is a story for another day.

             Byssus, the material of which this veil, this napkin, this sweat cloth is made, is woven from the silk with which a particular mollusk attaches itself to rocks. Byssus cannot be dyed and it cannot be painted; its color only comes from the color of the silks taken from the mollusk. In the ancient world, it was a precious material, never sold but only given as a gift. Pharaohs were buried with a piece of it over their faces and wealthy women wore it as a veil because they could see out, but others could not see their faces through the cloth. Away from the light, byssus appears brown, dark, and opaque, but when held in the light byssus shimmers in golden hues and is transparent, so much so that you can read a newspapers through it. Byssus is photoactive; it responds to light, strange as this might seem. Today, there is only one woman in the world who knows how to weave byssus, Chiara Vigo, who lives on the island of Sardinia.

             What happened that first Easter morning when Saint Peter entered the tomb of Christ? The cloth placed on Jesus’ face was on the ground, but

 

…it was not lying there flat. It was a haze, but it must have been recognizable as a “thing,” as an “object” that caught the first rays of dawn. Naturally, Peter bent down and picked it up. It was the precious little cloth that had lain on Jesus’ face, the finest sea silk. It was a light as a feather as Peter picked it up, unfolded it and held it against the light of the entrance. What else? He must have held that way, not toward the interior of the dark chamber, but up to the light. It was, however, a cloth of light. It reacts to light.

 

What Peter saw now in the tomb on the veil against the morning light made it in a blink of the eye as clear as the sun: no one had taken the Lord from the tomb. Jesus had not been stolen and carried away. Something completely new was in the world now. It was unheard of it, what Peter glimpsed in the blue hours of the first Easter morning here, on that transparent fabric held against the light of the entrance. Here suddenly Christ looked back at him! With open eyes! No man had ever seen this before. This cloth was “not made by human hands,” as was said later. It was the true image. Three days earlier Peter has said that he did not know that man. Hours later he had had to watch from a distance and hear how Jesus, streaming with blood, cried out once again on the cross and died. Peter was still reeling from the shock – when now suddenly Christ himself looked out at him from the veil in his hand. Now he knew him. Now he recognized him immediately. “In thy light we see light,” Israel had read for centuries in the Book of Psalms [Ps 36:9]. Did that verse perhaps occur to him? Or did he already remember then the earlier intimations of Jesus that “the Son of man must … be killed, and on the third day be raised” [Lk 9:22]? We do not know. Only one thing do we know. Besides the bewildering emptiness of linens in the tomb, this message in pictures read: “I live.” Jesus was no longer dead. The only thing corresponding to this image was not another image, no icon or other sort of portrait; the only thing corresponding to what he saw there was the living man.[5]

 This cloth is what Peter saw that caused him to believe, but it was not only Peter who saw it.

             Mary, too, treasured this cloth with the image of the Face of her Son. We are told that

 

She had received it from the hands of God himself and kept it with her at all times, so that she might always be able to contemplate the wondrously fair face of her Son. Each time she wanted to adore her Son, she stretched the image out to the east and prayed before it with her gaze on her Son and with open, uplifted hands. Before the burden of her life was finally taken from her, the apostles carried Mary on a stretcher into a cave. In this cave, they laid Mary down to die before the face of her Son.[6]

 We see in this cloth that Jesus “does not limit himself merely to affirming his love, but makes it visible and tangible. Love, after all, can never be just an abstraction.”[7] Those who look upon this Face cannot but believe.

             When examined forensically, the face on the Shroud of Turin and the face on the Veil of Manoppello belong to the same man, and the blood stains on the Veil of Oviedo belong to this same man.

             This Easter, dear friends, look upon the Face of Christ, the proof of his Resurrection from the dead. Look upon the Face of Mercy and believe! Amen. Alleluia!

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[1] Raniero Cardinal Cantalamessa, Homily for Good Friday, 15 April 2022. Accessed 16 April 2022. Available at https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/250993/full-text-cardinal-cantalamessa-s-homily-at-the-vatican-s-good-friday-2022-liturgy.

[2] J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter __________. In The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Humphrey Carpenter, ed. (), .

[3] Paul Badde, The True Icon: From the Shroud of Turin to the Veil of Manoppello. Trans. Michal J. Miller. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012), 33.

[4] Paul Badde, ibid., 65.

[5] Ibid., 92-93.

[6] In ibid., 49.

[7] Pope Francis, Vultus misericordiae, 9.

A veil in the margins

As is well known, one's Twitter feed can be filled with much that is ugly in this world, but what is less well known is that one's Twitter feed can also be filled with much that is beautiful in this world. This is why I follow, among others, a number of medievalists who tweet out images from some of the great manuscripts. Among these is Kathleen McCallum, who enjoys "life in the margins" and tweets images of what are known marginalia, images found in the margins of medieval texts.

Yesterday, she tweeted a beautiful image of the legendary Saint Veronica holding her famous veil, which, as Paul Badde has shown, is in reality what is now called the Veil of Manoppello, the Volto Santo, the cloth that covered Jesus' face in the tomb (cf. John 20:6-7):

Detail, Yates Thompson MS 27 f. 44

The image comes from what is called the Hours of Yolande of Flanders, made somewhere between 1353 and 1363 and now housed in the British Library. The image is found in the left margin of a page principally depicting the Visitation, which you can view here.

If you look closely at the veil held in the hands of Saint Veronica, you can see the face of Jesus bears a rather striking resemblance to the face of the Veil of Manoppello, the Holy Face:

If you compare these two images to the image of Saint Veronica as depicted in your parish church's Stations of the Cross, the face on her veil will more likely show Jesus' eyes and mouth as both closed, which is not what we see in the above images. In fact, in nearly every depiction of the Veil of Veronica before 1527, the eyes and mouth of Jesus are shown to be open because the artists clearly used the Veil of Manoppello as their model. After 1527, when the Volto Santo was taken from Rome during the sack by the German emperor to Manoppello, artists began to use the image of the Shroud of Turin as their model for the face of Jesus, hence the eyes and mouth of Jesus began to be depicted as closed in artistic renderings of Saint Veronica. Every now and again you'll find an image of her veil made after 1527 that shows Jesus' eyes and mouth as open, a sign the artist knew something of the Volto Santo.

Homily - 14 May 2017 - Will the face of the God be enough for us?

The Fifth Sunday of Easter (A)

Dear brothers and sisters,

It is a simple and beautiful prayer the Apostle Saint Philip utters today: “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us” (John 14:8). It is a plea simple, beautiful, and bold. With these words, Philip expressed the deepest yearning of the human heart, to look upon the face of the Creator. David, the great King of Israel, recognized this longing and sang to God in words each of us can also sing: “You have said, ‘Seek my face.’ My heart says to you, ‘Your face, Lord, do I seek.’ Hide not your face from me” (Psalm 27:8-9).

The Lord, the Good Shepherd, calls out to each of us; he seeks us, even as we seek him! When Adam and Eve hid themselves from the Lord, he called out to them, "Where are you" (Genesis 3:9)? Does he not likewise still call out to us? Are these not the very words we so often use when we cry out to him? How often do we cry within our hearts, "O that you would tear the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake in your presence" (Isaiah 64:1)?

King Solomon, David’s son and heir, likewise sang words that may be both addressed by us to the Lord and by the Lord to us: "O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the covert of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet, and your face is comely" (Song of Songs 2:14).

And yet, despite his longing to see us and our longing to see him, the Lord said to Moses, "[Y]ou cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live," so great is the glory of the Most High (Exodus 33:20). Even the prophet Elijah heard the Lord in “a still small voice,” he “wrapped his face in his mantle” let his see the face of God (I Kings 19:12-13). Knowing all of this, Philip said, “Show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Is it true? Is seeing the face of God enough for us, or do we want something more? To look upon him who is Goodness, Beauty, Truth, and Love, what more could the human heart desire?

Generation after generation longed to look upon the face of God but none could because they were not pure, because they were not holy and without sin. King David knew that only "he who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false, and does not swear deceitfully," "shall stand in his holy place" (Psalm 24:4, 3). Even so, David sensed he would come to know the satisfaction of his – and our - deepest longings: "As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with beholding your form" (Psalm 17:15).

“Because of his transcendence, God cannot be seen as he is, unless he himself opens up his mystery to man's immediate contemplation and gives him the capacity for it.”[1] For this reason, in the fullness of time, the only begotten Son of God took on our flesh and was born of the Virgin Mary; he who was invisible made himself visible and said to the Apostle Thomas, "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). In Jesus, humanity can now look upon the face of God and live.

Now that he has ascended to the right hand of the Father we still call out to him, "Your face, Lord, I seek!" He has left us the image of his face in the Shroud of Turin - the linen cloth in which he was buried - and in the Veil of Manoppello - "the napkin, which had been on his head" in the tomb and which Saint Peter found "not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself (John 20:7). The one shows his face in death; the other, his face risen from the dead. In Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God and the Son of Mary, the one who died and is raised, we can look upon the face of God and live. In him, “the human face of God has burst into history to reveal the horizons of eternity.”[2]

The Holy Face of the Shroud of Turin (left) and of the Veil of Manoppello (right).

In death, each of us will stand before him and see him as he is; we will look upon his face and look upon our faces. What will we see? We know that

before his gaze all falsehood melts away… His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God… At the moment of judgment we experience and we absorb the overwhelming power of his love over all the evil in the world and in ourselves. The pain of love becomes our salvation and our joy.[3]

This is why Saint Philip can say that the Beatific Vision, the sight of the face of God, will be enough for us.

If the vision of God’s holy face will satisfy the deepest yearnings of our hearts, why does Jesus tell us today not to let our hearts be troubled (cf. John 14:1)? The reason is twofold:

In commanding them not to be troubled, Jesus placed them, as it were, on the threshold between hope and fear. This way, if they fell into weakness and suffering in their human frailty, the hope of his mercy might help them to recover. On the other hand, the fear of stumbling might urge them to fall less often…[4]

We should not let our hearts be troubled, so long as we acknowledge our sinfulness and confess our sins, because Jesus “is the face of the Father’s mercy” and there is nothing to fear in mercy.[5]

Let us, then, seek to be so transformed through the power of his love that we will desire nothing else than to see him face to face knowing that it will be enough for us. Amen.

---

[1] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1028.

[2] Pope Benedict XVI, Prayer Composed Following a Pilgrimage to the Shrine of Manoppello, 2006.

[3] Ibid., Spe salvi, 47.

[4] Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of John, 9. In Thomas C. Oden, et al, eds., Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament Vol. IVb: John 11-21 (Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter Varsity Press, 2007), 120.

[5] Pope Francis, Misericordiae vultus, 1.

Bringing the Holy Face to Honolulu

During my last pilgrimage to Manoppello after concluding my studies in Rome and before returning to the United States of America, Paul Badde and Father Carmine Cucinelli,  O.F.M. Cap, rector of the Shrine of the Holy Face, both referred to me as "an apostle of the Holy Face" because of my collaboration with them in researching the history of the Volto Santo and my desire to make the Face of Jesus more well known. I do not think I am worthy of such a title, but I am happy to do my part in spreading this beautiful devotion.

With Ellen and Paul Badde and Antonio Bini

With Father Carmine

Since my return to Illinois, I have had the opportunity to talk about the Holy Face with the Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George and soon I will have the pleasure of talking about the Volto Santo with the Fisher's of Men in Honolulu at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday, February 25 at the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace.

If you are on one of the Hawaiian islands, I hope you'll be able to join us for the breakfast and talk and humbly ask that you help spread the word. Mahalo e aloha!

The desire of prophets and kings

The Lord Jesus says to his disciples today, "Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I say to you, many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it" (Luke 10:23-24). What was it these prophets and kings desired to see and hear?

The Prophet Isaiah said, "I will wait for the LORD, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him" (Isaiah 8:17). King David prayed, "Let your face shine on your servant; save me in your merciful love" (Psalm 31:16)! The prophets and kings, then, longed to look upon the face of God and to hear his voice.

This desire to look upon God's face runs like a thread through all of the texts of the Bible, in both the Old and the New Testaments. After Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, a group of Greeks approached the Apostle Saint Philip and said to him, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus" (John 12:21). Does not this same desire reside deep within our hearts, as well? Do we not also wish to see Jesus, to look upon what kings and prophets desired to see?

We know that this desire will be granted to us with the Second Coming of Christ Jesus, which we now await with eager expectation in these days of Advent. Saint Paul says, "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face" (I Corinthians 13:12). The Apostle Saint John says, "they shall see his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads" (Revelation 22:4).

With the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, the Lord God has indeed revealed his Face to us in Jesus the Christ. This is why Jesus said to  Saint Philip, "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). The ancient desire of prophets and kings to see the face of God has been granted in the Son of God and of Mary.

What is more, the Lord Jesus has left us a foretaste of the Beatific Vision of his Holy Face on a piece of byssus, once housed in the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome and now housed in the Basilica of the Holy Face in Manoppello:

This Face is the desire of prophets and kings. Knowing that this Face is our deep desire, as well, the Lord, in his merciful love, he has left an image of his Face for us, to gaze upon, to marvel at, and to ponder until he comes again in his glory with his angels (cf. Matthew 25:31). It is this veil that the Apostle Saint Peter found in the tomb (cf. John 20:6-7). When he looked upon this handkerchief, Saint John "saw and believed" in the Resurrection of the Lord (John 20:8).

Let us, then, in these days of Advent, cry out to the Lord with the words of the hymn, "O Come, Divine Messiah":

Dear Savior, haste!Come, come to earth.Dispel the night and show your face,and bid us hail the dawn of grace.

O come, divine Messiah;the world in silence waits the daywhen hope shall sing its triumphand sadness flee away.

May the Lord come quickly. May he not delay. May he grant us the full vision of the beauty of his Face!

Cardinal Koch: "It is a wonderful event to be in front of the Face of Christ"

Earlier this morning I mentioned the Italian text of a recent interview His Eminence Cardinal Koch granted to Paul Badde on the Volto Santo following a recent pilgrimage of seventy Orthodox Bishops who celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Shrine of the Holy Face in Manoppello.

Paul has kindly given me permission to publish my translation of his interview here for you, which I give in full:

“We saw in the face the mercy of God”: A dialogue with Cardinal Koch

Paul Badde interviews the president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity on a special event

By Paul Badde

PHOTO: Paul Badde

(Manoppello, September 2016 / 9:15 a.m.) In 2017, it will be 500 years since in the West the Lutheran brothers and sisters began to separate themselves from the Pope and from the Roman Catholic Church. However, even older than the Reformation and the division of the Western Church is the Great Schism of the East, and the division of Christianity into the Church of the East and the Roman Catholic Church in the West, which occurred in 1054 between Rome and Constantinople. Only on December 7, 1965 Pope Paul VI from Rome and the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras from Istanbul solemnly cancelled the reciprocal anathemas “from the memory and from the center of the Church” “abandoning them to oblivion.” But the Eastern Church and the Western Church remained estranged, above all from the cultural point of view. Now, however, at the invitation of Archbishop Bruno Forte of Chieti-Vasto, on September 18, 2016, seventy Orthodox bishops celebrated the “Divine Liturgy” of Saint John Chrysostom under the Face of Christ, there exposed above the principal altar, together with two cardinals and numerous other prelates of the Roman Catholic Church in the Basilica of the Holy Face of Manoppello.

CNA: Lord Cardinal, Archbishop Bruno Forte calls the “Holy Face” of Christ “the polar star of Christianity.” For him, there is no reasonable cause to doubt that the image on the veil is the sudario of Christ that John cites in the Holy Sepulchre near the burial clothes. But is it not also a provocation for the Orthodox brothers?

Cardinal Koch: Christians believe in one God who showed his concrete face in Jesus Christ. When we know more closely the Face of Christ and when we more deeply identify ourselves with him, the more deeply we become one, as well. For this is a wonderful event to be in front of the Face of Christ, to pray, to venerate the Face, because it fulfills his [Christ’s] desire that we be one.

Catholics have something to bring to the Orthodox. Also for the Orthodox it is so, as for instance for their culture of the veneration of icons. Could it be that from this day forward also in the Catholic Church the images can come to be understood and evaluated in a new way – in the midst of that mighty “Iconic Turn” that the experts of communication today note, in which the images expect a general role in communications like never before?

Yes, the very profound mystery of ecumenism is an exchange of gifts. Today the Church has her gifts. And a particular gift the Orthodox have are the icons. So I think that also many Christians in the West can find a new access to the icons and thus deepening the faith. It is a great gift. It is very important that we also re-evaluate the images in the Western tradition. With the Reform of the sixteenth century, we have placed a whole new accent on the word. But the Word has become flesh, the Word became visible, so also the images belong to the faith. This is a gift from the Orthodox that we welcome gratefully.

At Chieti, in these recent days the delicate question of the theological and ecclesiological relations between primacy and synodality in the life of the Church, then the role of Peter and that of all bishops, was discussed within the commission that has come on pilgrimage to Manoppello. Ten years ago Peter came here in the vesture of Pope Benedict. Since then, there has been an enormous turning point in the evaluation of this image of Manoppello that has become famous throughout the world. What significance do you think will be given to this day of pilgrimage, in which the synod of bishops gathered here?

It is very beautiful that we could come here on this anniversary ten years later. Pope Benedict came in the name of the whole Catholic Church. Today is present here the Church of the East and of the West. So this anniversary maybe can also help in the search for the unity between the Church in the East and the Church in the West.

You, as president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, are responsible to Rome for ecumenism. In this regard, Pope Francis affirmed: “Look at Christ and go ahead with courage!” Which next step would indicate to you today to go with courage to encounter Christ, in a day in which notwithstanding the difference between the Eastern Church and the Western Church you have come together before this image?

In reality, we are always on the way towards Christ. Because it is his will that we find unity, it is not a human project. Christ himself on the eve of His Passion prayed that His disciples might be one, that the world might believe. The credibility of this testimony depends on the fact that we are one. This is also a particular request of Pope Francis, when he says that when we can walk on the same road toward Christ, then we find unity.

“Misericordiae Vultus”: with these first Latin words begins the Bull of Indiction with which Pope Francis announced this year of the Jubilee of Mercy. The “Face of Mercy” has given to this year a very particular meaning. What do you sense today being here before the merciful gaze of Jesus, who looks at us from this wonderful veil?

It is a magnificent message that we can have a merciful God, for which we know that there are no cases without hope. Per as long as a man can fall down, he can never fall lower than the hands of God. Now you can really see this face, encounter it, it is naturally a marvelous deepening of this message of the Holy Year. The men of today need nothing more than the mercy of God. And if they can look on the face of the merciful God it is a marvelous gift.

And what will you tell Pope Francis about this event in case you will have the opportunity?

I will certainly tell him that we saw in the Face his great message of the mercy of God. And that this Face is important for the whole Church. It is in a certain way the manifesto of the Church: the merciful face of God!