Flesh and Blood (32 page)

She took in a deep breath and began again.

“And remember, the Shroud has been repaired. It has a backing and threads in it that are from the Middle Ages. In fact, one thread was sent to a different lab for a test and it dated between 200 and 1,000 A.D. And what about the fire of 1532? It got so hot the silver of the box the shroud was in melted on it.”

I thought about the burn marks I had seen, extending the length of the shroud.

“So silver, fire, and water all touched the Shroud. You don’t think that changed its chemistry? Of course it did. And what about the build-up on the linen itself? Think about two-thousand years of dust and debris and organisms.”

“Quit with all the ambiguity,” I said.

She laughed, but only for a second and was back at it. “Carbon-dating is not an exact science. Do you know how many mistakes have been made using it? Some of them have dated things off by thousands of years. And get this. In their own reports, the labs that did the tests have to concede that all the statistical manipulation in the world can’t get rid of the fact that the range of the dates is much too large to be accounted for by the expected errors built into radiocarbon dating. In other words, there’s a ninety-five percent chance that the discrepancy in the raw dates means that there were variables ratios in the samples themselves. In 1988 the whole world carried the story about the carbon-dating of the shroud, but in 1990, when the Vatican publicly stated that the results of the tests were strange, nobody reported it.” She paused for a moment, then said, “So, whatta you think?”

“That I broke one of my cardinal rules of investigating,” I said. “I rushed to judgment without considering all the facts.”

“Bottom line, the carbon-dating tests were contaminated,” she said. “And they are only a small part of a very large mountain of evidence, all the rest of which points to the Shroud being the actual burial cloth of Jesus.”

When we had finished talking, Jamie Sandford e-mailed some additional information on the Shroud to me, and although I printed it, I read the entire article on my monitor, eyes transfixed to the screen.

Though the most venerated relic of Christianity was declared a fake in 1988 by three independent scientific institutions, new science suggests the Shroud deserves another look.

Willis Gray, a retired physical chemist, proposes that the samples used to date the Shroud in 1988 were flawed and the experiment should be repeated. His assertion is based on a recent chemical analysis of the shroud and previous observations made during the 1978 STURP examination, of which he was a part.

In 1988, the Vatican allowed small stamp-size pieces to be cut from one corner of the shroud and distributed to three laboratories—at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Oxford University in England, and the Swiss Federal Institute in Zurich—for carbon-dating. The results, published in 1989 in the journal
Nature,
revealed that the fabric was produced between 1260 and 1390.

Recently, Gray received a sample of the shroud from a colleague who had collaborated on STURP. The sample was taken from the same strip of cloth distributed for carbon-dating in 1988. Through chemical and microscopic analysis, he discovered a madder dye and mordant and gum mixture—evidence the cloth had been repaired at some point. Even more interesting is the fact that these ruby-colored madder dye-mordant mixtures did not even reach France or England until the 16th century.

Gray also uncovered evidence that the patch he was examining had not only been dyed but also been repaired and re-woven. He posits that the dye and repair job were probably done in the Near East during the Middle Ages, which coincides with the carbon-dating results.

“The date published in 1989 of 1260 to 1390 was accurate for the sample supplied,” Gray said. “However, there is no question that the radiocarbon sampling area has a completely different chemical composition than the main part of the shroud. The published date for the sample was not the time at which the cloth was produced, but the time it was repaired.”

This corroborates earlier findings of STURP scientists who, using ultraviolet fluorescence, also revealed that the sampled corner was unlike any other region of the Shroud and had been excessively handled over the years.

“You reached a conclusion yet?” Milton Warner asked.

I shook my head. “I’ve barely begun,” I said, “and there’s so much evidence on both sides.”

The clear blue of his eyes was penetrative as he held my gaze.

“Aren’t you almost out of time?”

I nodded.

“What’re you going to tell your mother?”

“I really don’t know,” I said.

He nodded slowly, his lined face softening some.

“How’re you feeling?”

“Better, actually,” I said. “And I think it has something to do with the Shroud.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure exactly,” I said. “It’s not that I’m convinced that it’s authentic—hell, I’m not even sure what I believe about the resurrection, let alone that this could be a snapshot of it—but it’s such a haunting image, such a profound mystery … I just find it … inspiriting somehow.”

He nodded. He rarely showed a reaction to anything I said, but he seemed pleased.

“Most people I deal with are frightened by the unknown or inexplicable,” he said. “They want answers—”

“There aren’t any.”

“But you … You seem to be inspired by the mystery of it all.”

I nodded, and thought about what he had said.

We were quiet a moment.

“Do you think the Shroud has the power to heal?” he asked.

I shrugged. “It’s having an effect on me,” I said. “I guess I think anything can become an agent of healing. Probably has far more to do with the person being healed than the object.”

“Do you think if you tell your mom you’re convinced that the Shroud is genuine and take her to see it, she’ll be healed?”

“I just don’t know,” I said. “I can’t say for sure that she wouldn’t.”

“Then why not lie to her?”

I thought about it. “I’m not sure,” I said. “I’ve certainly lied for less noble causes, but I just don’t think I can.”

He nodded, but there was nothing in it except acknowledgment.

“I don’t know what to do,” I said.

“Then it’s a good thing you’re comfortable with ambiguity.”

The next afternoon, in the warmth of the sun, Mom and I sat in rocking chairs on her front porch. Mom was feeling better, and the pleasant afternoon seemed to help her as much as anything had recently.

I still didn’t know what I would say to her exactly. She was dying. I wanted to give her hope, to do all I could to give her every chance of prolonging her life or at least having the best life possible in whatever time she had left, but I wasn’t sure how.

The afternoon was the warmest in the last few weeks, and sitting in its soft glow with Mom as an occasional pine needle floated down from the trees to the earth below, was a moving experience.

“Well?” she said.

“What?” I asked, stalling.

“Is the Shroud real?”

My pulse quickened as my stomach dropped.

I wanted to be able to tell Mom that I had solved the mystery of the Shroud of Turin, that it was the actual burial cloth of Christ, and that if anything could be used by God to heal her, this holy relic could, but I couldn’t.

“I still don’t know,” I said. “There’s an amazing amount of evidence on both sides. I think it’s a mystery that can’t be solved. And I don’t think it should be.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think it should remain an enigmatic symbol of faith,” I said. “Then the question becomes not whether or not science can prove that it’s real, but whether or not we believe, whether or not we allow mystery to work its magic on us.”

“Do you believe?” she asked.

“I don’t have an easy answer for that one either,” I said. “I do believe that it’s something special, utterly unique in the world. And I think it can be a sign from God if we allow it to be. Isn’t that really all that matters? Not whether or not it actually covered the body of Jesus, but if it speaks to us of him. If it reminds us of his suffering, of a God who suffers with us, whose heart breaks for what you’re going through just like mine does.”

Tears began to trickle down her cheeks, and she reached over and took my hand.

“I’m haunted by the image on the Shroud,” I said. “And like all matters of faith, or art, it doesn’t matter how it came to be or if it can be authenticated or scientifically validated. Its only validity is what it does for me. In that sense, I can say it’s real.”

“So do you think we should go and view it?” she asked.

“Do you?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I really don’t.”

I thought about it for a long time, trying my best to weigh everything and determine what was in her best interest, saying a short prayer for guidance.

“Yes,” I said. “I think we should.”

“Do you think it’s possible I’ll be healed?” she asked hopefully, her tears changing as her face lit up.

I nodded. “I honestly believe anything’s possible.”

The most venerable and venerated relic of all time had been slipped out of the silver casket that had protected it for centuries, through fire and water, doubt and blind belief, and gingerly unspooled under the supervision of Giovanni Cardinal Saldarini and a German textile conservation expert. After the top cloth, a red taffeta sewn by Princess Clotilde of Savoy in 1886, had been pulled back, the fragile, scarred length of ancient linen had been smoothed into place in a metal and glass display case built precisely to its dimensions.

We were gazing up at it.

Mom and I had flown to Turin, Italy, two days ago to be a part of the estimated three million people who would line up over the next eight weeks to view this most sacred of cloths.

The cathedral was as ornate as any building I had ever been in, the sweet scent of incense lingering thickly, an olfactory match for its opulence.

The air in the case that held the Shroud had been drawn out and replaced with argon, an inert gas. It hung horizontally at the intersection of the Turin Cathedral’s nave and transept, near the center of the cathedral’s magnificent built-in cross.

Beside me, Mom gazed up at the image burned into the Shroud like a woman seeing a vision, herself a vision, mouth open, head back, eyes wrinkled at the corners as she squinted to see, her face made fresh by awe and wonderment.

What she was seeing I could only guess, but I felt that what she beheld was far more than an ancient cloth bearing an enigmatic image. Perhaps she was seeing nothing less than the visible image of the invisible God.

I was.

Not that I was suddenly convinced that the Shroud was a silent witness to the resurrection, but that even if I were staring at the image produced by an artist in the Middle-Ages, it, like all art, was evidence of the divine. And like all art, what we see in it tells us as much about ourselves as the object we’re beholding in hushed reverence.

What does what I saw say about me?

That I’m a believer. I believe in mystery and possibility, that nothing is impossible. Not the existence of God. Not a virgin birth. Not a God-come-flesh. Not a resurrection from the dead. Nothing. Not even a love that is stronger than death—a love that is itself an evidence of the existence of God, of the justification of the hope I felt. Hope for Mom, for me, for the world.

Mom let out a small, but audible gasp.

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

I could tell she wanted to say more, but couldn’t.

Only time would tell if this had cured her disease, but I had no doubt that our holy pilgrimage had healed her. Her humanity was healed. She finally and fully accepted the fathomless forgiveness she had been offered.

And she forgave herself.

Standing there beside her, gazing up at the ghostly image, I felt newly baptized, fully submerged in the healing presence of Christ.

Our awe and reverence for the sacredness of life, of individual moments like this one, which hinted at eternity, was restored to us like when we were children.

Both of us were in some sense healed, wounded mother and son, as if in some sense reflecting the wounded son and mother of the nearby Pietà—united with them in humanity, in pain, in love, in faith, in mystery, and in hope for divinity.