I grew up Protestant… Episcopalian, Methodist, Baptist and non-denominational…. at different times. But honestly, I never really knew Jesus or had any idea I could have a personal relationship with him. So I didn’t pray to him, I prayed to God. “Why not go straight to the top”? I would ask when questioned.

Then I joined the Catholic Church. Went through RCIA and learned about the catholic faith. And I fell in love. But.. one thing remained a bit of a mystery to me. Unlike the churches I was familiar with, it seemed that the entire mass, the liturgy, the sacraments, and virtually everything was about Jesus and His resurrection. From the moment I entered the sanctuary where the Crucifix was displayed front and center, to the wine and bread that miraculously became the real body and blood of Jesus.

What was I missing? I prayed – a LOT – to know this Jesus. To REALLY know him. To have a relationship with him. Something more personal than just what my head knew to be was the third person of the trinity. The Son of God. A very good man who performed miracles, taught us the right way to live, and later was crucified, and resurrected. I had heard all this in church. Read it in the Bible. I grew up on the stories.

But still there was something missing. None of that brought me to a relationship with this Jesus. I was missing something in my heart.

I decided that I needed to know more. I wanted to learn everything! So, I began taking classes in the Catholic faith at UST. There I met Nora, who would become a very dear friend. Nora was passionate about some sort of burial cloth of Jesus, or “Shroud”, which I honestly don’t think I had ever heard of… I loved her, so I supported her but I really didn’t “get it”. Her passion grew, and several years later she somehow managed to put together an exhibit of the “Man of the Shroud” to be on display at the Funeral Museum in Houston.

It was a big deal. A very big deal…

One day Nora invited me to go to Turin,Italy and “possibly” see the ACTUAL Shroud of Turin, which typically was only exposed to the public every 25 years. Ok wow, I thought, how many people get to do that? It was a once in a lifetime opportunity!

And in the back of my mind I thought maybe, just maybe, it would deepen my knowledge which would then somehow show me what all the fuss was about and infuse in me some of that beautiful passion of hers and bring me closer to Jesus.

Well, as it turned out, the Bishop of Turin decided not to open the Shroud for visitors. And of course we were all disappointed. However, we were able to visit several shroud replica exhibits around Italy. Plus we were able to get much closer to the replicas than we would have been able to by visiting the actual shroud that is stored in a protected, argon sealed case.

We heard all about how the shroud was discovered, researched, and researched again… By 100’s of world renowned scientists. And we saw replicated markings on the exhibit burial cloth from the nails that had been hammered into his hands and feet. And replicas of blood stains left behind from being being scourged and tortured – over and over again.

Which was pretty fascinating and convincing in itself, as they were all very well done replicas of the original shroud.

But the big one for me was when we learned (and then saw) that there is an image of a man imprinted in the actual shroud, which had apparently been created when a burst of radiation occurred – in 1/40th of a billionth of a second. At the moment of resurrection!!! WHAAATTTT??!!!

And I didn’t realize it then, but seeds were being planted.

And once I was home things began to change.

And they changed big.

I’ll never forget the first morning back, sitting down for prayer time and holding my wooden rosary with the face of the “Man of the Shroud” that Nora had given me. I looked at the face and that’s when it hit me. What I saw looking back at me really was the true image, the true face of Jesus. Looking at me! With love in His eyes. The face of the man who suffered tremendous pain for me and died for me. And was resurrected for me! Truly resurrected! In literally a fraction of a nanosecond.. The more I reflected on that the deeper my heart was touched. .

Incredibly, and by the grace of God, after seeing REPLICAS of the shroud and of the Man of the Shroud, the resurrection had suddenly become very real!. The discovery of the shroud provided some sort of tangible bridge between heaven and earth for me.

The next two weeks were unbelievably blessed – I went to Mass everyday and couldn’t take my eyes off of the crucifix. Remembering what Jesus had done FOR ME! The suffering he went through, the cruelty of humanity., and how very much He loves me!

Now – 6 months later those seeds that were planted have sprouted and spread in ways I couldn’t have imagined. The reality of it all, the heavenly mercy, the death like no other from none other than God, has melted down into my heart, and I have only to close my eyes and recall that overwhelming memory of the replica of the scientifically proven original shroud! And I think to myself how much I am ready to stand before the one of the exhibits of the Man of the Shroud again.
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(I have to add to this because I’m fairly certain it’s important to the story but Thursday before Easter I watched a video that Chris Stefanick produced. I watched it at least twice and I’ve saved it on my calendar to watch every year. It was a fairly short, VERY descriptive clip on the crucifixion and done in a way that I’ve never seen before. And that was followed by our trip to Italy)

These two things together have given me a love, a gratitude, a personal relationship with Jesus that I was praying for., but I had no idea how much more there is. And I guess that’s the story isn’t it? There’s always more. We can always go deeper. Just how willing are we? To be vulnerable? To be open? To let our hearts be touched? To have more?

I’ve concluded is that it wasn’t the authenticity of the exhibit itself that changed everything…it was the desire in my heart to go deeper, the willingness to allow fragments of the amazing amount of information and scientific proof to reach my soul and spirit in a way I’ve longed for a long time.