There is no doubt that the Shroud Exhibit at St Thomas is a gift that the Lord entrusted to our parish. The Holy Shroud is the perfect place where science and faith dwell and resonate in their fullness. It is the Holy Shroud that has witnessed the Resurrection of the Lord and that has faithfully recorded into its fibers the image of the Crucified One, the Pierced One towards whom our sight must turn for salvation.
Msgr. Giulio Ricci (1913-1995), founder of the Roman Center of Sindonology, studied the Holy Shroud in-depth, leaving behind him an inestimable work of research and apostolate. In the 1960s, in the town of Assisi, Italy, he personally crafted a crucifix portraying the information he could grasp from the aspects, geometry, and measurements of the marks of blood, wounds, and tortures inflicted to the Man of the Shroud. This work was a fruit of his attentive anatomical study of the imprint of the Man wrapped in this precious linen.
St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church has the privilege to be part of this work of evangelization. Donations to the Shroud Exhibit will be directed toward the crafting of a copy of the Sindonic Crucifix of Mons Ricci for the exhibit at St Thomas. The Crucifix will be located within the Shroud Room at St Thomas the Apostle parish. The faithful copy of the Sindonic Crucifix of Msgr. Ricci will be crafted under the supervision of the Diocesan Center of Sindonology of Rome.
Further donations will be directed toward the realization of a spacious location within the parish for permanently hosting the Shroud Exhibit with independent access from the school building that will allow the opening of the exhibit even during school hours.
Reflections of Prof. Antonio Cassanelli on the Sindonic Crucifix
“For every Christian the crucifix is the symbol of one’s faith and a means of contemplation of the Passion and Death of Jesus from which came our salvation.
The Shroud crucifix, conceived, studied, and created by Msgr. Giulio Ricci, eminent scholar of the Shroud of Turin, is a historical document in which art, science, and faith merge together to present before one’s eyes the dramatic moment of Jesus’s sacrifice.
After 50 years dedicated to study and prayer, Msgr. Giulio Ricci faithfully reconstructed in his crucifix that which he had ‘read’ on the Shroud. Every drop of blood absorbed by the cloth, every stain and mark imprinted on the linen fabric, are exceptional witnesses of the Gospel, able to reveal situations and events lived by Jesus during Holy Friday.
To make the Shroud Crucifix, Msgr. Giulio Ricci faithfully reconstructed–in its measurements, position, wounds, and lesions–the body of Jesus on the Cross just as it is testified by the Shroud.
Exemplary, in this regard, are his studies in the field of anatomical metrology, and also of the consequential axonometric reconstructions of Jesus’s movements on the Cross and the geometric measurement of the blood rivulets.
Observing the Shroud Crucifix, we can revisit the Passion of Jesus, in all its phases, according to precise historical truth: the scourging, the crowning with thorns, the way of the Cross, the falls, the crucifixion by means of three nails, the death, the spear wound in the side.
Praying in front of the Shroud Crucifix, we can contemplate, in all its dramatic reality, “the Crucified One” just as Mary and John saw him from the foot of the Cross, and so truly fathom just how immense was Jesus’s love for each one of us.”
Prof. Antonio Cassanelli
Diocesan Center of Sindonology