Fr. Lombardi Editorial: Behold the Man!

(01 May 10 – RV) Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims have flocked to Turin in recent weeks to spend a few minutes in silent meditation before the Holy Shroud, contemplating the image of the tortured body of a crucified man. This fact repeats itself whenever the ancient cloth is exposed to the public and even the most recent Popes have joined devout pilgrims.
It is not the mysterious origin of this image that draws people to it, rather its impressive consistency in so many minute details, to the Gospel story of Christ’s Passion: the wounds, the spilt blood, the gashes of the crown of thorns, the lashes of the whip . "Behold the man!" Said Pilate presenting Jesus to the crowd. Behold the man who died on the cross for us, we repeat to ourselves as we stand at first troubled and then wondrous before this, the most concrete image of the Passion.
And at the centre the solemn face of the crucifix, a face that corresponds to the oldest dictates of Christian iconography and which in turn confirms and inspires it. Benedict XVI constantly reminds us; We want to know God and we can know Him through the face of Christ. This is why we love the images that tradition hold to be precious paths to glimpse this face, both in Manoppello and in Turin. We know that we must look beyond the image, we must desire to behold the Risen One face to face. But we are humbly grateful for this aid to our earthly eyes which helps us to contemplate unconditional love for us, right up to death on the cross.