The Shroud Codex - Jerome R. Corsi [120]
IN THE PRIVATE chapel at the Turin Cathedral, everyone in the room felt paralyzed as they stood watching Father Bartholomew’s body twist before them into the final death throes of crucifixion. His body, unsupported by any footrest on the cross, sagged, with his knees jutting even more sharply and outward to the right as his body weight shifted down.
Then in shock, Dr. Castle and the others realized the stigmata wounds had opened again and had begun bleeding profusely on both Father Bartholomew’s wrists and feet. The long white robe hid what Dr. Castle was sure were the reopened scourge wounds. His suspicion was confirmed as the bleeding from an unseen crown of thorns began to flow heavily into the hair on the crown of Bartholomew head, with streams of blood pouring down his forehead into his eyes and soaking the long hair Bartholomew wore down to his shoulders.
Then the wound opened on his right side. Seeing this, Castle’s mind immediately made the connection. Father Bartholomew had just suffered the final wound of Christ’s passion and death. The centurion on Golgotha had just pierced his right side with his spear, puncturing his heart to make sure the crucified man was truly dead. A mixture of blood and clear fluid poured from Father Bartholomew’s right side, producing a large, bloody stain—precisely where the spear mark was also evident in the man on the Shroud stretched behind the priest. Bartholomew suffered in his own body the final death throes of Christ, crucified two thousand years before.
BACK ON THE hill of his death outside Jerusalem, Bartholomew felt nothing form the spear, but he heard, as if his soul were receding rapidly out of his body, another centurion proclaim, “Truly this man was the Son of God.” The earth shook from a sudden earthquake and the sky turned to pitch black as lightning and thunder framed the horizon. The last person Bartholomew saw before his spirit completely departed his wrecked and twisted body was his mother, standing in tears at the foot of the cross. At that instant the veil of the temple was rent in two, from the top to the bottom.
IN THE TURIN chapel, Bartholomew’s hung body began levitating once again. Castle strained his eyes, but somehow a burst of radiant light that he did not understand began extruding from Bartholomew’s wracked body.
Spellbound and unable to comprehend what they were experiencing, everyone in the room was equally frozen in a combination of wonder and fear. Castle’s mind raced back to Dr. Bucholtz’s comment that the image had been transferred to the Shroud in a blinding flash of almost pure light, shining brilliantly. Could that be happening again?
Frantically, Ferrar’s camera crew made sure they were capturing what was happening, both with the high-definition camera they had brought to document the Shroud and with their mobile equipment. Ferrar’s heart beat rapidly. Whatever was happening, he was willing to bet the next few moments would make him famous worldwide.
Levitating now at the level of the Shroud, with his back to the Shroud, Father Bartholomew’s body suddenly went horizontal, at a distance of about three feet above the floor. Instantly as he reached horizontal, a plane of pulsing blue light crossed through his body from head to toe, rotating him so he faced outward into the room, still completely levitated, with his back facing the Shroud.
Silently, Father Bartholomew’s robe disappeared in a burst of radiance, leaving him completely naked. Bartholomew’s left hand folded across his right hand, with the fingers modestly covering his pelvic area. All the wounds were now clearly visible on Bartholomew’s tortured body. With Bartholomew levitated against the Shroud