Torino

Certainly many of you have heard that the infamous Shroud of Turin will be on display for just over a month in Torino this year. The last time it was made available to the public to view was in 2000 with the next scheduled viewing in 2025.

To my great joy, the Archbishop in Torino made a request of Pope Benedict XVI to move the date up and he agreed. So, lo and behold, the one year of my life that I happen to live in Italy, is the year the Shroud will be displayed. Once in a lifetime. Many people are arranging to take trips to Italy just to get the chance to see it. I can't believe I just need train tickets. And I've got 'em! WOOOO HOOO!

I leave for Torino on Sunday, May 2nd (the day the Pope will be viewing the shroud!!!) to see it bright and early on Monday morning at 7 a.m. I will gladly take you and your prayer intentions with me as I travel. Please let me know how I can pray for you.

I am so excited. There is an exact copy of the Shroud here in Rome. I've honestly always poo poo'd the Shroud for some reason. I just did not understand what I would be seeing. When copies have been paraded around the US, I thought it silly to drive 100 miles to see it. I was on an entirely different mission the day I first saw the copy here. But more than a great deal of spectacular things I have seen, this stopped me in my tracks. In fact, I was moved to tears... to prayer... to sing. The words of Isaiah 53 rang in my mind as I looked at the pools of blood, the stripes... surely, he has born our griefs, carried our sorrows... now to stand before those same images caught in a burial shroud, THE burial shroud that was wrapped around the lifeless body of my Savior - what a gift.

Just making an attempt to keep you abreast of the goings on in Roman life!
<3 E