Implications of the photocomposition of the Holy Face05/06/2009home|previous|next
1. Acknowledgement of Jesus’ Divinity. To make appear photos of Himself, at different time, –86 years – and place, and that all of them coincide, can only be realized by divine intelligence and will. This seems to remark the photographer’s José Antonio Duch Manzano sequence obtained on 5 p.m. of the 6th of February 1999 when he was riding with Andrés Castellá Planch on way to Mineral el Chico, at El Mezquital, one of the poorest zones of Mexico. Both saw Jesus.

The second take is a full Theophany (God’s sensible manifestation to man), three lights that can be perfectly identified coincident in the Person: one, over the head, one in the heart and other, circling around the waist, which brings out (evokes) the vision of the Son of Man from Ezequiel (1,26-28) “ above the vault that was up over their heads, there was something like a zephyr stone in the form of throne, and over this throne form, over on the highest, a figure with human appearance. Afterward I saw like the brightness of the electro, something like a fire that formed a wrapping all around, what seemed to be his hips toward down, I saw something like fire that produced a splendor all around. It was something like the form of the Glory of Jehovah. At His sight I fell face on earth and Heard a voice speaking”.

On October of 2006 the author of this pictures, Antonio Duch Manzano wasn’t aware of this biblical quotation. Questioned if he could have seen the Face of the Person, in spite of the light wrapped around Him, he answered affirmatively, that he remembered him, “I’ll never be able to forget his Face”, and emphasized his look. Then he was sent all the pictures and the photocomposition, to point out from them if it was the Person who had been seen and which of the images corresponded better with Him, he answered that it was the Person he had seen and that the one from the photocomposition was the most and better corresponding with Whom he had seen when he took the pictures.

2. Eucharist adoration and repair. Three photos are united tied up in the Eucharistic Repair; Spain, Mexico and Rome. Thus Christ remarks His Presence in the Eucharist and his great pain for the contempt produced by those who disdain his sacrifice and in an unworthy way try to get near Him without dignity. His Face is the projection of His Substance and an exhort to seek and honor Him in the Eucharist, which is His Flesh and Blood given for our redemption. One of the qualities of the Lanciano’s (s. VIII) Eucharistic Miracle put in the balance: any single coagulum, that is, any single drop of coagulated blood weighs the same as the other four weigh.
The Eucharistic Miracles have taken place when the Priest, at Consecrating, doubts the transubstantiation is taken place, that is, that the bread becomes Christ’s Body, and the wine becomes his blood.

 

3. Unity. The united pictures conform a more definite Face, and even tridimensional, and from where a source of light can be photographed. Which evokes the prayer Jesus says to the Father previous to his Sacrifice “ I don’t pray only for these, but also for those who, by means of their word, will believe in Me, so they all become one. Like You, Father, In Me and Me in You, let them, too, be one in ourselves, so the world believes You have sent me” (Jn 17, 20). It’s, well, an urgent call to the unity of the Christians doing aside any difference, in the same way, respect to the pictures, the retouches or exposition, impression and copy defects of each picture in particular, become eliminated as they are superposed and thus achieve a one, sole, unique image. The actual example of force and unity is given to us by the Taize community, founded by Brother Roger Schutz and to whom Juan Pablo II called “Little spring of the Gospel”

4. Universality. The photocomposition is the benefit of all the coincident pictures, where even pictures of lower quality that could have been neglected, are incorporated; but this pictures also contribute to the final result.

 
 

 

5. Holiness. In the pictures, it looks as if the light that wraps the Face could have prevented the photographic detailed register, giving idea of the glory around Jesus, in such a way that 14 expositions and their combination were necessary in order to achieve a trustworthy image.

6. Call to the conversion, peace and concord. Seven pictures emerged from places that live violent and social dissolution moments. Paris, Mexico, Spain, Italy, Israel and Colombia 1st and 2nd.

7. Piety and mercy. Two photographs are the fruit of pilgrimages to the Holy Land and to Sanctuaries in Europe. Pilgrimages bring together piety and mercy, the love of God with the love of one’s brethren. In this respect, we learn a lesson from the testimony of Gloria Polo, who struck by lightning and during her clinical death was submitted to the examination of her life according to the Commandments of the Law of God prior to being confined to hell. At the last instant she invoked Jesus, who stopped her fall and showed her the reason why He would give her a second chance: Moved by the narration of the event in the newspapers, the humblest man in Colombia fell upon the ground and promised to God to be a pilgrim and travel to a Sanctuary at the other end of the country, if He took pity on that woman destroyed by lightning and let her live. Then he received from Jesus an imperious order: to repeat a thousand times a thousand that act of mercy; and at all times to be aware of the severity of His second trial. Recovered, his life is a continuous pilgrimage to narrate his testimony.

 
 

8. Friendship with God. Two photographs arose during personal prayer. There is no form of reaching intimacy with God, loving Him, living in the Presence of His Countenance and knowing Him in the fragile measurement of a single human life, only through prayer.

9. Faith and reason are complements not opponents. The photographic superposition is the method used by NASA with the pictures of the space telescope Hubble in order to be able to see the deep space. In this case, the this method has been useful to see Jesus’, and then with this photocomposition be able to compare the Shroud and the Shroud.