An Unexpected Encounter

When I first made plans this last November to go on pilgrimage from my home in Rome to various holy sites in Italy, I didn’t have the Holy Face of Manoppello on the itinerary. I had never so much as heard of it. Then suddenly during the two days before setting out, three people separately mentioned this image to me. It was hardly even out of our way. Since this “previously unknown image (to me)” was such a last-minute add-on, my amazement was all the greater when I stood before it!

Enthusiasm reached a peak in the gift shop thanks to a cheap little “lenticular motion card” (also known as a holographic image card) where the image you see changes depending on your viewing angle. First you see the face from the Shroud of Turin, which is the mysterious burial cloth of Jesus Christ. Then you slightly tip it and encounter the Holy Face of Manoppello looking at you. It’s stunning to witness a perfect alignment of all the facial features: the broken nose, the gash on the forehead, same eyebrows and cheeks etc.! However, while Our Lord’s eyes are closed in the Shroud of Turin, they are open in the Holy Face of Manoppello. His lips appear to be open, and you have the impression that he is about to speak.

Since we hadn’t researched this image in advance, we manifested our ignorance to the Capuchin Friar on hand: “What is this image? Is it painted?” Turns out that it has neither paint nor blood on it and science cannot explain how the image got there. The material of the cloth is also rather peculiar: it’s woven out of clam spit! The polite term is sea Byssus, a silk thread that comes from certain kinds of mollusks. Back in the time of Jesus this was a very precious type of material and remains so today, especially because there are only a few people left in this world who know how to harvest and weave it.

Photos don’t do justice to the pinkness of Our Lord’s cheeks. That’s what at first made me doubt the authenticity of the cloth: the vivid pink color seemed exaggerated. But then I was reminded of what happens to people recovering from a fainting spell. People pass out because of a loss of blood to the head. They go white in the face when the blood drains out. Crimsoned cheeks are a sign of the return of oxygen and consciousness. The Shroud of Turin shows a dead man, while the Holy Face of Manoppello could very well be displaying the first instant of his revival from the dead with blood once more flushing back into his head and face.

Pope Benedict XVI was fascinated by the theme of seeking God’s face and preached about this on numerous occasions. He would speak about the incessant search of the Israelites to see God’s face. Just a little more than a month before resigning as pope he said:

Pope Benedict goes on to observe how Jesus Christ manifests the face of God. “Whoever has seen me has seen the father” (Jn 14:9). The longing of every person, whether they are aware or not, is to look upon the face of God, so it is marvelous that we can do so in gazing at Jesus Christ. How merciful of him to leave us impressions of his very face in relation to both his death and his Resurrection. These two faces align perfectly, teaching us that we are near to him on account of his suffering out of love for us, and that we are also near to him in our hope of sharing in his Resurrection with him one day. Two different angles of one hope of salvation!

Early in his papacy Pope Benedict had visited the Holy Face of Manoppello and a year after that wrote a prayer in memory of his pilgrimage there, including this invocation:

In this month of March, we have begun our penitential Lenten journey towards Easter. Only in the Christian religion is it possible to discover the redemptive power of suffering, of picking up our cross and following after the One who beckons us onwards, waiting with open arms to embrace us forever. “Christ’s love expands our hearts through the measure of the pain we have suffered for and offered to him … A work of God grows according to the amount of suffering that is transformed into love…” (Servant of God Chiara Lubich, Magnificat, March 2025, page 165). Let’s keep our internal gaze fixed on the Holy face of the eternal Word who never ceases to speak life-giving words to us, and it would do us good to look with love upon the Word made Flesh as he appears in the Shroud of Turin and the Holy Face of Manoppello.

Written by,
Dr. Joan Kingsland*,
Fellow & Theological Consultant
for Ruah Woods Institute

*Joan Kingsland SThD, has been a member of the Society of Apostolic Life, the Consecrated Women of Regnum Christi since 1993. She earned licentiate and doctoral degrees in moral theology at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family in Rome, as well as a Bachelor of Arts degree from Thomas Aquinas College, and a Master of Arts degree from the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto. She taught moral theology and Catechetics at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Cincinnati from 2016-2018, moral theology at Mater Ecclesiae College in Rhode Island from 2006-2015, and Catholic Faith Formation, grades 5-10 at the Highlands School in Dallas, Texas from 2002-2006. During the academic year she resides in Rome and teaches the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church at Regina Apostolorum Seminary, and in the summer returns to Cincinnati to work in person at Ruah Woods Institute to help in developing curriculum, training, and formation for educators K-12 to become witnesses and passionately understand and teach Theology of the Body to their students.

Holy Face Images from the Holy Face Photo Gallery