The Man of the Shroud

The "Man of the Shroud" (as it has been always named)  is an anatomical study based on the Shroud of Turin by Isabel Piczek, a noted monumental artist and theoretical physicist and a highly respected Shroud researcher.

This 24" X 5" bronze depicting Piczek's works captured my attention as I entered the Casa Nuovisima in Collegio San Pietro Apostolo. Placed on the right side of the staircase facing the main entrance of the house, one would never miss to notice the significance of it.  My own word to describe it is the "Humiliation of the Lord"..

"In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken up from the earth." (Acts 8:33)

On the Threshold

"Songs of Chokhamela"
Why have you thrown this challenge, god?
Solve this riddle of mine;
Enter my shoes, know in your own self:
An outcast, what rights do I enjoy?
Says Chokha, this low born human body
Every one drives away?


Chokhamela was a fourteenth-century untouchable saint-poet who belong to the varkari tradition of Maharashtra. These poems, the first expression of dalit poetry, express poignantly a peculiar dichotomy: the awareness of living at the margin, and God's need and love for him.