was shown to the child

Group Captain Leonard Cheshire, VC, continues his account of how he and little Josie WooIlam, who suffered from osteomyelitis, travelled to Turin in the hope that if she touched the covering of the Holy Shroud she might be cured.
THE SEVEN official guardians of the Holy Shroud in Turin Cathedral had explained to Josie and me that the casket in which it was sealed and locked would be taken out of the safe for her to touch, but there could be no question of the casket itself being opened.
As a personal wish, Cardinal Fossatti, Archbishop of Turin, said he would like each of us to go to Confession, and that he would pray hard for a miracle to be granted, "if my prayers are found worthy."
At a little after 4 o'clock, when everything was ready, the doors at the foot of the long flight of stairs leading from the south aisle of the Cathedral to the Royal Chapel were locked. In addition to the Cardinal and ourselves, a dozen or so people were present — mostly priests. The two outer doors of the safe above the altar were already unlocked and a table covered with a white cloth on top of which was to be put the casket had been placed in position.
Josie, who was now wearing her white "wedding dress," was wheeled next to the Cardinal and just in front of the table. She had brought some red roses which she wanted to put on the altar.
After a few minutes' prayer led by the Cardinal, two of the priests climbed the steps that had been placed in readiness at the altar and with three separate keys opened the three locks of the inner safe that held the Shroud itself.
With infinite care they lifted out an embroidered casket about four foot long and seven inches deep and, assisted by others of the clergy, placed it on the table in front of the Cardinal and Josie. After another moment of silence and prayer, the casket was then placed on Josie's lap. Everybody's eyes were riveted on Josie, who had both her hands on the casket. It was evident that it was not the casket that she wanted to touch, but the Shroud itself, and she turned to the Cardinal and asked if it could be opened.
The Cardinal summoned the guardians, each of whom examined the seals on the casket very closely to see if anything could be done without disturbing them. And then the Cardinal asked the Sacristan to bring a pair of scissors.
The silk tape was cut, the very tightly fitting lid carefully opened and a roll of red silk bound by more tape and heavily sealed was brought out and placed on Josie's lap. She asked if it could be placed on her leg, and this wish too was granted. Finally she was allowed to put her hand as far as she could inside the silk covering, and the Shroud was replaced in the casket.
There followed the lengthy business of re-scaling the casket, each of the guardians adding his signature on the appropriate card, and when the two safes were locked to everyone's satisfaction, the proceedings were over.
Josie told the Cardinal that she was feeling much better, to which he replied that he was very pleased. As he left the chapel he turned and gave Josie a long, kindly look.
You could, I readily admit, look upon this as the only thing that Josie could have said -a normal, polite way of thanking the Cardinal and the others for all the trouble they had taken. But in fact a very remarkable change had come over Josie. even though outsvardlv she looked exactly as she had been before. To begin with she stopped talking about herself and about what it would be like when she walked again altogether.
Instead she talked about the Shroud, and at one stage on the homeward journey said in a much more thoughtful and profound way than I had ever known her talk before: "If only the Shroud could be brought out and hung up so that all the world could come and see it. What good that would do."
In a way it was similar to the phenomenon that one notices in many people who go to Lourdes. They set off obviously longing for a miracle, then they come back pleased that they never received one because they had seen how much greater were the needs of others. Instead they seem to acquire a new
peace and serenity, a strength with which to carry the burden of their disability or illness which they had not previously known.
Josie's family and th'ose who knew her had feared. as I had, that there would be a great reaction if her hope was not fulfilled, and they were astonished at the new Josie who now no longer clamoured for something that she did not possess.
But I was left with the impression that Josie had, so to speak, "gone wider-ground.Although she never to my knowledge mentioned it again, but only reiterated he her hope that anyone that wanted could go arid see the Shroud for himself, I do not belivc that she ever let go of her faith that one day she would be able to walk again It has taken a long time. but at long last both her wishes have been grAnted. In answer to the almost unceasing demands of scholars and others of many different religious faiths and none, and From both sides of the Atlantic, the Shroud has already been brought out once to be filmed, photographed and looked at by whoever wanted It is shortly to be brought out again for a still longer period and I doubt whether it will ever be relegated to the same inaccessihility as when Josie put her request to the Cardinal.
In any ease it will be available to the world over on countless feet of videotape and photographic film of every sort and description as well as becoming the subject of a highly co-ordinated series of scientific tests and examinations.
At the time when Josic expressed her wish on our homeward jouriie I do not
thing that anything could have seemed more unlikely than all this. The world of sindonology (as the study of the Shroud is called) was almost giving up hope that the authorities would ever allow the scientists to examine it.
As for her first wish. Josie, though still a little frail in health. is able to walk more or less where shc wants. A few years ago silt walked unaided up to the altar rails as a bride and is now the proud mother of a strong and healthy son.
What put it into her head that all this would come about if only she could touch the Shroud. I do not know, Neither does her mother nor even Josie herself. Perhaps with all the diamatie publicity that the Shroud is now receiving, we need the siinple testimony of a child to remind us that the Shroud is above everything else a spiritIzal statement with a spiritual message
For me personally the Man of the Shroud is supremely the man of faith, the man whom no suffering in the power of his enemies to inflict can divert from his purpose, the roan who when his whole life's work has collapsed around him, even in the moment or death, knows that God's promise will be fulfilled.
The faith that moves mountains, I believe, is a matter not of the quality or perhaps the intensity of the faith one has, but of continuing to have faith even when everything seems lost. Moreover, 1 have become suspicious of the sudden and the spectacular. More often than not the best things happen in a way that the eye does not detect, like devr falling on the autumn grass. This, for me, is the message that little Josie has to tell.