With regard to our Blessed Father's explanation of his special devotion
to the Holy Winding Sheet, as connected with circumstances preceding his
birth, I may here say a few words.
He was born, as you know, on the 21st of August, 1567. His mother was
then very young, not quite fifteen, and frail and delicate in health. It
happened that at that very time the Holy Winding Sheet, then in the Chapel
of Chambery, was, by command of His Highness of Savoy, and at the request
of the Princess Anne d'Este, wife, by her second marriage, of James of
Savoy, Duke of Nemours and Prince of Geneva, brought to Annecy. Charles,
Cardinal of Lorraine, and Louis, Cardinal of Guise, were at the time at
Annecy, where the sacred relic was displayed with great solemnity and
exposed to the veneration of the multitudes who flocked to the place from
all parts.
Among these crowds came the father and mother of Blessed Francis, and we
may well believe that God made use of this holy relic to imprint upon both
the mother and the unborn child some special influence of grace.
There is another winding sheet at Besancon (for our Lord was buried
in two, Holy Scripture itself suggesting this by the use of the word
_linteamina_,[1] linen cloths), that city being the metropolis of the
ecclesiastical province, in which the Bishopric of Belley is situated.
One day when our Blessed Father was passing by the place the authorities
had the relic exposed in his honour, and begged him to preach upon the
subject. He did so, with tears of emotion and such a torrent of vehement
eloquence, as went straight to the hearts of all who listened to him.
In his own diocese he took care to have the feast of the Holy Winding Sheet
kept in all the churches. He generally himself preached on that day, and
always with much feeling and devotion.
He had a most special devotion to the Holy Winding Sheet, as it is to be
seen at Turin. He had it copied or represented in all sorts of different
ways, or, I should rather say, by all sorts of different arts; in
embroidery, in oil painting, in copperplate, in coloured engraving, in
miniature, in demi-relief, in etching. He had it in his chamber, his
chapel, his oratory, his study, his refectory; in a word, everywhere.
On one occasion I asked him the reason of this. He answered: "It is the
great treasure of the House of Savoy, the defence of the country; it is our
great relic; more than this, it is the miraculous picture of the sufferings
of Jesus Christ, traced with His own blood. And then, too, I have a special
reason for my devotion to this holy relic, seeing that before I was born my
mother dedicated me to our Lord, while contemplating this sacred standard
of salvation.
"It is said that he who carries the standard into battle, rather than
surrender it to the enemy, should wrap its folds round his body and glory
in so dying. Ah! What a happiness it would he if we could thus fold round
about us the Holy Winding Sheet, buried with Jesus Christ for love of Him,
in whom we are buried by baptism."
[Footnote 1: Luke xxiv. 12.]