Following the recent public display of the Shroud, there is great interest in the ancient linen cloth in Japan. Fr Compri, who has already written a book on the Shroud, being contacted by an important publishing house interested in producing a new book asked himself a simple question: if the first books on the Shroud were written in Japan in 1936 and 1949, who was the first to mention it and write about it?
Fr Compri this year found in the archive of the Salesian house of Valsalice, a hundred or so unpublished letters of Fr Cimatti. The were almost all addressed to his friend and ordination companion Fr Antonio Tonelli who, together with Fr Noguier De Malijay Noël, also at Valsalice in those years, was a well-known enthusiast and scholar of the Shroud. It is certain that Fr Cimatti, frequently in contact with him inherited from him as the newly discovered letters show, a passion for the sacred linen.
Two years after his arrival in Japan Fr Cimatti wrote to Fr Tonelli on 4 April 1928 asking him for some holy pictures. On 6 June 1928 he repeated: “Send me pictures of the H Shroud: I now have a monthly magazine and could make it known for the good of souls”. The “magazine” in question was the monthly “Don Bosco” started on 24 May of the same year. It is still published in Japan today with the title “Catholic Life”, and is the best known Catholic magazine in Japan. On 4 July he wrote gratefully acknowledging the receipt of the pictures he had asked for. It should be noted that the pictures of the Shroud at that time were those produced in 1898 by Secondo Pia with an explanation in French. For the Exposition in 1931, on the orders of the Royal House of Savoy, Giuseppe Enrie photographed the Shroud and produced new and more detailed images.
On the occasion of the 1931 Exposition, Fr Cimatti wrote a leading article about it in the July issue of “Don Bosco”. This was the first presentation of the Shroud in Japan. The Japanese name used nowadays for the Shroud did not exist then, and Fr Cimatti tried to describe it as a “funeral cloth,” but understood as “Shroud” This was a novelty.
Fr Cimatti’s passion is also witnessed by other episodes. During the 1933 Exposition, his student Giuseppe Grigoletto wrote a hymn on the Shroud and asked Fr Cimatti to set it to music. On 10 July he replied: “Your hymn? I’ve done it with great joy as a small act of homage to Jesus. Your pupils can sing it. It’s a popular sort of tune. I had no desire for anything too elevated. If you like, if it can be used by someone to praise Jesus then great!” Then in a letter of 12 August he wrote: “Your hymn is beautiful, my music more beautiful and those who will sing it will praise the Lord - which is even more beautiful!”
After Cav. G. Bruner from Trento in 1934, basing himself on the photo of Enrie, produced a face of Jesus similar to that on the Shroud, Fr Cimatti before and after the War, on several occasions, ordered a number of copies and had them distributed in Japan. Some he distributed personally, and others he placed in Catholic bookshops in Tokyo.
Published 14/07/2010
