I have posted before on my blogs various statements on the importance of getting all the facts from multiple sources before reaching a conclusion. Today, with everyone staying out of physical touch with other people due to Covid (and eventually the real science will prevail with this horror) this may give us the opportunity to "do our homework" on a Saint that has many people using his feast day as an excuse to celebrate in profusion. 

I am not going to discuss the science behind viruses or masks, (however, only N95 mask will really work, the thin ones are a false sense of security and that is the science from years prior) I want to use the extra at home time to point out some facts and subjective conclusions about Saint Patrick.

His feast day is upon us every March and celebrating is great, however doing so to just get wasted, is not. ​Matthew Kelly wrote: "Don't let a selfish and irresponsible momentary lapse in judgment on your part, create a lifetime of pain and suffering."

Working in tandem with these words we should all know the life and facts about the REAL MAN called Saint Patrick. Immediately one would realize that spending his feast day consuming alcohol is far from any of the virtues St. Patrick lived and died for. It will behoove everyone, as they celebrate St. Patrick's Day, to learn the amazing feats about this holy man. I promise that if you do, you will not spend your time in a bar getting drunk, you will be helping to serve meals at a soup kitchen or hosting a get together (when the virus is over) to honor St. Patrick with benevolent deeds.

St. Patrick won his converts by miraculous acts. Period. How else can anyone explain the conversions? Not one or two individuals converted, but Irish chieftain, after chieftain and their tribes accepted the Catholic faith proclaimed by St. Patrick. Even more mind warping is the fact that these people then rejected their Druidic gods, because St. Patrick brought them no secular advantages as an exchange.

These tribes of people saw and believed that St. Patrick was a man of miraculous power. A power found in the countless Irish legends. If St. Patrick was unable to do miracles, he would have been put to death on day one. What St. Patrick really was to each chieftain, was a threat to their rule. Why would they convert? One word: Miracles.

So do we really need additional proof on who was St. Patrick? His famous prayer "St. Patrick's Breastplate" offers a glimpse into this saint's mind and heart. A man devoted to the Trinity, which legend tells us that he taught this to the Irish and to orthodox Catholicism by means of the shamrock. He was a man of monastic prayer and penance. Go now, accomplish great deeds on his feast day. Do not just believe, know, and great things will happen.

​- LJ
Author of UPPER ROOM, THE WAY: 33AD to 57AD
All Author and Publisher's profits go to help the poor from sales of this Historical Novel

- LJ
Author of UPPER ROOM, THE WAY: 33AD to 57AD
All Author and Publisher's profits go to help the poor from sales of this Historical Novel

​My Publisher, BBV Publishing, first came to work with Barrie Schwortz when editing my historical novel Upper Room, The Way: 33AD to 57AD by L. J. Williams. Mr. Schwortz was a valuable source that provided confirmation and insight on various points of research that I was working on. From this collaboration started in 2012, Barrie's first visit to New York in 2014 and now these Special Events in 2016 were arranged.

- LJ
Author of UPPER ROOM, THE WAY: 33AD to 57AD
All Author and Publisher's profits go to help the poor from sales of this Historical Novel

​EWTN broadcasted a documentary called The Holy Winding Sheet: Exploring the Shroud of Turin.

When Parker Dow was a high school senior at a Catholic school in St. Louis, he began his investigation into the Shroud of Turin as part of his senior thesis. To his surprise, most of his friends had never heard of this cloth called the Shroud of Turin. For me this isn't a surprise. Throughout my life and wherever I visited, few know about the last miracle Jesus did for us today, while on Earth 2,000 years ago. A full body photograph of Jesus Himself called The Shroud of Turin.

The media is mostly to blame for this, because they milk the controversies to make money year after year with specials or articles that all end the same way... "We may never know." But we do know! Virtually all experts agree the Shroud of Turin is the linen cloth that wrapped the crucified body of Jesus Christ. 

When Parker Dow made his documentary, that is around 50 minutes long, my publisher at BBV Publishing was already good friends with Barrie Schwortz, the scientific photographer on the 1978 STURP team. Barrie provided some input for my historic novel: Upper Room, The Way. In Parker's documentary he interviews several Shroud experts and Barrie is one of them.

Overall, the documentary is done professionally and is great for introducing details about the Shroud for the first time to teenagers or any adult who doesn't know about the Shroud of Turin. There are a few sections of some interviews with the experts that hit a monotone delivery, but this doesn't deter from the presented facts.

Some KEY take aways and notes from Dow's documentary are:

• How the four Shroud experts came to believe that this cloth covered the historical Jesus.
• One of the strongest facts that disproves all those who claim this cloth is fake.*

*The fact that when viewing the Shroud under ultraviolet light you see what is invisible to the unaided eye. What forger, some 800 years ago, would know about or even know how to make bodily fluids invisible to the eye, but visible in the future when ultraviolet light was invented? What forger would even know about this clear bodily serum over half a century before modern medical science did? These facts should have behooved Dow to state them again and in more detail.

The documentary also traces the Shroud’s journey from Jerusalem to Turin and looks at the controversial 1988 carbon test. An amazing view of the last miracle Jesus did for us to see and hold today, a miracle done at His last second of physically existence on Earth 2,000 years ago.

- LJ
Author of UPPER ROOM, THE WAY: 33AD to 57AD
All Author and Publisher's profits go to help the poor from sales of this Historical Novel

Lent is upon us and Easter is soon to arrive, but first is Good Friday, the day our Lord was crucified.
I ventured out to see a matinee showing of the new movie Risen and all involved did an excellent production. From realistic scenes to the acting surrounded by so much death. The anticipated ending portrayed between the Roman Tribune and Jesus is the uplifting moment all desire.

Yet after all the research I did, both secular and faith based, for my Historical Novel called UPPER ROOM, THE WAY: 33AD to 57AD, I wondered why a fictional story of a Roman Tribune was created when we have data of two Roman Centurions directly involved. We even know their names: Centurion Petronius who guarded Jesus’ tomb and Centurion Longinus who oversaw the crucifixion.

Additional items in the movie had no historical data to support the presentation, such as the Emperor of Rome visiting Jerusalem just after Jesus’ resurrection by way of a river that doesn’t exist. Also digging up Jewish graves to find a body for the missing Jesus would have caused riots in the streets and this would have been duly noted in both secular and religious records. I personally was disappointed to just see Jesus appearing only to the apostles all the time especially when data tells of Jesus appearing to hundreds, especially in Galilee.

On April 19th of 2015 Jesus' burial Shroud, also known as the Shroud of Turin, was placed on display for the public to view until June 24th of the same year. This rare exposition of Jesus' Shroud gave time for more than 2 Million people to look upon Jesus' Shroud.

Jesus' Shroud in Turin is the most scientifically studied artifact in the history of humankind. About 14 feet long and three-and-a-half feet wide, the Shroud holds the front and back image of a brutally tortured and crucified man. This artifact has been venerated by Christians for two thousand years as the burial shroud of Jesus. Yet, the Catholic Church or any other Christian religion as I know, has not taken an official position stating that the Shroud is authentic. Now I know, a claim of authenticity does not have anything to do with those of faith believing and living the way Jesus taught us. Nevertheless, since all unpretentious people and scientist knowledgeable of all the "unspun" facts about the Shroud claim authenticity, I am now calling the Shroud of Turin what it is... Jesus' burial Shroud. In addition, since all efforts in every discipline over 35 years has failed to reproduce the same exact image, I am using one word to explain how the image appeared... Resurrection.

Coinciding with this public viewing, Pope Francis covered the logistics so homeless people from the city of Rome, could travel and visit Jesus' Shroud before he would visit. Then during the papal visit to Jesus' Shroud, Pope Francis met with workers, farmers, businesspeople, the sick and disabled.

When Pope Francis entered the cathedral and look upon Jesus' Shroud for the first time, he spent several minutes praying beside the display. Upon leaving, he approached and touched the reliquary. Afterwards in Turin's Piazza Vittorio Veneto, the pontiff said, “The Shroud attracts (us) toward the martyred face and body of Jesus. At the same time, it pushes (us) toward the face of every suffering and unjustly persecuted person. It pushes us in the same direction as the gift of Jesus’ love.”

Last week the public display concluded for Jesus' Shroud with celebrating Mass. The next time Jesus' Shroud will be made available to view is unknown.

After 35 years of real peered reviewed science, we know the Shroud is NOT a painting, NOT a scorch, NOT a photograph, and NOT a fake from a few hundred years ago. Carbon Dating tests were done on a cotton repair job performed around the mid 1300s. So the test was right, but then wrong, because the whole body of the Shroud is Linen, not cotton. Dozens of additional facts show the Shroud to be 2000 years old including a second cloth in Spain with records going back to 400AD. This cloth is known as the Sudarium of Oviedo. The "exact" same blood stains and bodily fluid marks from around the face on the Shroud match the ones on the Sudarium. The reason is because the cloth covered the same person... Jesus. All unpretentious scientists know this data.


Skeptics, are now sacrificing any creditability grasping at singular points to state the Shroud is a medieval forgery, while ignoring the multitude of facts that prove otherwise. The biggest fact ignored is the one against the claim that a medieval forgery was done to fool the primitive minds of the times. The fact is that whatever was done in the 1300s we can do better and faster today with all our technology, but somehow after 35 years and thousands of tests, we can NOT duplicate the image with all its properties on the Shroud. No modern day mind with today's technology or even with old 14th century crafts can reproduce the image on the Shroud.

In the end, an unpretentious mind will realize who else could this cloth cover other than Jesus. His legs were not broken, He wore a cap of thorns and He rose from the dead leaving an image on his Shroud as the last miracle to be fully understood today with our modern technology. Only because of the resurrection, a new faith was born and His followers were eventually called Christians. For two thousand years their faith grew and they didn't need to see Jesus' Shroud.

- LJ
Author of UPPER ROOM, THE WAY: 33AD to 57AD
Author and Publisher's profits go to help the poor from sales of this Historical Novel.

I received the booklet on the left upon entering the event at St. John's University. The theater was at capacity except for a few unoccupied seats. Media was present, some security, professors, priests, nuns, church groups and many students of science, photography, theology or philosophy majors.

Barrie Schwortz was introduced by my publisher and proceeded to passionately talk for just over two hours. Not one human in that audience comprehended the passing of that much time. Ironically, words spoken in Mr. Schwortz introduction referenced our current realm in time and space. Then when the presentation concluded, time and space seemed to have stood still. This attribute can only describe presentations that are professional, exciting, intriguing, joyous, serious, factual, casual and astonishing. Mr. Schwortz meets all this criteria and more.

I was happy that my historical novel Upper Room The Way, played a small part in this event and I hope some in the audience download the story. I am proud that not only I, but also my publisher will make all proceeds go to those who are in need.

I left, as I arrived, knowing as Mr Schwortz knows... This is not about us, it is about the Son of God. Thus, I am in agreement with the whispers I heard in the audience about Barrie Schwortz:
"He is a modern day prophet."

- LJ
Author of UPPER ROOM, THE WAY: 33AD to 57AD
Author and Publisher's profits go to help the poor from sales of this Historical Novel.