01x02 - Holy Grail

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The people

of Manoppello feel in a very visceral way

the presence of the Holy Face

Just like a God who protects their lives.

It is a true miracle.

I remember very well

the first time I saw the Holy Face.

And it was a wonderful feeling.

Because when I came face to face

with this extraordinary face of Jesus

I felt loved in a very powerful way.

We are faced with the first moment

of the resurrection

of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ciao.

I have lived in Manoppello since birth.

- Good morning. How you doing?

- Hey.

Were you waiting for me?

So for 67 years

I only left town for a few years to work.

Otherwise, I've always lived here

with my family.

The Holy Face has always

been a part of my life

ever since I was a kid.

Then, during some difficult moments

I do believe that the Holy Face

has protected my family.

For three generations.

My father, myself,

and my daughter especially.

Certainly, we've all been helped a lot.

It takes courage

to say this word "miracle."

But miracles do exist.

We are in Piazza Marcinelle,

named after the town in Belgium,

where, in the 1950s,

many of Manoppello's men went to work

in the mines, including my father.

My father was a devotee of the Holy Face.

One day, he couldn't go down the mine

because the doctor hadn't given him

his authorization note,

and he told him,

"Instead of going down

at 6:00 in the morning,"

you'll go down in the afternoon at 2:00."

So he didn't go down.

And this was the moment he was saved.

The face of disaster here

where a burning Belgian coal mine

trapped some 260 miners

half a mile under the surface.

Rescue teams fight a grim battle

against fire, smoke,

and deadly carbon monoxide.

In the morning,

the mine was burning,

so he wouldn't have survived.

Fortunately for me,

my father returned and started his family.

Certainly, I believe my father was helped

by the sacred face of Jesus,

by the Holy Face.

From the very beginning of Christianity,

relics have been considered

to be miracle workers.

They are perceived

to have the ability to cure people,

protect people, to protect entire cities.

Relics can provide, basically,

a direct line to God,

to be able to say "I need help,"

and God will be able to hear you better

than if you were just

praying at your local church.

The Holy Face

has been associated with miracles

right from the very beginning

of its story.

The greatest miracle of all

takes place in 33 AD

in Jesus' tomb after his crucifixion.

Two days later,

when the disciples

return to the tomb to pray,

they find the stone at the entrance

rolled away

and Jesus' body gone.

Only his burial cloths and veil remain.

Seeing this, they are convinced

that Jesus has risen from the dead.

It's said that inside the tomb,

when the Holy Spirit arrived,

it emanated a light as strong as the sun.

It brought Christ back to life,

and overturned the stone of the tomb.

It left the image of the Lord

imprinted on the inside of the cloth.

Of course, I am convinced

that this is the face of Jesus

and indeed a miracle.

The fact that

that symbol of devotion

has been imbued with the credence

of thousands and thousands of people

for centuries and centuries

is a powerful thing.

For the last four centuries,

the veil has been protected

by Manoppello's order of Capuchin friars,

who live behind the church.

There is a fascinating legend

about how the Holy Face arrived

here in Manoppello.

The legend is told for the first time

in this text, "The Historical Report"

written in 1645 by Father Donato da Bomba,

preacher and Capuchin friar.

The story goes that in 1506,

a mysterious pilgrim

suddenly appears in Manoppello,

carrying a parcel.

The stranger interrupts a group of elders.

He asks to speak privately

to the town's physician, Dr. Leonelli,

and tells him it's a secret matter

of huge importance.

The doctor breaks down in tears

and turns to find the stranger

has disappeared into thin air,

making him wonder whether the pilgrim

might have been an angel.

Legends about the veil's miraculous powers

have been told

ever since its magical arrival.

And they're still being told today.

The Holy Face helped me, too.

Forty-six years ago,

I was based in Gemona

because I was in the military.

We had a barracks there.

And I was in a group that was sent away.

There was a strike

and instead of coming back in the evening,

we left early the next morning.

And we found this huge tragedy.

An earthquake.

And slowly, we realized

our military comrades

had been trapped under the rubble.

And searching for a dead comrade,

I found myself pulling out

my own clothes from the rubble.

And that has left a mark on me.

Because that strike

might not have even happened.

And if there'd been no strike,

I would not have come back to Manoppello.

Deep inside, I believe the Holy Face

helped me and saved me.

Non-believers would say

we are crazy to believe

that there's something in objects,

but it is the opposite.

Of course miracles can happen

through objects,

because when we relate

to a sacred artifact,

our heart is open.

There's a relation to God, directly.

So, of course, through the relic,

God may act.

Faith in the Catholic Church

says that miracles happen all the time,

and every time you take communion,

that's a miracle, because

when that bit of wafer is blessed,

it becomes the literal Body of Christ.

And so if you believe that,

then the leap to the power of objects

touched by Christ

is really not that far.

Relics have always

been associated with miracles.

But there's one relic above all others

that's rumored to heal all wounds,

grant everlasting happiness,

and deliver eternal youth.

The Holy Chalice,

better known as the Holy Grail.

It's the ultimate object of desire,

hunted for centuries

by kings, scholars, and believers.

I think finding the Holy Grail

is so important to so many believers

because it is the most direct

connection to Jesus.

We're talking about

the cup that he drank out of

in one of his most trying moments

during his life.

The story

of this most sought-after of relics

begins in the upper room

of a house in Jerusalem,

where Jesus gathers his disciples

for a meal.

As they eat, Jesus declares

that he will soon be betrayed

by one of them

and be k*lled.

He fills a cup with wine,

says, "This is my blood,"

and shares it among the 12 men.

The whereabouts of the Holy Grail

have been a mystery ever since.

Finding that Grail would, I think,

validate the faith of so many people,

showing that this is true

and that my faith is real.

The search for the precious cup

reached fever pitch in the Middle Ages

with the story of King Arthur.

According to legend,

the king sent his knights

in search of the Holy Grail,

a mystical cup with miraculous powers.

Legend has it that the Holy Grail

can bring about eternal life.

It actually will make the old young again.

So, of course, this makes it

a tremendously compelling object.

The Holy Grail becomes this symbol

of not just Jesus, but adventure

adventure that imbues the adventurer

with a certain amount of power

if they can find the Grail.

Now three women claim

to have succeeded

where King Arthur failed.

Each believe they have discovered

the Holy Grail.

They have differing theories

as to where the Grail can be found,

but they all agree on one thing

that the cup of Christ is in Spain.

I am Dr. Ana Mafé García.

We are in Huesca right now

as we're celebrating

its patron saint, San Lorenzo.

The story of San Lorenzo

is the story of the Holy Grail.

The first time I heard

the story of San Lorenzo,

it was from my grandmother.

She said, "You have a challenge,"

because the history

of the Holy Grail and its journey

are not well enough known.

It's life's greatest journey.

We are at the monastery of Loreto.

This is the place

where San Lorenzo grew up.

The Priest Lorenzo left Huesca

around 257 AD and went to Rome,

where he became the archdeacon

and custodian of the Holy Grail.

When San Lorenzo

arrives in Rome in the 3rd Century,

Christianity is outlawed,

so priests use the cup in secret

to celebrate mass.

But by 258 AD,

Rome is bankrupt

and its emperor needs money.

Valerian launches a savage persecution

of all the Christians in the city,

determined to plunder their treasure.

Nothing is safe.

To save the most precious relic of all,

its custodian, Lorenzo, hides the Grail

and smuggles it out of Rome

under the cover of darkness.

He sends the cup to his family

for safekeeping

in the town of Huesca in Spain.

An act of defiance,

which he will pay for with his life.

Valerian orders Lorenzo

to be burned to death,

but the Holy Grail is safe.

During those days,

San Lorenzo shows proof of love

not only for the memory of Jesus,

but also for the Holy Grail,

the Holy Chalice.

I get emotional knowing

he is remembered in Huesca.

The legend says

that after Lorenzo

sent the Grail to Huesca,

it was hidden in monasteries

across the north of Spain

for over a thousand years,

before it was moved to

the city of Valencia in the 15th century,

where it can still be found

almost 600 years later.

The Vatican has hinted to the world

that the Valencia Grail

is the true cup of Christ.

Two different popes have visited the city

and used the Chalice to celebrate mass.

And Ana believes she has found the proof.

When I started to study this Holy Chalice,

I discovered that the Holy Chalice

is made of the stone sardius,

which has its origins in Judea.

Sardius signifies

the tribe from which Jesus came,

the House of David.

So I am convinced,

the cup Jesus had in his hands

is in Valencia Cathedral. Without a doubt.

But Ana's claim

that this is the true Holy Grail

is being challenged by another historian

in another Spanish city

400 miles to the north.

I love film.

I love history.

I love Harrison Ford.

Archaeology is the search for fact

not truth.

And I grew up with Indiana Jones.

Watching that film,

seeing Harrison Ford in the classroom,

reminds me of when I was a student.

So, when I was finishing my studies

to be a historian,

my classmate gave me a poster

of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,

and they told me, "You are going to be

someday our Indiana Jones,"

and I say, "Ha-ha! I think not."

It would not be made out of gold.

That's the cup of a carpenter.

Because I would

like to tell him,

"You are not right, Dr. Jones,"

because the Holy Grail

can't be created of wood,

like in the film.

There's only one way to find out.

I know that because

the cup of Christ is now in León,

in the Royal Palace of San Isidoro.

I was not looking for the Holy Grail.

I was looking for answers

about the origin of the Chalice of Urraca,

this Islamic object from Egypt

preserved here in San Isidoro.

And I could not find a reason

why this object was here,

because it was not a Spanish object.

And this is why

we sent an apprentice to Egypt,

to Al-Azhar in Cairo,

one of the most important

Muslim historical institutions,

and there they have

a lot of chronicles, documents.

When I received the first phone

from my colleague in Cairo,

he told me,

"Sit down and shut up."

And I said, "Shut up? Why shut up?"

And he said,

"The object is not as you expect

but the cup of Christ."

Wow.

And after the shock, we say,

"What exactly says the parchment, please?"

And the parchment says:

In the middle of the 11th century,

in Egypt there was a great famine.

The Caliph of Egypt asked for help

from the Islamic world

and received an answer

from King of Dénia in Spain,

a Muslim governor.

In 1055,

the King of Dénia sends food

to the starving people of Egypt.

In return, the Caliph of Egypt

writes to the king

to offer him the pick

of the treasures of his kingdom.

Looking to make peace

with his Christian neighbors,

the Muslim king replies,

"I want the most precious object

to give as a gift

to Ferdinand the Great, King of León."

And what better gift

to give a Christian king

than the cup of Christ?

We are in the cloister

of San Isidoro.

Here we have royal remains

of King Ferdinand and Queen Urraca.

And King Ferdinand the First

gave the Chalice,

the cup of Christ, that he has received,

and gave it to his daughter, Urraca.

And this is why the cup is called

"Chalice of Urraca."

This has the greatest claim

to be the Holy Grail,

more than other chalice around the world.

I believe the Holy Grail is here.

I believe that here is the cup of Christ.

There were many legends

about this Grail

The real Holy Grail

The Holy Grail, the cup that

is the Cup of Urraca.

The first time I saw it was years ago,

and it was not yet presented

as the Holy Grail,

wasn't singled out,

and now it's presented in a darkened room,

and everyone is very quiet.

And as people come in,

they have come there

to see it as the Holy Grail,

and there's silence and attentiveness

and there's kind of a reverent gaze.

They believe that that is something

that's going to be good for them.

That's going to help their soul.

Everything has changed.

I was taking a coffee right now,

and a lady came directly to us,

and she say,

"Excuse me. You are Margarita?"

I say, "Yes, lady, what do you want?"

And she say, "May I take your hands?"

"Because you have touched the Holy Grail."

"You have touched the cup of Christ."

So she take my hands

She say, "May I just"

Ah

For me, it's a very emotive moment,

and she say, "May I touch you?"

And I say, "Of course."

And I give her a hug and she say,

"Thank you, thank you, thank you."

And I start to cry. She and me.

And this is why any study

about relics is important,

because we are not just

researching about an object.

We are researching about an object

in front of which

many people put their hopes.

These two women

are both convinced

they've found the cup of Christ.

But that's not the end

of the controversy of the Holy Grail.

Now there's a third historian

who thinks she can settle the matter

once and for all.

At first, I wasn't interested

in the world of relics.

But with the Holy Grail,

it was appealing to me.

So I got into this world.

As a result of various investigations,

I can prove there is a key element

in the history of the Grail

that's been overlooked.

For over a thousand years,

this monastery,

chiseled out of the Pyrenean mountainside,

was home to a community

of devout Benedictine monks,

Monks charged with guarding

the secrets of the Holy Grail.

Secrets Catalina has been unraveling.

The investigation

carried out by Margarita Torres

is super interesting.

She wanted to show that the Chalice

was requested by the Emir of Dénia

to be taken to León in the 11th century.

This does not make any sense,

because there is a key element,

and that is the appearance

of a document from 1322.

This document is a request

made by James II of Spain

to the Sultan of Cairo

for a number of relics,

which included the Holy Grail.

The document from 1322 proves

that the Chalice did not arrive in León

on the dates indicated by Margarita.

Because on this date, 1322,

the chalice was still in Cairo.

If it wasn't, why would King James II

request it from the Sultan in Cairo?

If Catalina is right,

then the Grail wasn't given

to the King of León in the 11th century,

but was sent to Spain

by the Sultan of Cairo 300 years later

where for 70 years,

it was kept safe by the monks

here at San Juan de la Peña.

And Catalina has unearthed

another document in the archives,

which reveals where she believes

the Grail went next,

and where it can still be found.

In 1416,

the King Alfonso the Magnanimous

relocates the court

to the Royal Palace of Valencia

and some years later,

Alfonso took out a loan

from Valencia Cathedral

to finance the campaigns

he was carrying out in Italy

as stated in the document here.

As a guarantee,

he leaves in the Cathedral the Chalice

in which Jesus Christ

consecrated his blood on Holy Thursday.

That loan was never repaid,

and the relics remained in the Cathedral

from 1437 to the present.

All the different lines of research,

I think they all point towards Valencia

as the relic's destination.

And I think that speaks for itself.

Catalina is convinced, like Ana,

that the Valencia cup

is the real Holy Grail.

But unlike Ana,

she thinks it came to Spain

not in the 3rd century,

but over a thousand years later.

And she agrees with Margarita,

that it came not from Rome,

but from Egypt.

Elsewhere in the world

they say that they have the Holy Grail.

In Valencia, we humbly say, "Prove it!"

We are not in competition.

But this chalice,

because of its history and evidence,

is the cup with which Jesus Christ

celebrated the Last Supper.

Do we know if this is the real Holy Grail?

It's hard to say,

but, man, is it fun to speculate.

To me,

authenticity is incredibly important.

I mean, I want to know

whether something is real or fake.

But a lot of people

aren't as interested in historical fact

as they are about, "What can heal me?"

"What can make my life better?"

For centuries,

the faithful have shared stories

of the power of relics

to perform miracles.

The Holy Face

has given me so much.

He has given me exceptional help

in times of great difficulty.

My daughter had a brain hemorrhage

at the age of 23.

She was in intensive care when I saw her.

And after 48 hours, the doctors told me,

"Your daughter won't make it."

They tried everything.

And then on Palm Sunday they said to me

"If you agree,

we'd like to donate her organs."

We agreed to it.

When Francesca fell ill,

the community of Manoppello

gathered around our family

and two masses were celebrated

in front of the Holy Face

to ask for help at this

special moment for Francesca.

Not even 24 hours later,

the phone rings again.

He says to me, "I've got news for you."

And then, you know, I was prepared.

It's not like it was news to me.

I knew it and he told me,

"No, Francesca is alive."

She is doing crosswords.

Can you imagine? Crosswords!

These were the doctor's words.

On April 14th, 2003,

I woke up.

I woke up, I opened my eyes.

And I woke up pretty healthy, so to speak.

I was close to death,

and I'm here, talking about it.

That's a lot to deal with.

Well, what more can I tell you?

Who saved her?

Surely it wasn't medicine,

because the doctors said,

"We don't have any cure for her."

A doctor made a gesture

as if to say something supernatural

had arrived.

And it's clear that, inside me,

I'll say it again,

I am sure that there was

the hand of the Holy Face.

I don't think

I can explain what happened.

I don't really think it can be explained.

The word "miracle,"

it's not for me to use it.

Surely there was a gift,

a gift that was followed

by many other gifts in my life.

I believe that the Holy Face

saves my life every day.

Hail Mary, full of grace,

the Lord is with thee

The 6th of August,

our solemn day

of the Holy Face of Manoppello

ends with a procession.

Every year, without fail,

I've carried the Holy Face in procession.

The throne is very heavy,

but the weight doesn't affect us.

The feeling that I get from it

is something quite exceptional.

You feel something inside

beyond normal life.

Hail Mary, full of grace,

the Lord is with thee.

Blessed are thou amongst women

The inhabitants of Manoppello

believe that what they find on the shroud

is the face of the first moment

of the resurrection

of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So, it is this belief that brought

the miracle into their lives.

And this is why today

Rocco and Francesca can testify to us

of this beautiful experience they had

with the Holy Face.

We don't have very many things

in our world that are miraculous,

and I think people need miracles.

People crave miracles.

People could see a little piece

of something that is tiny

that is able to heal the sick.

What could be more powerful a sign

that God is alive and at work

among us than that?

Where there has been

a miracle, there's a relic.

You connect to the power of the relic,

and suddenly,

there's something that uplifts you.

You're here, but your mind,

your spirit is up there,

you know, you're connected to God.

Next on Mysteries of the Faith

For thousands of years,

relics have been used

to spread the word of God

around the world.

Just as you have missionaries

going out into the world,

you also have relics spreading the faith.

This relic is a way of evangelizing.

We must take it to the streets.