We have two copies of the Bible, I should say, one that came into A.’s possession while she was in college in Arizona, and one that came into mine, when I was very young, maybe nine or ten years old, and my family was still living in Australia.

I also found myself paging through Lamentations, Ezekiel, and the Book of Jonah, from the Old Testament.

When I got home from the coffee shop I found that I was still thinking about the Gospels, so I went to one of A.’s and my bookshelves, in the parlor, and took down a copy of the Bible, and opened it to the Gospel of Luke, and began reading it.

They are the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, of course.

Those three other Gospels are known as the Synoptic Gospels, because they are very much like one another, even if they do have their differences and inconsistencies, as well.

My favorite of the four Gospels is the Gospel of John, if a person can describe the Gospels in such a way, in terms of favorites, which I’m not sure that one can. What I mean I suppose is that I’m glad John’s Gospel was included in the New Testament canon, even if it is more different from the three other Gospels than those three others Gospels are from each other.

Luke is thought to have also been a physician, in addition to being one of the four Gospel writers.

It is thought to have been written by the Evangelist Luke, by the way — the same Luke who wrote the Gospel of Luke. I didn’t know this until recently. I heard it somewhere, or read it somewhere, I can’t remember which.

It tells of what the Apostles do, and what happens to the very early Church, in the days and weeks and years following the Ascension of Jesus.

I can’t tell you exactly what they’re saying, because I’m trying not to overhear them, but I think they’ve been discussing the Acts of the Apostles, which is the book that immediately follows the Gospels, in the New Testament, and whose title I suppose is self-explanatory.

At the coffee shop this morning, at one of the larger tables, where there is room for a group to sit, as opposed to one or two customers, four middle-aged men are having a Bible study.

I say ‘improbable,’ though of course it is improbable only from a human perspective. God is incapable of the petty egoism that is natural to us, or anyway to which we are susceptible. Not because He is limited but because He cannot contradict Himself.

Which of course is as it should be. There is a certain improbable modesty, in every aspect of Revelation history, which puts to shame the human tendency toward preening and vainglory.

Anyway, the Shroud of Turin didn’t reveal the extent of its extraordinariness until the advent of photography, and specifically the ‘photographic negative,’ in the late nineteenth century. So that, for almost two millennia, its capacity for promoting wonder or awe in people who encountered it with a certain openness of heart, or mind, was somewhat hidden.

Which puts me in mind of what Jesus said to the apostle Thomas, after the Resurrection: “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Which isn’t to say it is necessary as an article of faith. In fact, faith is diminished when it looks for, or relies on, sources of ‘evidence’ for its livelihood, or continuation.

Meanwhile, I’ve placed it next to my framed photo of the face of Christ as it appears on the Shroud of Turin. Which, to my mind, is the greatest and most important artifact that has ever existed in human history. Because, if it is genuine, and I believe it is, it is a visual recording of the moment of the Resurrection.

I’ve been intending to have my copy of it blessed by a Catholic priest, as my understanding is that this is what one is supposed to do, when one is in possession of such an image, but I haven’t made time to do this yet.

The picture is actually a copy of a famous polaroid, whose provenance is inexplicable. Which is to say, although the person who took the photo is known, and the circumstances under which he took it have been established, the means by which the image appeared in the photo have not been explained. And so the possibility exists that it’s miraculous.

The picture frame is blue, and the picture itself is only of Our Lady’s face, not her entire person. It is zoomed in, in other words, or blown up, and shows her countenance at an angle, as opposed to straight on. Additionally, her chin is tilted down slightly, and there is a tear emerging from one of her eyes, though her expression is not distraught, but is rather one of tenderness, or fondness, if that makes sense.