And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth,
Read Chapter 27
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth. Such a cloth well suited this most pure body. Sindon is a cloth woven of the finest and most delicate flax, so called from Sidon, where it was first made. The Jews used to wrap their dead bodies in it, bound their hands and feet with bandages, and the head with a napkin ( John 11:44). Thus did Joseph do to Christ (John xix40). S. Jerome from this condemns the lavish funerals of the rich, and adds, "But we can take this to signify, in a spiritual sense, that he who receives Jesus in a pure mind wraps him in a clean linen cloth."
For this reason the body of Christ is in the Mass placed only in a very clean and fine linen cloth. This is called a Corporal, from the body of Christ which it contains within it, as though in a tomb. S. John adds that Nicodemus brought myrrh and aloes to anoint and perfume the body ( John 19:39). For these kept bodies from putrefying.
Mystically: Euthymius wishes us to be fragrant with ...
Wrapt it up. Behold with admiration the courage and constancy of this disciple of Christ, who, through love for his crucified Saviour, willingly exposed himself not only to the enmity of his countrymen, but even to the danger of death, and dared in the presence of all to beg the body of Jesus, and to give it public interment. (St. Chrysostom, hom. lxxxix.)
