Our wounds will be our glory

"The first stage in the consoling of wounded hearts by the Heart of Christ is the restoring of faith. 'Bring hither thy hand, and put it into my side; and be not faithless but believe.' A wound is not a reason for loss of faith in man and God. The wound of Christ is a proof of His divinity. Christ has not promised that our hearts will not be wounded, but He has proved that our wounds will be our glory; He has proved that if we go down into the dark hollows on the sea of sorrow, we shall mount again to the heights of joy. The trough of the wave of Calvary rose to the white crest of Easter.

The Heart of Christ is the healing of wounded hearts, because He has traveled all the ways of loss and separation. We can enter upon no path of sorrow where His Cross has not cast its shadow, where His feet have not left footprints of blood. He entered, too, into the valley of death. His body was made, it could be said, for immediate immortality, unlike ours, which must pass through dust to immortality. So, besides the deaths which, throughout His life, wounded His Heart - the death of St Joseph and of Lazarus and of many others - His own death, the separation of His soul from His body, gave Him the sharpest of wounds, and it was especially hard for His Heart to die, because death was not its due.

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'So, you also who have a heart wounded by a humiliation, bring it here, and put it into my side,' Christ says to us all. 'I, who am true King and God of all, have been humbled to the dust. The hand behind the spearpoint was one to which I was reaching out my hand, that I might grasp it in love and lift a soul to Heaven. Many would have festering heart wounds if the one to whim they gave a cup of water would cast it in derision into their face. I gave of the brimming contents of my Heart, and mocking insulters have flung my unavailing blood back upon me.

'More than that, wounded heart, the very blow which festers within you fell upon my Heart. This is no exaggeration, no figure of speech. I died for all sins and for the selfsame sin that wounded your heart, and because I know God better and understand sin more fully, and because, too, I love you better than you do yourself, the wound that was dealt you was dealt to me and gave me more intense pain than it did or could possibly give to you. Bring here, then, your heart, whether wounded by loss or humiliation, and put it into my side, and you will find there a Heart more deeply wounded.'"

-- How to love as Jesus loves: unlocking the treasures of Christ's Sacred Heart by Francis P Donnelly, SJ