The Wounds of Mercy

By Fr. Paul Scalia
HERALD Columnist
(From the Issue of 4/4/02)

To tempt St. Martin of Tours, the devil once appeared disguised as Christ Himself. He was clothed in splendid robes, wearing a crown and surrounded by a glorious light. Saint Martin was unmoved, however, because he did not see the most convincing sign of Christ: His wounds. He rebuked the devil saying, I will not believe that Christ has come unless he appears with that appearance and form in which he suffered, and openly displaying the marks of his wounds upon the cross.

Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. Like St. Martin, St. Thomas the Apostle immediately recognized the importance of Christ’s wounds. We may find His wounds unsettling and be disturbed by Thomas’s insistence on touching them. But Christ’s wounds, as St. Thomas and St. Martin understood, are the greatest witness to His mercy. They preserve us from two errors: the denial of our sinfulness, and the denial of His forgiveness.

Christ bears the wounds of the Cross, first of all, because He does not deny our sins. He received the wounds because of our sins, and He carries them still as a reminder to us – as if to say, Yes, I really died because of your sins. Divine mercy demands this recognition of sin. Whereas our culture prefers a cheap mercy that ignores sin altogether, Christ’s mercy requires a serious acknowledgement and repentance of our sins. For simply to ignore or overlook someone’s sins is not mercy — it is blindness, and a failure to love.

But more importantly, Christ bears the wounds of the Cross to prove His triumph over our sins. No longer do the wounds mean death; they now signify sins forgiven. He shows the wounds to assure us of His forgiveness, as if to say, Yes, I have conquered even these wounds, which your sins placed in me. My mercy has overcome your sins, and these wounds have become glorious. He has gone to battle for our souls and emerged triumphant. Just as warriors would return from battle flaunting the captured insignia of their vanquished foe, so now Christ displays the spoils of His victory over Satan.

To extend His forgiveness throughout the world and throughout history, our Lord entrusts the Sacrament of Penance to the Apostles: Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained. In this Sacrament we encounter the same divine mercy St. Thomas discovered in Christ’s wounds. First we confess our sins, because there cannot be mercy without recognition of guilt. Then we receive absolution, the remission of any guilt for our sins. By His Resurrection, Christ changed the once hideous wounds into glorious signs of forgiveness. By the Sacrament of Penance, He changes our sins into something glorious: an occasion to praise and glorify Christ for His mercy.

The most dangerous doubt is the doubt of God’s mercy, a mercy that convicts us of sin and relieves us of guilt. Christ’s wounds confirm both the reality of our sins and the triumph of His love and forgiveness. They serve as a medicine for the doubtful. In the words of St. Augustine, For nails had pierced His hands, a spear had laid open His side: and there the marks of the wounds are preserved for healing the hearts of the doubting.

Fr. Scalia is parochial vicar at St. Patrick Parish in Chancellorsville.

Copyright ©2002 Arlington Catholic Herald.  All rights reserved.