Glorified Wounds

On Wednesday, the Protestant soup kitchen where I volunteer celebrated Easter.  As happy as I was to behold the feast spread before us, it hurt my heart a little bit, because the waiting wasn't over.  In fact, we were gearing up for the most intense part of the preparation for Easter.  Before we get to the end, we have to journey through the beginning of the Paschal Mystery.

The Church celebrates the Triduum -- the three days that take us through the Last Supper, the Crucifixion and death of Jesus, and His Resurrection.  These three days are steeped in liturgical richness; even the bareness of the service today speaks volumes.  (In case you don't know, there is no Mass celebrated between the night of Holy Thursday and the Easter Vigil on Saturday.  There is a liturgy on Friday, but it is not a Mass.  From my perspective at least, this is devastating and profound.)

In the celebration of Christ's Passion and death, I find myself contemplating Christ's wounds.  Maybe because we just had a retreat on the Five Wounds of Christ (two feet, two hands, and His side).  His wounds set us free.  His pain, His suffering, His brokenness -- it heals me, puts me back together in all the ways I fall apart.  And when Easter comes, the pain, the suffering, the death all go away.  But the wounds remain.  Even when He has a glorified body, He has holes in His hands, His feet, His side.

God doesn't just heal wounds.  He glorifies them.

For me, letting God heal wounds is a lot easier than letting Him glorify them.  When He heals them, they stop hurting and I can forget about them, hide them, never show them to anyone.  If He glorifies them, He gets to use them for His Kingdom.  But that means that they, though no longer bleeding, are visible. It's the taller order, but the greater good.  After all, it was through Christ's wounds that Thomas came to believe.