Healing and Wounds
“How can we pray when we feel overwhelmed by forces we cannot manage, when our vigor and capabilities are insufficient to meet the demands that assault us? Surely, at the very least, we are overpowered when death comes, but many other events in the course of a lifetime can stagger us and leave us in a state of quandary. Just as medicines and therapies cannot halt the mortal juggernaut, neither will insurance policies, saving accounts, hard work, or friendships enable us to weather the storms brought by the economy, society, and human relationships…The Lord Jesus is the true God. Having woven Himself into the human fabric by His Incarnation, He travels this life with us. He never deserts us but carries us to shelter, pouring the oil and wine of the Holy Spirit on our wounds and extending the ministry of His healing Body, the Church, so that we may be restored to health. Christ is among us!” (Dynamis 3/12/2022)
“True faith in the Savior demands that we offer every aspect of our existence to Him for healing and transformation, holding nothing back. Even as He healed the sick and fed the hungry, the most obvious practices of faithfulness involve caring for people in their bodily weaknesses and infirmities. By showing tangible signs of care for our neighbors, we also touch the wounds of Christ, for He is present to us in everyone in need. In light of His resurrection, the bodily sufferings and struggles of others appear not as irrelevant distractions, but as invitations to manifest a foretaste of “the life of the world to come.” Regardless of any context or circumstance, to serve others in ways that ease their bodily struggles is to provide a sign of the fulfillment of God’s gracious purposes for all who bear His image and likeness. If we refuse to do so, then we live as though He were still in the tomb. Because “Christ is Risen!,” we must show our neighbors the care due those who are called to heavenly glory.” (Fr. Philip LeMasters)
“Do not fall into despair because of stumblings. I do not mean that you should not feel contrition for [your sins], but that you should not think them incurable. For it is more expedient to be bruised than dead. There is, indeed, a Healer for the person who has stumbled, even He Who on the Cross asked that mercy be shown to His crucifiers, He Who pardoned His murderers while He hung on the Cross… For a brief moment of mourning He pardoned Simon, who had denied Him… Christ came in behalf of sinners, to heal the broken of heart and to bandage their wounds. “The Spirit of the Lord,” He says [in Lk 4:18], “is upon Me, to preach good tidings to the poor.” . . . And the Apostle says in his epistle, “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.” (St. Isaac of Nineveh)
“The road to perfection is not through efforts of self-improvement, at least not in the way most people think. Perfection to Christians means being made complete, not achieving an exalted state of excellence. Self-improvement to Christians is achieved through sacrifice and self-denial. We strive to deny ourselves and our own ego based cravings to unite ourselves to Christ and love others. Because Christ is a wounded healer who assumed our sufferings in His humanity, we become refined and grow towards Him and in Him through our own sufferings and it is in this manner that we become perfected, that is, made complete.” (Sacramental Living Ministries)
“Simply put, inner healing (in contrast to physical healing) is the form of God’s healing that cures our emotional and spiritual wounds…Christians themselves, as forgiven sinners, are called to become wounded healers, extending the work of God to the whole world.” (Francis MacNutt, Fr. John Behr)
“Man is at once glorious and broken—magnificently radiant and deeply wounded. He is wounded, but not utterly depraved." (Jonathan Jackson)
“In the resurrected Christ the prints of the nails do not disappear: they are marks of His glory. The agony is gone, but He is forever united with those wounds. Christ is forever hailed in heaven as the “Lamb that was slain.” This, I think, is one of the great difficulties of knowing the true self. St. Paul says that our life is “hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3). The daily struggle that marks our lives – the battle with the dogged details of personality – is accomplishing something within us that remains hidden. St. Paul offers this: “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” (2 Cor. 4:17) That glory is revealed in the fullness of personhood, conformed to the image of Christ.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“To be smitten by Christ is the most profound of all mystical experiences. Jesus Himself, as it were, wounds our hearts with His love. From that moment we can never again be the same. One desire is only to be with Him, to serve Him and to make Him known to others…Today, Christ wants to wound each one of us so that we, too, will never cease loving and serving Him. Let us open ourselves up to this wondrous action of grace, this mystical stabbing of our hearts. Let us gladly endure the scars that the piercing love of Christ inflicts.” (Rev. John Chakos)
“…wounds need not leave scars. They can become imprints for the expression of His grace…the God Who Heals, places His hand on the gaping wounds of our hearts and transforms the wounds into beautiful scars.” (Kay Arthur, Sharon Jaynes)
“And it is honest and therefore healthy to own the wound, to let it identify us, to tell us who we are; for it is part of us forever.” (Lewis Smedes)