FROM THE WOUNDS TO THE STIGMATA OF THE LORD
Dear ones, may the Lord give you his peace.
We never get tired of inviting everyone to pray so that we can look at this time of ours and this history of ours with the eyes of faith, with the help of Jesus Christ.
The participation of each of us in the mystery of redemption, a mystery that sometimes passes through suffering, is prayer, it is the experience of the Church.
The experience of St. Francis of Assisi in receiving stigmata, a gift from the Most High, gives ourselves a light.
Saint Francis, lover of the Gospel, is marked in his flesh by the Lord Jesus Christ, thus living a great mystery: "a faith lived in the flesh". Even today, the experience of Francis provokes us and tells us that our humanity, our life, are visited and known by God. Even when we speak of wounds, or of wounded humanity, we must affirm by faith that God knows in his own flesh such wounds. One could speak of a "wound theology". With the event of the Redemption accomplished by the Son of God, no wounded man in the world can say: “I am alone!”. The wounds in the glorious body of Jesus Christ become stigmata, and in Him they are brought before the throne of God the Father. From Jesus onwards they will be the signs to recognize Him. They are the signs that tell us the greatness of his love: we have been saved! All this is immense: "we have a treasure in clay pots", San Paolo would say. It is impressive to perceive how St. Francis, receiving the signs of the Redemption, lived this mystery in his flesh. This is a great consolation, even for us today, for the whole Church: the Gospel is alive and true!
Along with you, I wonder: how to welcome this wounded humanity that lives the fatigue 'of wounds', inflicted on the Body of Christ by wars, indifference, violence and human pride? A light is given to us by the beautiful icon of the Cenacle, in which Tommaso is surprisingly the protagonist. He is the one who in disbelief is called to see and touch the glorious flesh of Jesus Christ, putting his hands in the wounds of the nails and putting his finger in the wound of the Lord's side. Thomas is called to become a believer of the impossible, witness of the Resurrection (Jn 20,25-29). The Apostle will tell with all his life that "contact with the glorious wounds" of the Lord: the sacred stigmata.
Here we are all, we find ourselves in a time when we "see and touch" the "bleeding wounds", we are patiently called to hope that these wounds are transformed into glorious stigmas. Only the Lord is capable of such a miracle. One day, when He wants, we will have the courage to call the wounds stigmata, but only with His help and His gaze. We pray that this mystery of Redemption may extend in hearts, also through our testimony of a faith lived in the flesh, concretely. With our prayer of intercession, let us keep calming the sadness of God who is still not loved today. The Virgin Mother and all the Saints may help us and intercede for us miserable, beggars of love.
In Christ
Good prayer
