Piety PEOPLE of all ages increasingly focused on the sufferings of Christ especially during the middle ages in which they paid special homage and veneration to the wounds related to his crucifixion, namely the nail wounds on his hands and feet as well as the spear wound that pierced his heart and the Crown of Thorns.
This devotion spread through the evangelization of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux 1090-1153 and Saint Francis of Assisi 1181-1226 in the 12 twelfth and 13 thirteenth centuries, they hearten,promoted THE devotion to honour Jesus’ Five Passion Wounds. They realised that these Sacred wounds signifies the sacrificing love of Jesus Christ. His blood was the price for our salvation, a reconciliation with God the Father, to bring us back to the dignity of God and to make us worthy of His image and likeness. His Passion and death became a fulfilment to the reality that God is the lover of humans and He really desires us to live with him in heaven forever, and the only way it was to conquer the power of death.
It is related in the annals ( a record of events year by year. of Clairvaux that St. Bernard 1090 asked Our Lord which was His greatest unrecorded suffering? Jesus answered: “I had on My Shoulder while I bore My Cross on the Way of Sorrows, a grievous Wound which was more painful than the others, and which is not recorded by men. Then Jesus continued,
Reveal it to the people and let them know that whatever grace is requested by this wound will be granted.
And to all those who, in remembrance of this, will honour me daily by reciting
- 3 Our Father,
- 3 Hail Mary,
- 3 Glory be,
to me, I will pardon them, for all their mortal and venial sins. They will not die an unexpected death, and at the last hour, the Blessed Virgin will visit them, and they will receive grace and mercy.
And the saint composed
This prayer to the Shoulder Wound of Christ:
Most loving Jesus, meek Lamb of God, I, a miserable sinner, salute and worship the most Sacred Wound of Thy Shoulder, on which Thou didst bear Thy heavy Cross, which so tore Thy flesh and laid bare, Thy Bones, as to inflict on Thee, an anguish greater than any other wound, of Thy Most Blessed Body. I adore Thee, O Jesus most sorrowful; I praise and glorify Thee, and give Thee thanks for this most sacred and painful Wound, beseeching Thee by that exceeding pain, and by the crushing burden of Thy heavy Cross to be merciful to me, a sinner, to forgive me all my mortal and venial sins, and to lead me on towards Heaven along the Way of Thy Cross. Amen.3
Pieta Prayer Book, (Hickory Corners, MI: MLOR Corporation, 1995) 45-46. © MLOR Corporation 1995.
(Imprimatur: +Thomas D. Beven, Bishop of Springfield.) Imprimatur: an official license by the Roman Catholic Church to print an ecclesiastical or religious book. the imprimatur for this edition was granted by Cardinal O’Casey
And remember BY HIS WOUND YOU AND I WERE HEALED
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