How can your wounds be some of your best parts?
In our Gospel today, the disciples were hiding behind locked doors, anxious and afraid, when Jesus came and stood in their midst. He breathed the Holy Spirit upon them and offered one more gift. You might expect it to be courage because fear had filled the room. Or perhaps, because “the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord” (John 20:20), the gift could have been even more joy. But it was not courage, nor was it more joy.
What was the gift? After saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” Jesus added: “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them.” The other gift was the power to forgive.
It was a gift that Jesus modeled to them with his very first greeting, “Peace be with you.” This was another way of telling them, “I forgive you.” Maybe this is also what Jesus desired for them to extend to the chief priests, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Roman authorities, and everyone else who had a hand in crucifying Jesus. Maybe they also had to forgive the other disciples who ran away and abandoned Jesus. And maybe they also needed to forgive themselves because they, too, had fled.
This act of forgiveness would not leave them unscathed. Forgiveness cannot come if you ignore—or worse, deny—the hurt you bear. Maybe this is another reason why Jesus showed them his hands and his side. You cannot turn away; you must face your wounds before you can forgive.
When Jesus repeated his greeting of peace, he continued with, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Sent to do what? Sent not merely to return, but to forgive. “As the Father has sent me to forgive, so I send you to forgive.”
And perhaps that is why they needed the Holy Spirit. As Alexander Pope once wrote, “To err is human; to forgive, divine.” And it is true: We can only forgive when we have received the divine gift of the Spirit.
Some people think that receiving is passive. But to receive God’s Spirit of forgiveness requires a deliberate decision and a conscious commitment. While Jesus is always offering the gift of the Spirit, he will never force it upon us. We need to embrace the gift of being able to forgive. And again, that entails embracing our wounds as well.
Last week, we celebrated the Solemnity of the Ascension. When Jesus took his place at the right hand of God, was he human or divine? Our faith tells us he is still both—fully man and fully God. In heaven, Jesus has not abandoned his humanity. Does that mean he still has a body?
The Apostles’ Creed reminds us that we believe in the resurrection of the body. Not exactly the same bodies we have now, but bodies transformed—something like these bodies, yet perfected. Perhaps only the best parts of our bodies then? But the Risen Jesus still bore his wounds. Could it be that even our wounds are included among the best parts of us?
In what way could our wounds be counted among our best parts?
I remember one family reunion when I was a young boy and my cousins rested for a moment from their rough play. One of them rolled up his pant leg and recounted, “Itong peklat na ito, nakuha ko noong sumemplang ako.” And as if on cue, they all started showing off their scars, proud of their “red badges of courage” and how they got them. I wanted to have a scar, too, because I wanted to tell a story like theirs, a story of how to fall, how a wound can teach you and show that you are not afraid to stand again, fall again, and try again.
Brandi Carlile sings:
All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am
All of the scars on our bodies tell the story of who we are. And our wounds can be among our best parts if they tell stories of how we fell, stood up, became stronger because we learned, and were not afraid to fall again, rise again, and try again. Our wounds can be just stories of hurt, but they can also be stories of hurt and hope.
The operative word is can. It still needs a choice, the active receiving of the Spirit and the gift of forgiving. One sure sign that you have received the Spirit is when you can look at your wounds. Our wounds can be counted among our best parts if they tell stories of redemption, and isn’t every story of forgiveness a story of human and divine redemption for the forgiver and the forgiven? And when we are able to forgive, isn’t that another sign that we have truly received the Holy Spirit?
Your prayer assignment this week:
Aside from Brandi Carlile’s “The Story,” listen to the song “Scars” by I am They:
So I'm thankful for the scars
‘Cause without them I wouldn't know your heart,
And I know they'll always tell of who you are
So forever I am thankful for the scars.
Have your scars ever brought you closer to God and helped you get to know him better? As the song teaches, “‘Cause my brokenness brought me to you.”
If you are not yet at the point of saying you are grateful for your wounds, maybe you can ask to put your finger into the nailmarks in Jesus’ body, put your hand into his side, and thank him for what his wounds mean—as the song also proclaims:
I'm thankful for your scars
‘Cause without them I wouldn't know your heart.
Fr. Francis teaches Theology, Education and Scripture at both the Ateneo de Manila University and Loyola School of Theology. As a classroom teacher, he is first and foremost a student. As a professor, he sees himself primarily as a pastor.
