The Wounds of Jesus
“I ever possess, and take with me everywhere, the God of my heart and the Heart of my God.”​​
― St.Margaret Mary
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Trinitone
Hell is so devastating, not only because we are separated from God, the source of Life, but because we won’t be able to avoid seeing the full volume of all our sins.
The First Wound
The Circumcision
“Sacrifice and offerings you did not desire, but a body You prepared for Me.” If only we had not sinned, we would have no need for the remedy prepared over many generations and retained through religious tradition. But we did, and the Father prepared His Son for Sacrifice. Jesus, God's Heart, came to be offered and pierced by the Heavenly Sword of Justice and Mercy. From the apex of His Heart to the depths of His soul, the Father's Sword impaled the Son of Man. Nowhere in the world is tradition more profoundly present than in Luke 2:21, the circumcision and naming of our Lord, Jesus. This moment on the 8th day after our Lord’s birth is followed by His presentation in the temple on the 40th. From these two events, we learn that Mary and Joseph spent much time in Bethlehem and Jerusalem before their flight into Egypt. They lived there, worked there, prayed and worshiped there in the traditions established by God the Father many ages ago. And when God came in the flesh, He did not abolish His traditions, He elevated them. On the 8th day, God bled His human blood for the sake of the Religion He established for our Salvation.
The Suffering on the Mount of Olives
The Second Wound
In return, Jesus offers His Heart to the Father through the Hands of the Holy Spirit covered in the agony of blood and sweat in the garden. The weight of our own individual sin, when truly realized, can be devastating and traumatic. To bear all the weight of even just one other than our own would truly be crushing and incapacitating. And so, the weight of All Sin would have destroyed the human flesh and body of the man in the Garden of Olives, if Jesus were only man. But Jesus was also, and is also, God. The power of God the Father through the Holy Spirit surrounded every drop of His precious Blood and held together every cell of His Flesh and Body with Love and Pain. And in Love for His children, God wept. For those He had lost, for those He would still lose, for those who would suffer because of their love for Him by the hands of those who do not, for the innocent infants who died at the hand of Herod at Jesus' birth, and for the infants who would die through abortion by the continued rule of Herod in human hearts. So what gave Jesus the desire to make it to the Cross? He also saw you loving Him in return.
The Scourging
at the Pillar
The Third Wound
The New Age thought that "love is love is love…" is meaningless. It does not elevate lesser acts of love, but reduces greater acts by defining them as being the same. It is a statement that equates the feelings one has for an adorable little puppy to those for someone who runs into a burning building to save the life of a child. Love is willingly giving oneself for another at the expense of one’s own life. Love is offering your back to receive lashes and to have your skin stripped away exposing the flesh and muscle underneath for the sake of others when you yourself are innocent. To have chunks of your flesh ripped out of your body at the hand of those you love. To receive the hatred and brutal beatings of others' sin, so that you can free them from it. Love is Sacrifice. Seven deadly sins cut open the Heart of Jesus and exposed the Flames of Virtuous Love that burn in His Heart for us.
The Crowning
of Thorns
The Forth Wound
Jesus walked the impossible mile. The Romans knew how to scourge a man so that he would still be able to carry the device by which he would be executed on. But how much did they know of what Jesus had already gone through before their scourging? Did they know how little food was involved with the Passover meal? Did they know that He hadn’t slept all night, but had been awake bleeding and sweating in agony? Did they know He had already bled much from being beaten by the Sanhedrin? Did they consider that He was walked from Pilot across the city to Herod, then back to Pilot with no food, no water, and no sleep? Did they consider that after losing enough blood during His scourging they would shape a crown for Him made of thorns? That they would thrust it onto His head, and though this head trauma should have defeated Him, Jesus instead received this Crown of Sacrifice and wore it lovingly to the place of His death? It is important to understand that a man has 8 pints of blood in him. At the loss of 3 pints, he will pass out and can no longer go on. At the loss of 4, he is dead. Christ bled for us that day in such a way that should have made His walk impossible. How could the Son of man accomplish such a victory, except by the Love of the Father?
The Carrying
of the Cross
The Fifth Wound
On His Brusied Shoulders, Christ carried the means by which He would Conquer death and Redeem our sin once and for all. But sin continues in this world, and will until He returns. Until that day, man shares "what is lacking in Christ's affliction" Col 1:24, but man cannot bear this continuation of sin with our weak faith alone. One does not have the strength without His Power and the fullness of the Universal Body of Christ. And so, the weight must be carried by the many, from generation to generation, through succession, with the Grace and Gifts received from the Holy Spirit in His established Holy Arrangements. The Holy Ghost, who has never left us or failed us, even when we have failed Him, has remained. Even when we, His Bride, have continued to bruise His shoulders with the weight of our continued sinning in the Church and in the world, God has been Faithful to us. He has never left His Bride, but instead given Her the Gifts of His Works through the Holy Spirit that continually reunite Her to Him, who is in Heaven. May all those who consider themselves His disciples recognize that they are His "beloved". May we obey His every command JN 3:36 by accepting the Gifts of the Spirit, which He created throughout the Story of Salvation and which we have named Sacraments through our role in Creation that we were given from the Beginning.
The Crucifixion
The Sixth Wound
God did not simply come in the flesh to die. He came to die a Sacrificial Death. A Work done in three parts. The Mission He accomplished was to consecrate bread and wine as His Body and Blood at His Last Supper, establishing the ability for man to do likewise, then to give Himself over as innocent to death on a cross, and then to rise from the dead. God, the Holy Ghost, is the source of life and of all things. He is in all things. We can see Him in the beauty of nature all around us. So why go to Church to worship Him when He is everywhere? Because there is one place in the universe God does not force Himself to Be. In the heart of Man. That is why you are so special. It is a gift given to us to have the freedom to invite Him in. The Work God came to accomplish in the flesh of Man was to establish the means by which we can actively participate in this Invitation. To freely allow Him in. This physical and spiritual Work of the Father is found in the most Holy Eucharist, and Man can only find this in the Mass, not nature, because it is not natural, but Supernatural. And the Nails made this Gift to us Eternal.
The Piercing
of Jesus' Side
The Seventh Wound
God is Love and He created Man in His image, male and female He created them. From the side of Adam, Eve, the love of his heart, came forth. The Masculinity of God is Trinitarian; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The Femininity of God is All the Love that comes forth from the side of His Pierced Sacred Heart. She is Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fear, and Fortitude as the Bible has always taught us. A Book and a Religion in complete balance, full of the Strength of His Masculinity and Grace of His Femininity. The firm steadfastness of a Mountain, and the Sky that blows air gracefully around and through it. God is even in the foundation of Man's language. As the Subject and the Action. Love Loves. An eternal giving sentence. And how do we know that God, who is Love, Loves? Because He came and showed us. In the Beginning was the Word and on the Cross our Redemption began. The Masculinity of the Word was pierced so that the Femininity of the Word in Blood and Water and Fire would flow forth to heal the whole world from our unconquerable sin. We were made in this Image. The Image of the Crucifixion.
Story behind the painting
After completing the Labors of Joseph, I felt ready to begin making the Heart of Jesus. I wondered if it would be a good way to spend my 2024 Lent/Holy Week, but God must have thought otherwise. That time was given instead to other ponderings of the heart, some writing, some very important healing, and to developing some meaningful relationships that I will cherish for the rest of my life. Once Easter had past, however, God provided a remarkable window of time to work on this next painting. I was prepared and moved forward immediately at the opportunity.
The Hands of Jesus offering His Heart back to the Father through the Holy Spirit during His Agony was actually one of the first images that came to me for this Heart while I was working on the Sorrows of Mary. Finding how to display them was my real challenge, but it came to me in time through patience. Likewise, determining how to portray Bruised Shoulders from carrying the Cross without it getting lost amongst the other elements or simply not being painted clear enough presented a new challenge. Again, it was the Grace of patience that helped me to find the solution through simple watercolor techniques.
The Crown of Thorns, the Pierced Side, the Crucifixion Nails, and the Seven Scourge Wounds were all fairly clear from the start, inspired, of course, by the many countless depictions of the Sacred Heart. The addition of Fire coming forth from these particular Wounds, however, was inspired by a particular old carving print of the Sacred Heart that I came across one day at Mass. It was an inspired image that displayed the Baptismal cleansing through Water, Blood, and Fire, and I immediately knew it needed to be part of this image the moment I saw it.
This left one Wound for me to discover. The First Wound. How does one depict circumcision on a Heart?
I found my solution in a song about marriage by Josh Garrels that I have loved for many years. Heaven’s Knife. “Like the first man, I was cut so deep by Heaven’s Knife. When I awoke from my sleep, Oh my Lord, she’s beautiful. She’s a part of me. She’s my wife.”
Heaven’s Knife, the Holy Implement used by the Hand of God to open the side of Adam and bring forth his bride, Eve. How many times has God used this Knife? Did it bring forth the flood waters from Heaven in the time of Noah? Was is held in the hand of Abraham to sacrifice his first born son, before God stayed his hand? Was it used to part the Red Sea? Or inscribe the Commandments into stone? Was it used to open the womb of the Virgin for her husband to lift the Child of Light into this world? Was it used to give Joseph a happy death?
I see Heaven’s Knife as an image of the Will of God. God the Father sent His only begotten Son to shed His Blood on the Eighth day and at His Crucifixion for our Salvation. It was Heaven’s Knife that Sacrificed the Lamb, opened His side to let the Blood and Water and Fire rush forth, and when He awoke from His sleep on the Third day... Oh my Lord, She’s Beautiful. She’s a part of Me. She’s My Wife.