Chapter 44: Of the Wounds of Jesus, and the shedding of His precious Blood

O LORD JESUS CHRIST, Author of our Salvation, most gracious Giver of pardon, most patient in Your long-suffering of man's wickedness, I bless You, and give thanks to You for all the pain, and for each several blow and bloody wound, so cruelly inflicted on Your most precious and most tender Body; so that from the sole of the foot even to the top of the Head there was no soundness in You, but either a grievous wale, or an aching wound, or a stream of warm red Blood trickling down Your whole Body.

I praise and glorify You with the worthiest adoration of which I am capable, and with all the powers of my soul laid at Your Feet, for the generous outpouring of Your precious Blood from Your five sacred Wounds, and from all Your other wounds, great and small, bleeding and sending forth a life-giving stream, more precious than any balm, to be an effectual remedy for all our sins. Ah! most gentle Jesus, how cruelly were You tortured and wounded by savage men, so that all Your bodily strength being exhausted, and Your veins wide-opened, scarcely a drop of Blood remained in You; but whatever of that sacred Stream, whether living or dying, You had in You, was all lovingly poured forth for our souls' use, and as the price of our Salvation.

O you five precious Wounds, pre-eminent tokens of surpassing love, full of Divine sweetness, whence the sinner takes good heart, keeping thereby his guilty conscience from driving him to despair! In you is found the medicine of life, fullness of grace, plentiful forgiveness, boundless mercy, the gate which leads to the glory which is in store for us. Whatever pollution I incur, whatever sins of the flesh I commit, in your five fountains I may wash all away, and may be purified, and made faultless.

I praise and glorify You, O Christ, only and beloved Spouse of Holy Church, for that inestimable love, which moved You, to redeem my soul, by the covenant of Your Own Blood, from the chains of Adam's sin, to cleanse it from all its sins, and to endow and adorn it with the merits of Your Own holiness; that so, made holy by Your grace, it might be found meet in this life to be joined and united to You, and hereafter to be made happy and glorious in the Kingdom of Your excellent Majesty.

Mark carefully, O faithful soul, and see at what great and notable cost He redeemed You, Who, of His own unbought goodness, made you, at the beginning, to His own image and likeness. For you were not redeemed from the guilt of original sin, nor from the many actual sins which, by the exercise of your own free will, you have wickedly added thereto, with contemptible things, as gold or silver, but with the precious Blood of Christ, as of a Lamb unspotted and undefiled. And not only upon the Cross, for your cleansing, did He shed His Blood; but He also vouchsafed to leave the same in the Chalice for you to drink with faithful devotion in the Communion of that Sacrament, by which the daily sins of the world are purged and blotted out.

Alas! of what terrible punishment will he be thought worthy, who shall have accounted the Blood of the Covenant of the Son of God an unholy thing, and shall not have paid the debt of thanksgiving which he owes to the Wounds of the Crucified. Be careful, then, to render thanks to Him Who has so loved you, to Him Who has wrought for you this His inestimable benefit, by at least one short prayer, or one devout meditation, at some time, either of the day, or night. Many faithful souls, burning with love for Him, have rejoiced to shed their blood for Him: and yet more, taking part in His sufferings by using the rough ways of penance, have, for the Chalice of His Blood, humbly offered the waters of a bitter contrition.

Learn you from their example to crucify your flesh with its affections and lusts, manfully to resist temptation, and to bear until death the yoke of' willing obedience; to offer to Christ your Redeemer, upon the altar of your heart, in place of a martyrdom of blood, the sacrifice of a troubled spirit. Seek by diligent meditation to keep ever before you the benefits purchased for you by the Cross, and to find in the deep wounds of Jesus, as in the clefts of a rock, a hiding-place from the face of the enemy and the avenger.

Come to my help, O most gentle Jesus, in my every need, in every crisis of the strife. Stretch forth over me Your hands, and with Your right arm ever protect me; put devotion in my heart, truth in my mouth, energy in my work. Purge me from all the corruption of my sins, heal my wounds with Your precious Blood. Let no hidden thing of darkness, nothing impure, nothing that defiles, remain in me; but may Your sacred Blood, so abundantly shed, thoroughly cleanse me from all that is hurtful, and sanctify me wholly; that so, when, at the last day, You shall come in Judgement, my spirit, and my soul, for the deliverance of which You did endure so many and such grievous pains, and did expend such boundless treasure, may be presented before You pure and undefiled,