When I was returning to the Church in my late 20s, I worked as a singer. Frequently, after I finished work very late, I would visit an adoration chapel open all night. I was often the only person there, except for Jesus.
In those precious hours of quiet, on my knees before the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, a fresh desire to embrace my faith and her devotions began to take root. You simply cannot be in the Real Presence and not be changed. It was then that I discovered the Rosary to the Holy Wounds.
This simple chaplet was given to a French nun in the 19th century, Sister Mary Martha Chambon (1841-1907), of the Monastery of the Visitation of Chambery. The cause for her beatification was introduced in 1937. Just as St. Faustina was given the Chaplet of Divine Mercy through interior locutions with the Lord, so Sister Mary Martha received this chaplet, along with the long list of promises that are offered to those who pray it. They include: “My wounds will repair yours,” “Plunge your actions into my wounds, and they will be of value,” “When you have trouble, something to suffer, quickly place it in my wounds and the pain will be alleviated.” This simple entreaty for healing of the soul quickly became one of my favorite devotions. I have prayed it daily since.
I often teach this chaplet to groups when I travel to speak and without fail, people are drawn to it — or rather, drawn into it. After one retreat, however, a woman approached me and said, “But how do you do that? How do you place your wounds into the wounds of Christ?” I stammered in my reply. I had a sense of what that meant to me, but it was so personal, so deep, there really weren’t words to explain it.
But just recently, a holy woman of deep prayer gave me a compendium of Carthusian devotions to the Sacred Heart (“Ancient Devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Carthusian Monks of the 14-17th Centuries”, Gracewing Publishing, 2018). To answer this woman’s question, these ancient voices have provided far better images than I might have conjured on my own. To “read the wounds of Christ,” that is, to understand them more fully, these holy monks drew upon the vivid themes of the Canticles: “The Holy Spirit says to us in the Canticle, ‘Come, O, my dove, into the clefts of the rock.’” They equated this hiding place with the holy wounds of Jesus. It’s worth resting a moment in this idea, especially in this month when we celebrate the feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.
“The soul,” recommends one monk, “should fly away as a timid dove, and take refuge in the clefts of the Rock, namely in the Wounds of Jesus Christ, and above all in the deep hollow place … in the Wound of the Side of Jesus and in His Heart. There she has nothing more to dread. If she builds her nest in the Heart of Jesus, if she there deposits her good works, there finds shelter, there rests and takes her sleep, the evil spirits will never attempt to set their snares for her; they dare not approach the Wounds and the Heart of Jesus.” Amen.
What wound would you hide in the cleft of the rock of his sacred heart? An illness, a betrayal, a disappointment? Let’s borrow this ancient wisdom, purified and fashioned through lives of asceticism, and take refuge in the sacred heart of Jesus.
Liz Kelly Stanchina is the author of 12 books, including “A Place Called Golgotha.” Find the Rosary to the Holy Wounds prayer card on her website or in her book, “The Rosary: A Path into Prayer” at lizk.org.
ROSARY TO THE HOLY WOUNDS
On the crucifix and first three beads:
O JESUS, Divine Redeemer, be merciful to us and to the whole world. Amen.
STRONG God, holy God, immortal God, have mercy on us and on the whole world. Amen.
GRACE and mercy, O my Jesus, during present dangers; cover us with Your Precious Blood. Amen.
ETERNAL Father, grant us mercy through the Blood of Jesus Christ, Your only Son; grant us mercy, we beseech You. Amen, Amen, Amen.
The following prayers, composed by Our Lord, are to be said using the rosary beads.
On the large (middle) beads:
Eternal Father, I offer You the Wounds of our Lord Jesus Christ.
R/To heal the wounds of our souls.
On the small (decade) beads:
My Jesus, pardon and mercy.
R/Through the merits of Your Holy Wounds.
