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Daily reflections for Lenten Easter, written by Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI.

There is a story told, a legend perhaps, about St. Teresa of, Avila. One day the devil appeared to her, disguised as Christ. Teresa wasn’t fooled for a second. She immediately dismissed him. But before he left, the devil asked her, how did you know? How could you be so sure I wasn’t Christ? Her answer? You didn’t have any wounds.

Christ has wounds. Christ has wounds. So does anyone who stands where he stands. This is spiritual wisdom. To teach anything else is a sham. Our culture quickly identifies lack of physical, emotional or social wholeness with lack of blessing.

We identify Christ more with the unmarked body of youth still taking more life than giving it, than with the stretch marks of life giving adults. Thus, our real symbol for what constitutes life and blessing is, is the perfect body of an ever younger Hollywood star, still unmarked by anything that might somehow humiliate it, rather than a stretched, misshapen body that’s been scarred and made to sag by actually giving life.

But the body of Christ is a humiliated body, permanently wounded by giving life. When Jesus rose from the dead, the first thing he did was to show his disciples and his wounds, glorified now, but extremely humiliating to him before he died.

To become spiritually astute, as was Teresa of Avila, we must begin to understand what that means. Christ is ultimately recognized in his wounds.