DEVOTION TO THE WOUNDS OF JESUS CHRIST. — The visible signs of the immense charity of the incarnate God toward men, the wounds are almost a pledge of salvation for those who present them as intercessors before Divine Justice. Christ preserved these scars even after the Resurrection (Jn 20:25-27) both to strengthen the faith of the Apostles and as a sign of victory and a memorial of redeeming Passion.
The saints have taken them, especially that of the Sacred Side, as a mystical place of refuge; the phrase of the Anima Christi is famous: *Intra tua vulnera absconde me* (H. Bremond, *Histoire littéraire du sentiment religieux*, III, Paris 1923, pp. 649-68; P. Pourrat, *La spiritualité chrétienne*, II, ibid. 1923, pp. 132 and 497; III, ibid. 1925, pp. 456-596). The Wounds of Jesus Christ are invoked as a source of grace. Among the faithful, devotion to the Sacred Wounds of Jesus Christ grew after several celebrated saints were stigmatized (St. Francis of Assisi, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Gemma Galgani, etc.).