DEVOTION TO THE WOUNDS OF JESUS CHRIST. - Visible signs of the immense charity of God made man toward men, the wounds are almost a pledge of salvation for those who present them as intercessors before Divine Justice. Christ retained these scars even after the Resurrection (Io. 29, 25 sg.), both to strengthen the faith of the Apostles and as a sign of victory and memorial of the redemptive Passion.
The saints have taken them, especially that of the Sacred Side, as a mystical place of refuge; famous is the phrase of the Anima Christi: intra tua vulnera absconde me (H. Bremond, Histoire litt. du sent. rel., III, Parigi 1923, pp. 649-38; P. Pourrat, La spiritualité chrétienne, II, ivi 1923, pp. 132 and 497; III, ivi 1925, pp. 456-596). The Wounds of Jesus Christ are invoked as a source of Grace. Among the faithful people, devotion to the Most Holy Wounds of Jesus Christ increased after certain celebrated saints were stigmatized (s. Francesco d'Assisi, s. Caterina da Siena, s. Gemma Galgani, etc.).