Before the Crucifix: The Five Wounds and the Open Side of Christ
“This is the one who came through water and blood, Jesus Christ, not by water alone, but by water and blood. The Spirit is the one that testifies, and the Spirit is truth. So there are three that testify, the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and the three are of one accord. If we accept human testimony, the testimony of God is surely greater. Now the testimony of God is this, that he has testified on behalf of his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has this testimony within himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar by not believing the testimony God has given about his Son. And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever possesses the Son has life; whoever does not possess the Son of God does not have life.”
There are Catholic prayers that I discover almost accidentally and then wonder how I had passed over them for so long.
Recently, that happened with the Prayer Before a Crucifix.
The prayer begins simply:
“Behold, O good and sweetest Jesus, I cast myself upon my knees in Thy sight…”
But what caught my attention was where the prayer eventually leads us: the five wounds of Christ.
The prayer asks Jesus to impress upon our hearts faith, hope, and charity, together with repentance for our sins and a firm desire to amend our lives. Then it asks us to stop and contemplate:
“Thy five most precious Wounds…”
And suddenly the prayer reaches backward almost a thousand years before the Crucifixion—to David and the Psalms.
David Saw the Wounds
The prayer continues by recalling the words of David:
“They have pierced My hands and My feet; they have numbered all My bones.”
These words come from Psalm 22.
That stopped me.
We usually encounter Psalm 22 through Christ's cry from the Cross:
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
But Jesus is not simply speaking an isolated sentence. He is invoking a Psalm.
Read the whole Psalm with Calvary in front of you.
The suffering man is mocked. People shake their heads at him. His strength is poured out. His garments are divided. Lots are cast for his clothing. His hands and feet are pierced.
Then comes something remarkable.
The Psalm that begins in apparent abandonment does not end there. It turns toward vindication, worship, and the proclamation of God to generations still to come.
The Cross was not God's plan collapsing.
It was God's plan unfolding.
And centuries before Christ, the prayer places David's words before our eyes while asking us to look directly at the crucified Jesus.
The Five Wounds
Then I began thinking more carefully about those wounds.
The traditional Five Holy Wounds are the wounds of Christ's two hands, His two feet, and His side.
Hands that healed are pierced.
Feet that walked from village to village announcing the Kingdom are pierced.
And then there is the fifth wound.
His side.
That one opened another door for me.
John records something extraordinarily specific about the death of Jesus:
“One soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out.”
— John 19:34
Why tell us that?
John himself seems determined that we understand that this happened. Immediately afterward he emphasizes that the one who witnessed it has testified so that we also may believe.
Blood.
Water.
From the side of Christ.
And the Church Fathers saw something enormous here.
The Church Comes From His Side
St. Augustine noticed that John's language could be understood not merely as Christ's side being wounded, but as His side being opened.
Augustine sees the opened side of Christ as the opening of the gate of life, from which the sacraments of the Church flow.
Then he makes an incredible connection.
Go back to Genesis.
Adam sleeps.
His side is opened.
And from Adam's side comes Eve, his bride.
Now look at Calvary.
Christ—the New Adam—enters the sleep of death.
His side is opened.
And from His side come blood and water.
The Fathers recognized here an image of Eucharist and Baptism, and therefore the sacramental birth of the Church, the Bride of Christ. Augustine, Chrysostom, Ambrose and other Fathers developed this connection, and it remains part of Catholic teaching.
That changed the way I looked at this wound.
The spear does not merely show us what sinful humanity did to Christ.
The opened side shows us what Christ gives to sinful humanity.
We wound Him.
He opens the wound and gives us life.
Water and Blood
St. John Chrysostom saw the water as pointing toward Baptism and the blood toward the Eucharist.
We are reborn through water.
We are fed by Christ's Body and Blood.
Chrysostom even tells the Christian approaching the Eucharistic chalice to approach as though drinking from the very side of Christ.
Think about that the next time you approach Communion.
Calvary is not merely something that happened two thousand years ago which Catholics periodically remember.
The sacrifice of Calvary is the sacrifice sacramentally made present to us at the altar.
The Blood poured out for us is not an abstraction.
Christ gives Himself to His Church.
“Water From the Side of Christ, Wash Me”
And suddenly another familiar Catholic prayer becomes even richer:
Anima Christi.
Soul of Christ, sanctify me.
Body of Christ, save me.
Blood of Christ, inebriate me.
Water from the side of Christ, wash me.
Passion of Christ, strengthen me.
Within Thy wounds hide me.
I had prayed those words before.
But now they connect.
The five wounds.
Psalm 22.
David.
John standing beneath the Cross.
The spear.
The opened side.
Blood and water.
Baptism.
Eucharist.
The Church.
The Fathers.
None of these things sits alone.
That is one of the things I continue to love about Catholic formation: sometimes you pull what appears to be one small thread and discover that it runs through the whole tapestry.
Look at the Crucifix
And perhaps that is ultimately why the Prayer Before a Crucifix is so simple.
It doesn't ask us to invent something.
It tells us to look.
Look at His hands.
Look at His feet.
Look at His side.
Remember David.
Remember John.
Remember the water in which you were baptized.
Remember the Blood offered to you from the altar.
And ask Christ to place within you what you cannot manufacture for yourself:
Faith.
Hope.
Charity.
Contrition.
And a firm desire to change.
The crucifix is not merely an image of how much Christ suffered.
It reveals how much Christ gives.
Humanity pierced His hands and feet.
Humanity opened His side.
And from the wound came the life of the Church.
St. Augustine saw the mystery beautifully: from the side of the first Adam came his bride; from the opened side of the New Adam comes the Church.
So perhaps the next time we kneel before a crucifix, we don't need many words.
We can simply look.
“They have pierced My hands and My feet.”
And then look toward His side.
Because even there—especially there—God turned a wound into a fountain of grace.
Prayer Before a Crucifix
Behold, O good and sweetest Jesus,
I cast myself upon my knees in Thy sight,
and with the most fervent desire of my soul
I pray and beseech Thee
to impress upon my heart
lively sentiments of faith, hope and charity,
with true repentance for my sins
and a most firm desire of amendment;
whilst with deep affection and grief of soul
I consider within myself and mentally contemplate
Thy five most precious Wounds,
having before mine eyes that which David, the prophet,
long ago spoke concerning Thee, my Jesus:
“They have pierced My hands and My feet;
they have numbered all My bones.”
Jesus Christ Crucified, have mercy on us.