Within your wounds hide me. It’s a powerful phrase from the Anima Christi prayer. I never gave it much thought until I found myself saying that line as a prayer itself.

I fully admit that I am not perfect and need the sacrament of confession just as much as any other person. When I think about the wounds that Jesus suffered, I think about how my thoughts/words/actions or lack thereof, were a cause to those injuries. Jesus took on all sin (past, present and future) during his passion and death. So how can I, who helped cause those injuries, now ask to be hidden in them?

The wounds of Jesus do not go away after the resurrection, otherwise Thomas would not have been able to probe them. But somehow those wounds cease to be of pain because Jesus transformed them in His resurrection. He has taken His broken body and made it beautiful in His divinity.

Asking Jesus to hide me in His transformed wounds is asking Him to take my own broken sinfulness and transform it into something beautiful, to use it for God’s will. Often I get stuck in wanting to overcome and perfect myself for God; I forget I need His help. And sometimes His help is to allow me to make the wrong decision so that I can learn from it. Frustration often surfaces when I don’t seem to be improving. But even Jesus fell three times while carrying His cross, so how can I expect to perfect myself after just one fall?

Hiding in Jesus’ wounds means that I need to be very, very close to Him. One way of doing that is to let Him come into the less than perfect parts of me. He knows who I am and what my struggles are. He struggled and suffered as a man and I know He wants to help me in my struggles. What an amazing opportunity I have to get closer to Jesus by allowing Him to help me when I really need it.