Resurrection of our Lord

	Word to Life  By Sharon K. Perkins

When my daughter was five years old, she was involved in a household accident that left a deep gash in her upper thigh.

Horrified, I scooped her up, wrapped a clean dish-towel around the wound and took her to the emergency room where they cleaned and sutured it. It healed remarkably fast and the leg is fully functional, but nine years later a scar remains as a visible reminder of the accident.

April 13, 2008 Fourth Sunday of Easter Acts 2:14a, 36-41 Psalm 23:1-6 1 Peter 2:20b-25 John 10:1-10

There's an expression, "walking wounded," that describes people who are by all appearances functional but who carry in their bodies and their psyches the traces of injury. Cuts and abrasions leave scars on the skin; abusive treatment, tragic events, and acute losses leave scars on the soul.

No human beings who live in an imperfect world are immune; in a sense, we're all "walking wounded," projecting images of well-being and perfection while hiding the evidence of those wounds out of a sense of shame and guilt.

According to the Gospel featured three weeks ago, Thomas remained unbelieving until he felt the nail marks in Jesus' hands and the wound in his side - blemishes that remained even in Jesus' resurrected body.

Although one would expect that all physical traces of his torture on the way to Calvary would have faded away, they endured not only visibly but palpably. Jesus the healer, risen from the dead, victorious over suffering and death, chose to reveal himself to his disciples as a wounded person. Why?

	For reflection: • What "wounds" do you carry but hide from view?

Perhaps he did so to remind us that healing is not about restoration to some imagined state of pristine perfection. Our wounds, like his, have the power to heal others. Our sufferings, touched by the healing love of a resurrected savior, become a source of empathy, compassion, and the motivation to ease others' sufferings. By putting aside misplaced shame and guilt and "walking wounded" with one another, we become healers as well, according to the image of Christ, by whose wounds we are healed.

This column is offered in cooperation with the North Texas Catholic of Fort Worth, Texas.