Galatians 6:17

From henceforth let no man trouble me. Let no Jew trouble me in future by asking whose servant I am. He bears the marks of circumcision, I the marks of Christ. Maldonatus takes the words as a defence of his apostleship.

For I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. The Greek word used here denotes marks burnt in, like those impressed on slaves. It also stands for the scars left by wounds. S. Paul gives reasons for believing that he bore these latter in 2 Cor. xi. 23. As soldiers are proud of their scars gained in honourable warfare, so does S. Paul point with pride to those he had gained in the service of Christ.

S. Ambrose (in Psalms 119:120) writes: " That man is pierced with the nails of God's fear who bears in his body the mortification of Jesus. He merits to hear his Lord saying: 'Set Me as a seal upon thy hears, as a seal upon thine arm.' Place then on thy breast and on thy heart the seal of the Crucified; place it too an thy arm, that thy works may be dead unto sin. Perchance not only fear but love also will pierce thee with its nails, for love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave. May our souls be wounded by these nails of charity, that they may cry out: 'We bear the wounds of charity.' "

In the same way did Blessed Theodorus Studita rejoice in the wounds he received in defence of the sacred images when they were assailed by Leo the Armenian, in A.D. 824. Baring his body to the scourge, he said: " Delightful to me is the scourging of this vile body, and delightful will it be to lay it aside altogether, that my liberated soul may flee to Him whom it thirsts for." And when the scourging was over, he wrote joyfully to Naucratius: " Is it not more glorious to bear the marks of Christ, than to wear earthly crowns? " See Baronius, Annals for that year.

They bear the marks of Christ, says S. Jerome, who for love of Christ afflict their bodies, or who are afflicted with illness. S. Francis of Assissi, as S. Bonaventura relates in his Life of him (c. 13), received from a seraph nails in his hands and feet, out of his intense love of Christ crucified. These nails were not of iron but of hard, dead flesh, having their heads projecting, and the sharp end turned inwards, so that it was with pain and difficulty that he could walk. Pope Alexander IV testified that he saw these nails himself with his own eyes after the death of S. Francis, and from him S. Bonaventura learnt the fact.

Let the impious blasphemy of Beza then do its worst, which speaks of this as a "stigmatic idol," fondly and fraudulently fashioned. S. Paul, however, is not claiming here such marks for himself, nor do the oldest likenesses of him show any of the sort. Indeed Sixtus IV., in a Bull quoted by Henry Sedulius, in his "Notes to the Life of S. Francis," forbade, under pain of excommunication, any other saint but S. Francis to be so painted. The Dominicans, who have lately depicted S. Catherine of Sienna in this way, claim a special privilege given them for the purpose by Pius V.

G OD FORBID THAT I SHOULD GLORY SAVE IN THE. ROSS OF. ESUS. HRIST.

T HE C ROSS IS THE LADDER OF BLESSED E TERNITY.

O LONG AND BLESSED E TERNITY!

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