Today's prayer: Devotion of the plague to the sacred shoulder of Jesus Christ
When our Savior was scourged against the pillar he was thrown over his whole sacred body, front and back. These signs of the Roman scourge can be seen on the Holy Shroud. A wound that cannot be seen on the Shroud but that was opened by the whips studded with bones was on the shoulder.
As Jesus traveled three miles from Pilate's courtyard to Calvary, the Cross sank into His torn shoulder, tearing the flesh to the bone. We know this from private revelations not from the Gospels.
The first saint to venerate the wound on Christ's shoulder was Bernard of Clairvaux who died in 1153. He received this response when he asked Jesus what was his most painful wound:
Saint Bernard, Abbot of Chiaravalle, asked in prayer to Our Lord what the greatest pain had suffered in the body during his Passion. He was answered: “I had a wound on my shoulder, three fingers deep, and three bones discovered to carry the cross: this wound gave me greater pain and pain than all the others and is not known by men. But you reveal it to the Christian faithful and know that any grace they will ask of me by virtue of this plague will be granted to them; and to all those who for love of it will honor me with three Pater, three Ave and three Gloria a day I will forgive venial sins and I will no longer remember mortals and will not die of sudden death and on their deathbed will be visited by the Blessed Virgin and will achieve grace and mercy ”.
Prayer to ask for a grace
Most beloved my Lord Jesus Christ, gentle Lamb of God, I poor sinner I adore you and consider the most painful plague of your shoulder opened by the heavy cross that you carried for me. I thank you for your immense gift of love for redemption and I hope the graces that you promised to those who contemplate your passion and the atrocious wound of your shoulder. Jesus, my Savior, encouraged by You to ask for what I desire, I ask You for the gift of Your Holy Spirit for me, for all your Church, and for grace (ask for the grace you want);
let everything be for Your glory and my greatest good according to the Father's Heart.
Amen.
Another saint who not only venerated the wound on Christ's shoulder but who suffered along with his stigmata was Padre Pio. According to Stefano Campanella, author of The Pope and the Friar, Pope John Paul II visited Padre Pio while he was a priest and asked Padre Pio the same question about what was his most painful wound. Wojtyla expected the stigmatist to say it was his pierced side. But the saint replied: "It is my injured shoulder, which nobody knows and has never been treated or cured". Padre Pio died on September 23, 1968.
Forty years later, Frank Rega wrote a book on San Padre Pio. Here are some relevant paragraphs:
“Once upon a time, Padra (sic) had confided to Brother Modestino Fucci, now custodian of the convent of Padre Pio in San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy, that his greatest pains occurred when he changed his shirt. Brother Modestino, like Father Wojtyla, thought that Padre Pio was referring to pain in the chest wound. Then, on February 4, 1971, Brother Modestino was assigned the task of making an inventory of all the objects in the deceased Father's cell in the convent and also his personal effects in the archives. That day he discovered that one of Padre Pio's vests was carrying a circle of bloodstains in the area of his right shoulder.
“That same evening, brother Modestino asked Padre Pio in prayer to illuminate him on the meaning of the blood-stained undershirt. He asked Father to give him a sign if he had really brought the wound to Christ's shoulder. Then he went to sleep, waking up at one in the morning with a terrible, excruciating pain in the shoulder, as if he had been sliced with a knife to the bone of the shoulder. He felt that he would die of pain if it continued, but it only lasted a short time. Then the room was filled with the aroma of a heavenly perfume of flowers - the sign of Padre Pio's spiritual presence - and she heard a voice saying "This is what I had to suffer!"