Wednesday, December 17
Stigmata and More
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars
And say "These wounds I had on Crispin's day."
--Shakespeare, Henry V, IV, iii.
***
It was fitting for Christ's soul at His Resurrection to resume the body with its scars. In the first place, for Christ's own glory. For Bede says on Luke 24:40 that He kept His scars not from inability to heal them, "but to wear them as an everlasting trophy of His victory." Hence Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xxii): "Perhaps in that kingdom we shall see on the bodies of the Martyrs the traces of the wounds which they bore for Christ's name: because it will not be a deformity, but a dignity in them; and a certain kind of beauty will shine in them, in the body, though not of the body."
--St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa, III.liv.4,
Okay, perhaps that's more than a trace in St. Denis's case, but it does make you think.
(Top picture stolen from one of Fallen Sparrow's more intriguing entries, entitled "Dualism, Zombies, and Persistently Conscious Heads." Really.)
![[SMMMHDH]](http://www.mgilleland.com/music/smmmhdh.png){kind=small}
