'Hail, most precious wounds of Jesus… To you I commend myself, into you I plunge myself, that in your shelter I may be secure from the destroyer.' One sentence from the Herald of Divine Love.
Hail, most precious wounds of Jesus, in the omnipotence of the Father, Who decreed you; hail, in the wisdom of the Son, Who endured you; hail, in the goodness of the Holy Ghost, Who through you accomplished the work of human redemption. To you I commend myself, into you I plunge myself, that in your shelter I may be secure from the destroyer. Amen.
On Fridays and in Passiontide; on 16 November, the saint's feast; as an aspiration in temptation.
Gertrude of Helfta, the Benedictine mystic whom the Church calls 'the Great', records in her Herald of Divine Love the salutations to the wounds of Christ that she was taught to make. This one greets the wounds in the three Persons: decreed by the Father's omnipotence, endured by the Son's wisdom, made fruitful by the Holy Spirit's goodness — and then takes refuge in them, which is the oldest use of the devotion to the Five Wounds.
The text is that printed in Blessed Be God (1925).
