With God’s Love Wounds of Sin become Wounds of Love

Transforming “wounds of sin into wounds of love”
is something that St. John of the Cross describes the Holy Spirit as
accomplishing in the soul. To help us understand this effect of God in the
soul, St. John of the Cross describes God’s action as a cautery – the
application of something physically hot to a wound, “If applied to a wound
not made by fire, it converts it into a wound caused by fire.” (See Living
Flame of Love, 2.7)

This means, when I am vulnerable to the love of God in
prayer, He is able to help me forgive and even to forget grievances that burden
my heart. Rather than disposing me to render a harsh judgment toward the person
who has hurt me – the Holy Spirit teaches me how to pray for that person and
how to have compassion for them in their misery. This also means that when I
struggle to forgive someone it is not merely because of the wicked thing they
have done, but this struggle also speaks to the ignorance of God’s love I am
suffering.

To be merciful, I need mercy — and here I am a sick beggar
who must rely completely on the Lord. Yet God would not give us the desire to
be merciful if He did not intend to give us the love we need. This love, which
He gives in prayer to those who confidently ask with perseverance, this
mysterious love makes wounds of sin into wounds of love because each wound of
sin becomes a beautiful new way for us to discover the inexhaustible riches of
Christ.

Not to know the love of God is the deepest misery of all —
but to be pierced by His Mercy, if only for a one wondrous moment – no wound is
more healing for the soul, and the only thing that can heal such a wound of
love is to become more vulnerable to love, to allow oneself to be pierced by
love over and over again, “to such an extent that the entire soul is dissolved
into a wound of love. And now all cauterized and made one wound of love, it is
completely healthy in love, for it is transformed in love.”