What is the Stigmata? [Ecumenical]

CERC ^ | 2003 | FR. WILLIAM SAUNDERS

[Salvation]

What is the Stigmata?

FR. WILLIAM SAUNDERS

I am so happy about Padre Pio being beatified. I know that he had the stigmata, but I have had some trouble explaining it to my Protestant friends. Could you please explain what that is and if any other saints have had it.

 
The stigmata is the spontaneous appearance of the wound marks of our crucified Lord on a person's body. These marks include the nail wounds at the feet and the hands, the lance wound at the side, the head wounds from the crown of thorns, and the scourge marks over the entire body, particularly the back. A stigmatic (i.e. the person suffering from the stigmata) may have one, several, or all of these wound marks. Moreover, they may be visible or invisible, and they may be permanent, periodic, or temporary in appearance.

Some skeptics would attribute such wound marks on a person to some pathology or even to a psychological condition without considering any notion of the supernatural. Of course, the Church too strives first to ascertain that the origin is not of natural causes, and looks for supernatural evidence to prove that the stigmata is truly a sign from God. Moreover, the Church would also want to insure that the stigmata is not a sign from Satan to cause some spiritual frenzy and lead people astray. Accordingly, since the stigmata is a sign of union with our crucified Lord, the genuine stigmatic must have lived a life of heroic virtue, have endured physical and moral suffering, and have almost always achieved the level of ecstatic union with Him in prayer.

The wound marks themselves of the genuine stigmata are also distinct from any arising from some pathology: The genuine stigmata conforms to the wounds of our Lord, whereas those of a pathological nature would emerge at random on the body. The genuine stigmata bleeds especially on days when our Lord's passion is remembered (such as Fridays and Good Friday), whereas those of a pathological nature would not. The genuine stigmata emits clean and pure blood, whereas those of the pathological origin suppurate. The blood flow from a genuine stigmata can be great at times without harm to the person, whereas that of a pathological nature would seriously weaken a person and require a blood transfusion. The genuine stigmata cannot be healed through medication or other treatments, whereas one of pathological origin can. Finally, the genuine stigmata appears suddenly, whereas that of a pathological origin appears gradually over time and can be linked to underlying psychological and physical causes.

Finally, the genuine stigmatics have been surprised at the appearance of the stigmata. This sign is not something for which they had "prayed." Moreover, in humility, they have often tried to conceal it so as not to cause attention to themselves.

The first "certified" stigmatic was St. Francis of Assisi (1181 - 1226). In August, 1224, he and several Franciscans journeyed to Mount Alvernia in Umbria, near Assisi, to pray. Here Francis begged to share in the sufferings of Christ. On the Feast of the Holy Cross (September 14) in 1224, St. Francis had a vision of being embraced by our crucified Lord. The agony of the first Good Friday poured into his being, and he received the stigmata. He tried to conceal this sign of divine favor from others, covering his hands with his habit and wearing shoes and socks on his feet (which he normally did not do). Eventually, his confreres noticed the change in St. Francis' clothing and his physical suffering, and his stigmata became known. Eventually, upon the advice of his confreres, he revealed the stigmata publicly. St. Francis said, "Nothing gives me so much consolation as to think of the life and passion of our Lord. Were I to live to the end of the world, I should stand in need of no other book." Surely, St. Francis' love for our crucified Lord, witnessed in his care for the suffering poor, gained him the stigmata.

St. Catherine of Sienna (1347-1380), who had mystical experiences and visions from the time she was six years old, also received the stigmata. In February, 1375, while visiting Pisa, she attended Mass at the Church of St. Christina. After receiving Holy Communion, she fell into deep meditation, gazing upon the crucifix. Suddenly from the cross came five blood-red rays which pierced her hands, feet, and side, causing such great pain that she fainted. Here she received the stigmata, but it remained visible only to her until after her death.

Perhaps the most famous stigmatic is Padre Pio. Born in 1887, he had visions from the time he was five years old, and from an early age decided to dedicate his life to the Lord. He entered the Capuchin Franciscans in 1903, and was ordained a priest in 1910. He said, "I am devoured by the love of God and by the love of my neighbor."

On August 5, 1918, Padre Pio had a vision in which he felt himself pierced with a lance; afterwards, the lance wound remained with him. Later, on September 20, 1918, while he was making his thanksgiving after Mass, he also received the wounds of our Lord in his hands and feet. Each day, he lost about one cup of blood, but the wounds never closed or festered. Also, a sweet odor emanated from his wounds instead of the smell of blood.

During his life, Padre Pio came to know the depth of the suffering of our Savior at the hands of those within and outside of the Church, and of the Devil himself. Nevertheless, Padre Pio said, "I am an instrument in divine hands. I am useful only when manipulated by the Divine Mover." The stigmata would stay with Padre Pio to the time of his death. Pope Paul VI said, "What renown he has! What an international following! And why? Because he was a philosopher? A scholar? A person of means? No, because he said Mass in a humble manner, heard confessions from morning to night. And because he was Our Lord's representative, certified with the stigmata."

Although very few saints have been granted the stigmata, those who have, like St. Francis, St. Catherine, and Blessed Pio, have known the sufferings of our Lord. While the stigmata may intrigue us, the sign itself and those who bear it should inspire us to seek a closer union with our Lord, especially through frequent confession and reception of the Holy Eucharist.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Saunders, Rev. William. "What is the Stigmata? ." Arlington Catholic Herald.

This article is reprinted with permission from Arlington Catholic Herald.

THE AUTHOR

Father William Saunders is dean of the Notre Dame Graduate School of Christendom College and pastor of Our Lady of Hope Parish in Sterling, Virginia. The above article is a "Straight Answers" column he wrote for the Arlington Catholic Herald. Father Saunders is also the author of Straight Answers, a book based on 100 of his columns and published by Cathedral Press in Baltimore.

Copyright © 2003 Arlington Catholic Herald

[Mad Dawg]

(pinging t-Red because I think she might like to read this.) What profit is there in the kisses of my beloved?

The word there profit was used in the sense that Paul used in his letter to the Corinthians when he said, 1 Cor 14:6 6 But now, brethren, if I come to you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you unless I speak to you either by revelation, by knowledge, by prophesying, or by teaching? (NKJ)

"What's the use of it?" If I understand you, I'd say that stigmatists prompt some of us to recommit ourselves or to strengthen our commitment to holiness of life.

Mark 8:36-37 36 "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? 37 "Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? (NKJ)

I guess I've always understood the "profit" here as in the same line of country as "What's the point? What's the good of it?" And of course there's no good in gaining the world and losing your soul.

Are you asking then what is the good to the stigmatist? I guess we'd have to ask the stigmatist. My impression from my very little reading is that the stigmata spur them to deeper devotion.

It appears that you have a very large chip on your shoulder.

I'll think and pray about that, and if there indeed is a chip, maybe God will give me the grace to, well to do whatever one is supposed to do with chips.

Christ never said that we were to share His sufferings, He said that we would suffer for His sake ...(the question of the origin of suffering is a wholly different one, hence the break.)

To me this is a dramatic difference in view. To me every Christian husband who grieves over his wife's loss of something that means nothing to him but a great deal and dole to her, every Christian who takes up the boredom and bad smells and frustration and likely failure of helping a drunk make yet another attempt to clamber out of the gutter, every Christian soldier who is wounded or killed helping his unit and defending the country, heck every Protestant who swallows his anger and frustration and tries, in charity and sincerity of heart, to straighten out us befuddled Catholics is sharing in Christ's mission and suffering.

When on a fair day with family and iced tea beckoning someone goes into the the room of an aphasic stroke victim and holds her hand and strokes her hair and whispers to her of God's love, the renunciation of iced tea and cool breeze and the patient soft evangelism is a participation in the work of Christ, and comes with His pain, albeit, in that case, not very great measure of his pain. — though maybe that night the terror of being trapped in an unresponsive and uncommunicative body may disturb his rest.

I thought that when, as a protestant, I was a hospital chaplain. Why would I go out of my way (unpaid as I was) to become close to a dying child and to his family so that when the death came I would grieve with them, if I didn't think I was privileged to walk where IHS walks and suffer as he suffers? "What profit" indeed in intentionally entering that world of grief?

... but as far as I've read God does not lay illness or suffering on His children just as a father would not put sickness or suffering on his child.

And so again we have the 90 degrees difference of view. I do not see God gratuitously throwing pain around, but I see an awful lot of pain. And while no humane father would lay sufferings on his children for no reason, yet a young boy (a very young boy — by the time they're old enough to be useful helping Dad is the last thing on their mind!) would eagerly blister and tear his skin and strain his muscles for the privilege of being allowed to help his father cut down a tree, saw it into logs, and stack the logs for the winter fires. (I have no son, but we heat with wood, so this is a vital example to me, and the 'orrible brat child did help me a few times before I became a ludicrous fossil in her eyes. Fortunately my fossilhood was brief and we have a lot of fun and many many good talks these days.)

Between the Fall and the Kingdom there is suffering. That just seems to be a commonplace to me, so true that I would not know how to dispute it. There's no avoiding it, as far as I can see, at least without serious harm to the soul.

It also seems true that willingly entering into suffering for the sake of others is something nearly everyone admits to be noble and virtuous. It's why we respect warriors, not so much for their victory as for their willingly taking on great risks and pains for our sake.

And, to provide a hint of where I think this line of thought goes, we are made members of His body, grafted into it. By His love and grace and by His Spirit and His life in us, our sufferings are His and His are ours.

[evets]

It's not 'sigma' it's 'stigma' according to the website: blueletterbible.com rev 13:18

[evets]

Greek 'stigma' from wiki

(Don't know if site can be trusted.)

[Mad Dawg]

Well, they're wrong. Look it up in a dictionary. Get a Greek textbook. Look at the names of fraternities. Stigma Chi? I don't think so.

I try to avoid arguing from my own authority. (It never works with my wife or my kid; why should it work here?)(joke) But I first learned the Greek alphabet in High school, from which I graduated in 1965. That was self taught, but I studied Greek in College and in Seminary. In the more than 30 years since then I have spent some time in the Greek New Testament and in various dictionaries and grammars. Never have I heard the letter called "stigma", not once, until your post.

Are you going to tell me that proctologists examine the stigmoid colon, which is named the sigmoid colon because of it's 's' shape?

As to the form of the letter, get a Greek testament and note the three forms. Or examine some old MSS.

And in that connection, last line of the table makes no sense. The Greek letters are χ (chi) and ι (iota) while the English gives THREE letters, chi, xi and the famous "stigma". The conjecture of a loss of concentration leading to a typo is attractive to me.

I sent a mesage to the site:

see the last line of the table on

http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/c.pl?book=Rev&chapter=13&verse=18&version=KJV#18

There must be an error. The two Greek letters χ and ι are given and explained as chi, xi, and "stigma". I am guessing someone meant to give χ, ξ, and σ, but got tired or distracted.

[Salvation]

**And, to provide a hint of where I think this line of thought goes, we are made members of His body, grafted into it. By His love and grace and by His Spirit and His life in us, our sufferings are His and His are ours. **

John 15: The Vine and the Branches BTTT!

[Mad Dawg]

As I said, that's conventionally the form used at the end of a word. The Σ and σ are the other forms, the former is the upper case and the latter the lower case.

[evets]

Thanks for the correction. I will be email Strong's concordance folks too:

[Mad Dawg]

I don’t have a Strong’s. Just a Young’s analytical. What’s the URL of the Strong’s boo-boo?

[Mad Dawg]

ooh OOH! An obsolete letter! Now THAT's interesting AND a new one on me. Thank YOU!

I just Googled "Strong's Concordance stigma" and found some fun stuff.

I don't know my way around Strong's.

Another thing that vexes me: In my Greek NT there is not only no "Chi, Xi, [whatever]" but none of the textual apparatus gives any indication of a textual variant including it!

So now I have to wonder in what texts it appears. And I have to wonder since it looks just like a terminal sigma, how the reader would know it wasn't a terminal sigma.

And it's interesting because the word στιγμα, (stigma) meaning mark or brand, is used in the NT, notably by Paul in Galations:(I bear on my body ...).

Do you know of a source other than Strong's and not depending on Strong's which refers to this obsolete character? I see reference to the chi xi [whatever] sequence in my Young's. I'm beginning to think that there is a major textual issue here.

You've ruined my morning, and I thank you. I hit my IDB, my Interpreters one volume Commentary, my Theological Dictionary of the NT, my Greek NT, my Greek lexicon of the NT (Bauer, Arndt and Gingrich)and just about everything I have. Oh, wait, I have a Greek Grammar (Blass Debrunner) somewhere.

OKay, I'm back. I have NOTHING on this sequence of characters. Nothing whatsoever!

I don't know what to make of this I'd feel a lot better about this if there were independent confirmation.

it seems there's the question of the character (or numeral?) "stigma" and the textual question of the sources and texts used for the KJV. It's clear that subsequent sources have appeared which discredit SOME parts of some of the sources used by the KJV translators. (For example the differences in Isaiah 9) but clearly the magisterial references for the KJV (Young's and Strong's) think there is good reason to go with this notion.We need some scholars here!

Then that doesn't even touch the connection, if any, between stigmata as we Calf licks talk about them and the use of this character in Rev 13:18.

But again, I thank you for the work out and the question.

[Mad Dawg]

Okay. More googling.

I found
http://bible1.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=5516&version=kjv

and while they know of the Theological Dictionary of the NT it APPEARS, I could be wrong, that for their article here they only refer to Thayer's and Smith's, which comports, (but by no means proves) my contention that this is a KJV textual/source issue.

Oh Wait. I looked it up under Chi in my B.A.G. lexicon and they have it as "textus receptus". Heigh ho, off to the 10 volume dictionary again .....

NO joy.

I'm back to my guess that this is a discredited variant of the t.r.. I would assume the KJV (and therefore Strongs, Young's Thayers; etc) would work off the t.r.. And maybe the obsolete "Stigma" is not archaic but a medieval type of obsolete.

Thanks again. More work needs to be done, nut not by me. I have a deadline I've been neglecting.

[guitarplayer1953]

Does a greater devotion lead to more evangelism? Do it lead to feeding the poor preaching the Word? There is a old saying of one being so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good. So many want to eat at the Lords table but no one want to work in the field.

[Mad Dawg]

No earthly good? That's EASY! I accomplish that with only lukewarm devotion! I'm gonna take that as meaning I'm rilly, rilly holy.

;-)

I guess the short answer would be that if it doesn't inspire it in the stigmatist, it inspires it in those who hear or read of him or her.

But to sort of spread it out a little, I'd say that the world "profits" from the prayers of the hole, and even from the prayers of such a moiself. While I think few are called to be hermits or 'enclosed', still not only histories of their lives, but their lives themselves benefit all of us.

Catherine of Siena, a lay Dominican and one of the heroes of our order, was a stigmatist and she was very active in the world, not only consoling and evangelizing, but writing and counselling. The cause and effect relationship might not be very clear, but nobody could say she hung around the house doing nothing. She seems to have been nourished and energized by her prayer.

[TASMANIANRED]

Thanks for the ping.

You really start your days early.

[Mad Dawg]

from the prayers of the hole

TRUE for "hole"= "whole".

[Mad Dawg]

You really start your days early.

I like to get a head start on my procrastination.

[TASMANIANRED]

I don’t do early. I’m not built that way.

Seems to me that this discussion could benefit from one of our esteemed members...Kolo...tros.unfortunately I can’t remember the exact spelling.

Input could save a lot of head banging.

[Mad Dawg]

You're right, TR.

Yo! Kolo.

When you get done thrashing those four Turks who didn't know you were Greek when they started the fight, could you give us a run down on Rev 13:18 and the numeral presented to us as Xhi Xi Stigma, where "stigma" is described as an obsolete Greek character?

I'd never heard of it, but it is in my Greek Lexicon of the NT, and I've been busily asserting with the kind of certainty that nearly always accompanies ignorance that it don't exist.

[Mad Dawg]

Dang, now I’m all frazzled.. I mean “Chi Xi Stigma”

[TASMANIANRED]

Professional training as a problem solver occasionally comes in useful.

I’m not extremely well versed in stigmata, judging from the list provided of some well known “joyous sufferers” is it true that as a group the one thing that would be in common with them is “Catholic Mystics”

(Individuals so emptied of ego in themselves that they have allowed Jesus Christ to fill them to capacity?)

[Kolokotronis]

"...could you give us a run down on Rev 13:18"

The Greek in the Byzantine text, which is what we use and is the oldest extant, is "ἑξακόσια ἑξήκοντα ἕξ", nothing like "Ξ Χ Σ" or "ξ χ σ (or ς)" "ς" as a capital is a Byzantine form of Σ, or as a lower case letter it is used in place of "σ" at the end of a word. The Church in the East has never had much use for revelations, as you likely know. The code +John uses, and in some cases its "616" instead of "666", is for someone's name but as early as 100 years after it was written, it seems no one knew what the code meant. An undigested bit of beef is my bet.