Posted on 10/04/2008 10:00:19 PM PDT by Salvation
I did not know that.
I wondered if I used the correct verb in my post. What I copied from somewhere else is their error. LOL! Glad I got it correct — plural
It was hypothesized that ropes were used; also, the experiment with cadavers that tended to prove that a nail through the center of the palm would not support the weight, had this flaw, — that a living man would support himself in part by pushing against the plank to which the feet are nailed.
Another subject is what exactly the stigmata are. It is true that they, as the author writes, conform to the wounds of Christ. But do they conform to the wound as received by Christ or as the stigmatist imagines them to be? Since icons of the crucifixion show wounds through center of palms — not through the stronger cluster of bones near the wrist — a stigmatist receives them through palms also.
I am inclined to think that stigmata are there not to make an icon of Christ in the flesh of the stigmatist, but rather they are granted the stigmatist who desires to share in the suffering of Christ. Indeed, many stigmata are granted women, most that I saw depicted are through the center of palms, St. Francis’s excrecenses represent the Holy Wounds only symbolically; all true stigmatists are moved to conceal these signs. If so, there should be no expectation that the stigmata reveal to us the anatomical nature of the Holy Wounds. The stigmata are granted not for us to look at, but to the stigmatist as a special grace.
Let us say, one prays to receive martyrdom and he is indeed martyred for the Church. We would not expect him to be scourged and crucified in order to conform to Christ; a labor camp or a firing squad are the part of the individual journey of the martyr toward Christ. Likewise the stigmata are a collaboration of the particular stigmatist with grace.
I was going to say the shroud shows the nails going through the wrists. Therefore in my opinion any other signs would be false.
They won’t show the anatomically correct position of the wounds, but as I tried to explain in my previous posts, any wound received supernaturally driven by the desire of the mystic to share in the wounds of Christ would be a real sign of grace.
I would suggest that we slow down a little. I think annalex has sketched out some good issues.
Assuming the stigmatist (or somebody else) didn't cause the wounds with a pen knife, it's at least a prodigy, a wonder. Can't we say that?
At MY most cynical, I would suggest that something like this MIGHT could happen as a result of something like self-hypnosis. But even in that case it wouldn't be a garden variety, everyday sort of thing. I don't think the average hypnotist could induce someone to somehow create such wounds in himself, but then I don't know what I'm talking about.
And the associated phenomena are also hard to explain, if we grant that they really happened. That is, the sweet, rather than bloody, odor, and the like.
I mean, I'm the kind of guy who usually ends up napping when I attempt something like lectio divina. When I pray a full rosary (all 20 mysteries) I have to do so while standing or walking.
To me the gift of being so caught up in prayer that some psychosomatic phenomenon like the stigmata happened would itself be a miracle, even if subsequent generations could explain the sort of bio-mechanics of it. ("Psychosomatic" is here intended as a descriptive, not an evaluative term.)
Am I a little clear?
My point was if the wounds are in the wrong places then they would be false. They bible speaks of lying signs and wonders. From, my research it was St. Francie’s who first had these manifestations. His description of what happened brings doubt into my mind, he spoke of seeing the 6 winged seraphin who looked like Jesus.
What does it profit having marks? And why would they not be anatomically correct?
Let us remember that it is our suffering that benefits the Church, when it conforms to the suffering of Christ. The Biblical example is St. Paul who had a poor vision and a "thorn in his side":
7 And lest the greatness of the revelations should exalt me, there was given me a sting of my flesh, an angel of Satan, to buffet me. 8 For which thing thrice I besought the Lord, that it might depart from me. 9 And he said to me: My grace is sufficient for thee; for power is made perfect in infirmity. Gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10 For which cause I please myself in my infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ. For when I am weak, then am I powerful.(2 Cor. 12)
continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and immoveable from the hope of the gospel which you have heard, which is preached in all the creation that is under heaven, whereof I Paul am made a minister. 24 Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for his body, which is the church: 25 Whereof I am made a minister according to the dispensation of God
(Col 1)
What do we see here? The sign of suffering is a form of grace; it is applied to the suffering of Christ; it builds up the treasure of grace in the Church. Nowhere does the sign anatomically conforms to Christ. One wracked with cancer can, God willing, apply his pain to the pain of the scourging or the Crucifixion. If cancer anatomiically unrelated to the Holy Wounds can do it, then why demand anatomical correctness in the stigmatic wounds?
Yes, I know that's your point. I was suggesting that your point needed examining.
4742 stigma (stig'-mah); from a primary stizo (to "stick", i.e. prick); a mark incised or punched (for recognition of ownership), i.e. (figuratively) scar of service: KJV-- mark.
Yes, and that is the grace of stigmata in the narrow sense of marking the holy wounds as well.
And still my question would be what does it profit to have such marks. On all the accounts in the bible of visitations there is no odor accompanying them. Odors were synominus to pagan encounters. There was no odor when Paul encountered Christ or when the Holy Spirit descended on Pentecost.
Interesting picture where did it come from?
And why does it rename the Greek letter ‘sigma’ ‘stigma’?
Don’t know thats why I asked where did it come from.
The name of the letter is SIGMA, not STIGMA. An majuscule (upper case) Sigma looks like this: Σ and the lower case in the middle of a word looks like this: σ Generally the 's' form of the letter only appears at the end of words. So I was taught anyway.
There may be other good things about this site but I find it very hard to take seriously anybody who presents such stuff.
We take very seriously Col 1:24 and, loving Jesus, we long (or some of us do) to share His sufferings. The marks alone aren't the whole deal. The accounts that I've read of stigmatic Dominicans always mention that the stigma were very painful, and that sometimes the stigmatist had the pain without the visible marks.
He or she did not consider them "profitable" but a gift of love. Or, I should say, of Love Himself.
I don't know, though, I keep hearing and reading about a "sweet-smelling savor," and while I think we would agree that miracles aren't the real deal, that our Lord Himself did not do many flashy miracles and often tried to get people to be quiet about them, yet when God DOES do a miracle, sometimes it's pretty spectacular. Sweet smells neither make me believe nor make me doubt.
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)
It appears that you have a very large chip on your shoulder. Christ never said that we were to share His sufferings, He said that we would suffer for His sake 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.
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