Visionaries, Stigmatists, and Incorruptibles (Part Four)

Introduction

God calls visionaries to make His message strongly heard in the world. The visionaries written in the previous blog posts were simple women and a native American man - all of whom never thought they were to be called by God to make His Son and the Blessed Virgin Mary more known and loved. Theirs was a unique call - to see and receive divine messages. It was not an easy calling, for those visionaries had to suffer oppositions, doubts and the disbelief from either members of their families or townsmates. Despite all that, they persevered and God's message was announced at a time when it was needed most.

Stigmatists or stigmatics

After the five visionaries mentioned, this blog post will consider stigmatists or stigmatics - those who have the stigmata in their physical bodies.

Those who study these phenomenon often refer to stigmatists as those who have the wounds of Christ physically visible in the body. On the other hand, the term stigmatics are those who suffer the wounds of Christ but the wounds are not physically visible as in the case of St. Catherine of Siena.

The stigmata is both a gift and a mystery. It is a phenomenon in which a person bears all or some of the wounds of Christ Crucified in his or her own body. The wounds appear without any physical external cause, and there is a flow of fresh blood from those wounds.

The best known and the first stigmatic was St. Francis of Assisi. Another popular stigmatist in modern time was St. Pio of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio). Because these two Franciscans were popular for this miracle of the stigmata, many are not aware that was only them and a few others in Church history who had been gifted with that miracle. But since the first stigmata came upon St. Francis of Assisi, many studies and scholarly research has established some 326 cases of stigmatization, with more than 60 of these stigmatics canonized in the altar of the Church.

Certain criterion to determine authenticity

Because of the many cases of stigmatization since St. Francis of Assisi, the Church has established through centuries of canonical processes certain criteria to know whether the stigmata is real. The following criteria were established:

• the wounds should be found in the very spots were Christ received His five wounds
• the wounds and the pains associated with the wounds should bleed afresh on feasts associated with Our Lord's Passion (and also on Fridays)
• the wounds do not fester (become infected and produce pus) and the blood flowing from them is pure
• the wounds do not yield to medical treatment and can remain for as long as 30-40 years
• the wounds produce a hemorrhage but they lie on the surface, far from the great blood vessels (and yet the blood streams from them)
• the stigmatic is known to possess a special love of the Cross

To be continued

In the next blog posts, the story of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Pio of Pietrelcina's stigmatization will be presented. St. Francis' stigmatization is based on written sources handed down from generation to generation - mostly among the Franciscans. As to St. Pio of Pietrelcina, since he lived until the middle of the twentieth century (died 1968 A.D.), there are existing photos that document his stigmatization.

Sources of this blog post

• Pocket Catholic Dictionary, by John A. Hardon, SJ