The Stigmata of Saint Francis
“If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Mt 16:24–25). Those words of Our Lord, so familiar to modern Catholics, were shocking to his first-century audience, to whom a cross meant a horrifying execution. After the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the Apostles and those they taught understood their calling to suffer with Christ in light of the Resurrection: death must precede rebirth. “We are … fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom 8:16–17).
A True Alter Christus
Few have accepted this call so thoroughly as Saint Francis, the man who followed the Gospel to the letter. During the last two years of his life, he was the first recorded stigmatist, or person marked with the wounds of Christ’s Passion. If Francis was “true alter Christus on earth” (Decree of the Jubilee Year, p. 2), his mystical experience on Mt. Alverna, in which he received Our Lord’s wounds, could be truly considered a second Calvary.
As recorded in The Little Flowers of St. Francis, the saint had been praying in his hermitage on the mountain for some time, had a series of preparatory mystical experiences, and prayed that he might: feel as much as possible the pain Jesus suffered during His Passion, and feel in his heart the great love with which Jesus offered Himself on the Cross. The date was the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, September 14, 1224.
Transformed Into Jesus
As Francis continued with his Passion meditation, the author continues, “the fervor of his devotion increased so much within him that he utterly transformed himself into Jesus through love and compassion.” (trans. Raphael Brown, p. 191) This word choice is certainly strange and startling, and deserves careful reflection. Is the meaning that Francis identified so closely with Jesus through his love and compassion that he was, in spirit, going through the same sufferings with Him? Or that, through love and compassion, he became more and more like Jesus? One could take it more than one way.
The great vision followed: an angelic figure, a six-winged seraph, but with hands and feet nailed to a cross. Francis was filled with joy but also sadness and perplexity—how could an angel be crucified? But in short order he understood that this was the granting of his prayer: Wounds mirroring those of the vision appeared in his hands, feet, and side.
“I have given you this Stigmata,” Our Lord told Francis, “which are the emblems of My Passion, so that you may be My standard-bearer” (192). Early in his vocation, Francis had become a herald for his King, calling in the streets to one and all; now that identity was complete, as he was transformed into a living sign of his Crucified Lord.
Agony & Ecstasy
Two points are especially worth considering. First, if Francis’s ecstasy and his express request to share Christ’s pain make him seem superhuman, we ought to remember that he lived a worldly life with little piety into his young adulthood. His “utter transformation into Jesus” was the result not of magic or of his own Herculean effort, but of his repeated yes to divine grace, given with all his heart. We, too, are called to this transformation; while we probably will not have visions or ecstasies, we can all imitate Francis’s great love.
Second, the link with Christ’s Passion, explicit in Francis’s wounds, is no less true for every human pain. Every wound, illness, mental disorder, grieving heart, and any other suffering are all wounds of the Crucified Jesus. We may not feel Francis’s eagerness to take part in Our Lord’s suffering—nor does God expect us to—but we can all recognize, as he did, that our pain is not meaningless nor are we alone with it, for Christ Crucified comes with His Cross.
“You did this [took on our suffering] for my sake,” Pope Francis, named for the saint of Assisi, wrote in a Stations of the Cross meditation, “so that when I see only darkness, when I experience the collapse of my certainties and the wreckage of my life, I will no longer feel alone, but realize that you are there beside me.”
As we approach the Paschal Triduum, may Saint Francis intercede for us to be closer than ever to Jesus on His Cross, in our contemplation, in our suffering, and above all in our love. May we, too, be “utterly transformed into Jesus” and so come through our own crucifixions to the new life that follows.
