Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, stigmatist and mystic. (2024)

Saint Catherine of Ricci, a stigmatic, unfolds the Passion of Christin 17 scenes that lasts 28 hours, 'conversed aloud as if enacting adrama.'

After her ecstatic experience of the passion, her body is coveredwith wounds. This was described in her bull of canonization.

Stigma is derived from a Greek word, meaning tattoo or mark. InChristian mysticism it refers to bodily wounds, scars or pains like thecrucifixion wounds of Jesus Christ. The marks are visible on the head,chest and especially on the hands and feet.

Stigmatization can occur anytime, appear or disappearintermittently. The wounds can also be invisible but the recipient knowsthey are there because of the pain.

Mystical phenomenon

In Saints Catholic Blogosphere, it is said that the blood flow couldnot be induced psychosomatically. Neither can it be stopped by medicalcare. Fresh blood flows freely against the laws of gravity. Since theblood seeping from stigmatics is the blood of Christ, there can be twotypes of blood in a wound. The blood oozes in different quantities andlength of time.

Most stigmatics are mystics with a poignant faith to share inGod's suffering.

In his book, Hospitality and Pain, theologian Ivan Illick describesthe experience as 'Compassion with Christ...faith so strong, sodeeply incarnate that it leads to individual embodiment of contemplatedpain.'

Saint Francis of Assisi is acknowledged by the Catholic Church asthe first stigmatist. He received it on September 14, 1224, while on a40-day fast in Mount La Verna.

A crucified angel approached him while he was praying. While he waspondering on the meaning of the vision, he saw marks of heads of nailsappearing on his wrists and upper sides of his feet. He felt his rightside pierced by a spear.

There are 330 stigmatized persons listed by Encyclopedia Britannica(IX, 570), 60 of them were declared saints or blessed.

According to Catholic Doctrine, there is 'no intrinsicconnection between sanctity and stigmatization. God can grant charisms,such as stigmata to any person, even one in a state of mortal sin oroutside the Church.'

However 'there is not a single experimental proof thatimagination could produce them especially in violent forms'(Mystical Stigmata, Kevin Knight, 2017).

The most painful of the wounds inflicted during the passion areChrist's wounds on His right shoulder, He revealed this to SaintBernard of Clairvaux.

Available Christian literature on stigmatics revealed that onlyFather Pio of Pietrelcina had shoulder wounds.

It was only Pope John Paul II who knew about it, as revealed byStefano Campanella in Pope and the Friar.

Brother Modesto, who was in charge of Father Pio's vestments,said Pio was in great pain every time he changed his undershirt. Thebrother, immediately after Pio's death, saw traces of a'circular hematoma' on his right shoulder.

Pain at its best

Stigmatization is one of the most documented phenomena in thehistory of the Church. It is painful, so when someone asked Father Pioif it is painful, he answered: 'Do you think the Lord gave them tome as decoration?'

Stigmatics describe the pain as physically and morally painful butthey can bear with it 'due to the intervention of an intelligentand free cause acting on the stigmatics.'

Although stigmatics realize that suffering is at its best others,comment negatively on the experience.

Saint Gemma Galgani 'actually passed out due to overwhelmingpain of the wounds.'

'I felt as if I was about to die,' she muttered.

The stigmata can occur and disappear anytime. However, moststigmatics suffer the pain of stigmatization on Thursday at 3 p.m. untilFriday at 4 p.m.

In a letter to his spiritual director, Father Pio wrote: 'Thewound is so painful that it is enough to cause 1,001 deaths. Oh my God,why don't I die? Please forgive me, Father, I am beside myself andI don't know what I am saying. So much pain causes me to be franticmuch against my will.'

An invisible stigmata is more painful, according to doctors. Whenthe wound bleeds, in a visible stigmata, pain is lessened, so too whenit is bandaged.

Saint Catherine of Sienna, Saint Clare of Montefalco and SaintCatherine de Ricci, a Florentine Dominican, requested God in humility tohide the wounds without taking away the pains.

God responded to their requests. However, at death, Saint Catherinede Sienna's wounds appeared. So too, the stigmata of Saint Clare deMontefalco.

Father Pio also begged Jesus to take away the physical signs. InPadre Pio: Man of Hope, Renzo Allegri noted how Pio begged for it.

'Let me suffer and let me die from suffering. But take awaythese signs that cause me so much embarrassment.' Jesus answered:'You will bear them for 50 years, and then you will seeme.'

Flash views

The search for proofs that stigmata can be caused by sickness andinduced by imagination and auto suggestion continues. Even if stigmatameans a 'divine malady that ends only in death,' according toDr. Imbert, stigmatas continue to fascinate believers and unbelieversalike, including the Vatican.

L'Osservatore Romano, on July 5, 1923, published that'Father Pio's stigmata were unrelated to the wounds ofChrist.'

The decree did not only give 'credence about Father Pio as apoor, sick man or a hoax.' Too, the 'whole congregation becamethe butt of jokes.'

Vatican was proven wrong. The humble and obedient CapuchinFranciscan was canonized on June 16, 2002.

Considered as one of the most notable stigmatic of the 20th century,Saint Fr. Pio of Pietrelcina, OFM Cap., is also incorruptible.

Damo-Santiago is a former regional director of the Department ofEducation National Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member ofMater Redemptoris Collegium in Calauan, Laguna, and of Mater RedemptorisCollege in San Jose City, Nueva Ecija.