stigmata

stigmata are the wounds of Christ as reproduced in a human body. Visible stigmata are frequently located in both hands and both feet, and on the right side of the chest, replicating the sites of Christ's wounds, which he showed to the disciples in his post-resurrection appearances (Luke 24: 36–40 and John 20: 19–29). The most famous of the stigmatics, St Francis of Assisi, received the stigmata in these places. Occasionally wounds on the head, in the shape of a crown (copying the crown of thorns), and marks on either shoulder (representing the carrying of the cross and scourging) are evidence of stigmata too. Stigmata might also be invisible, marked by the pain of wounds in the classic places, or alternately invisible and visible. St Catherine of Sienna received the stigmata of the five wounds in a vision but asked God to make them disappear, after which she experienced only the pain of the wounds.

The appearance of stigmata varies greatly. Stigmata have ranged from the nail imprints of St Francis' wounds — for which Francis consequently required bandages to cover the protruding nail shapes so that he might use his hands and feet (though he had no bandages from Thursday evening to Saturday morning in order that he might share Christ's Good Friday suffering) — to cuts of varying length and depth, blisters, and scabs of dried blood. Bleeding or manifestation of the stigmata might in some cases be continual while in other cases occur only periodically — for example, in Lent and Holy Week, or on particular days of the week, especially Fridays or Good Friday. In the case of Padre Pio, the twentieth-century stigmatic, his hands bled lightly but almost continually, soaking the gloves he wore, and the wound in his chest produced a cup of blood each day.

Stigmata are often accompanied by other bodily phenomena such as pain, blood, sweats, levitations, or even lameness or blindness, and they quite often occur in people who are already ill or are voluntarily abstaining from food for religious reasons. Many of the women nuns and saints who fasted and/or existed on the host alone, in late medieval and early modern Europe, received the stigmata, such as St Catherine of Sienna, who fasted — except for eating the blessed host — for eight years. Stigmatics often receive religious visions or ecstasies, having visions of Christ and various saints, and also ‘re-living’ or seeing parts of Christ's passion and sharing in his suffering.

Stigmata seem to have begun to appear only in the thirteenth century, with the growing popularity of the imitation of Christ, especially the suffering Christ, in patterns of piety and devotional life. Of some 330 recorded cases of persons receiving the stigmata, only about 60 of those have been made saints. The official Roman Catholic position towards stigmata has always been rather guarded.

It seems that the vast majority of stigmatics have been women. In the case of the late medieval and early modern female religious, their receiving the stigmata has been interpreted as one of a number of experiences or phenomena, including fasting and other forms of asceticism, by which women participated in the imitation of Christ. Through their bodies they could share in the suffering of Christ, who in his body suffered to save humankind, and by the signs of their suffering, such as the stigmata, they gained access to power and authority, not by virtue of office (which was denied them) but through experience. In the modern period, female stigmatics have been consistently subjected to medical testing, in the quest for authenticity, and there is an abundance of medical evidence for stigmatics, such as Catherine Emmerich (1774–1824), Louise Lateau (1850–83), and the early twentieth-century Teresa Neumann. In nineteenth-century France especially, this kind of medical testing of female bodies by male doctors bears some comparison with Charcot's study of hysteria, especially as stigmatics and hysterics were seen to share some of the same pathologies or symptoms. In both cases the body was seen to hold the ‘truth’. A medical doctor, Imbert-Gourbeyre, visited and examined as many of the nineteenth-century stigmatics as he could, as well as examining and compiling evidence about other unusual religious phenomena such as the miracles reported at Lourdes, and his medical study of 1894, La Stigmatisation, I'extase divine, les miracles de Lourdes, illustrates very well this sort of approach.

Jane Shaw

See also body mutilation and markings; saints.