Stigmata

[stigmata]

yes stigmata is my nickname, but also:

Stigmata are bodily marks, sores, or sensations of pain in locations corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus.
The term originates from the line at the end of Saint Paul's Letter to the Galatians where he says, "I bear on my body the marks of Jesus", with "marks" in the Latin Vulgate rendered as "stigmata". An individual bearing stigmata is referred to as a stigmatic.

The causes of stigmata are the subject of considerable debate. Some contend that they are miraculous, while others argue they are hoaxes or can be explained medically.


Reported cases of stigmata take various forms. Many show some or all of the five Holy Wounds that were, according to the Bible, inflicted on Jesus during his crucifixion: wounds in the hands and feet, from nails, and in the side, from a lance. Some stigmatics display wounds to the forehead similar to those caused by the crown of thorns. Other reported forms include tears of blood or sweating blood, wounds to the back as from scourging, or wounds to the shoulder as from bearing the cross.

Some stigmatics feel the pain of wounds with no external marks; these are referred to as invisible stigmata. In other cases, stigmata are accompanied by extreme pain. Some stigmatics' wounds do not appear to clot, and stay fresh and uninfected. The blood from the wounds is said, in some cases, to have a pleasant, perfumed odor.

Cases of stigmata have been reported at different ages for different stigmatics. Some have manifested stigmata continually after the first appearance; others have shown periodic stigmata that re-occur at certain times of the day or on certain, sometimes holy, days throughout the year.



u what do u think? specially that we r during the holy week of easter...
is it a sin to think that its not miraculous?

P.S: Stigmata are primarily associated with the Roman Catholic faith. Many reported stigmatics are members of Catholic religious orders. The majority of reported stigmatics are female.

Famous stigmatics
- Saint Catherine of Siena
- Saint John of God
- Saint Marie of the Incarnation
- Saint Pio of Pietrelcina
- Brother Roque
- Therese Neumann
- Lilian Bernas
- Saint Francis of Assisi
- Saint Gemma Galgani

[Superman]

Originally Posted by stigmata

u what do u think? specially that we r during the holy week of easter...
is it a sin to think that its not miraculous?

Not precisely a sin... If someone doesn't believe that this is miraculous, I simply call it: Weak Faith or also different beliefs...

There's many christians out there who doesn't believe in everything said in the bible. Do u call those sinners?! I don't... I only think that everyone believe whatever he wants to believe in wether he was a christian or not.

[syrian]

when u say stigmata and easter, u say Our Lady of Soufanieh in Damascus...

For more info: http://www.soufanieh.com/

It has started somewhere in the 1980s when Virgin Mary appeared to Mirna, a catholic married to an Orthodox (or the opposite). From that moment on, Mirna keeps having visits of Virgin Mary, Jesus, and yes, STIGMATA...

STIGMATA occurs ONLY the day easter is celebrated by ALL: catholics and orthodox...

We expect something this week in damascus...

u wanna be a witness? take the risk to come...

[stigmata]

Originally Posted by syrian

when u say stigmata and easter, u say Our Lady of Soufanieh in Damascus...

For more info: http://www.soufanieh.com/

It has started somewhere in the 1980s when Virgin Mary appeared to Mirna, a catholic married to an Orthodox (or the opposite). From that moment on, Mirna keeps having visits of Virgin Mary, Jesus, and yes, STIGMATA...

STIGMATA occurs ONLY the day easter is celebrated by ALL: catholics and orthodox...

We expect something this week in damascus...

u wanna be a witness? take the risk to come...

yes syrian, i know the story of mirna akhrass, and the miracles.
this is what we called stigmata (100%)
and yes its my pleasure to go visit her, she's a blessing person.
this is some a pic of mirna with stigmata:

[syrian]

why then do u think that stigmata is not miraculous?

[stigmata]

Originally Posted by syrian

why then do u think that stigmata is not miraculous?

u got me wrong syrian.
its not me who think that stigmata is not miraculous.bel 3akess i beleive that its a miraculous sign.
stigmata= jrouhat el massih.

[Dark Angel]

Originally Posted by stigmata

u got me wrong syrian.
its not me who think that stigmata is not miraculous.bel 3akess i beleive that its a miraculous sign.
stigmata= jrouhat el massih.

There is an interesting fact to be considered, most stigmatics reporting the wounds in their hand bleed from their palms. However it was recently concluded that Romans drove the nails through writs because nails through the palms cannot support the weight of the body on a cross and end up tearing through flesh, this was also brought forth in the movie Stigmata.

so question is, why do stigmatics manifest the wounds through the palms and not the wrists?

[Picasso]

لا أريد أن أنكر جراح المسيح، لأنّ عالمنا مليء بالأسرار، ومهما سبرَ الإنسان خفاياه يبقى المزيد

لكن، أسأل: ما الدليل أنهم لم يُحْدِثوا هذا بأنفسهم أو بمساعدة آخرين؟

خصوصاً انّ رجالَ الدين والكهنة في كل الديانات، كثيراً ما يلجأون إلى صدم عامة الناس بظواهر لا عهدَ لهم بها، كي يزدادوا "إيماناً" و"خشوعاً". تاريخياً، كانَ رجال الدين والمتدينون محترفين في الحديث عن ظواهر غيبية أو افتعال بعضها أو إعطاء تفسيرات دينية لها، مما قد ينكشف مع الزمن تفسيره العلمي أو زيفه إذا كان مُفْتَعلاً

هذا ليسَ موقفاً، لكني أُسائِل كُلّ شيء، كي لا أكونَ – مع احترامي – بينَ كثيرٍ من أناسٍ يصدّقونَ صوراً وأخباراً. يتبعونَ رجال الدين بيقين ليسَ سوى هَباء

وسأكونُ شاكراً لو نشرَ زميل/ة التفسير العلمي لهذه الظاهرة؟

بالنسبة للقديسين والمباركين وكل هذه الألقاب-الهالات، لا أريد أن أتناول أشخاصهم بتشكيك. لكن، تاريخياً، كم كانَ من السهل ارتداء الأقنعة والتزييف والتلاعب بالحقائق والإيهام بما ليسَ صحيحاً. يقول أدونيس في ذلك: ما أسهلَ أن توضعَ قُبَّعةُ نبيٍّ
على رأسِ أفّاكٍ،
ما أسهلَ أن توضعَ قبَّعةُ أفَّاكٍ
على رأسِ التاريخ

[coralie]

Mystical Stigmata

To decide merely the facts without deciding whether or not they may be explained by supernatural causes, history tells us that many ecstatics bear on hands, feet, side, or brow the marks of the Passion of Christ with corresponding and intense sufferings. These are called visible stigmata. Others only have the sufferings, without any outward marks, and these phenomena are called invisible stigmata.

Facts

St. Catherine of Siena at first had visible stigmata but through humility she asked that they might be made invisible, and her prayer was heard. This was also the case with St. Catherine de' Ricci, a Florentine Dominican of the sixteenth century, and with several other stigmatics. The sufferings may be considered the essential part of visible stigmata; the substance of this grace consists of pity for Christ, participation in His sufferings, sorrows, and for the same end--the expiation of the sins unceasingly committed in the world. If the sufferings were absent, the wounds would be but an empty symbol, theatrical representation, conducing to pride. If the stigmata really come from God, it would be unworthy of His wisdom to participate in such futility, and to do so by a miracle.

With many stigmatics these apparitions were periodical, e.g., St. Catherine de' Ricci, whose ecstasies of the Passion began when she was twenty (1542), and the Bull of her canonization states that for twelve years they recurred with minute regularity. The ecstasy lasted exactly twenty-eight hours, from Thursday noon till Friday afternoon at four o'clock, the only interruption being for the saint to receive Holy Communion. Catherine conversed aloud, as if enacting a drama. This drama was divided into about seventeen scenes. On coming out of the ecstasy the saint's limbs were covered with wounds produced by whips, cords etc.

1. None are known prior to the thirteenth century. The first mentioned is St. Francis of Assisi, in whom the stigmata were of a character never seen subsequently; in the wounds of feet and hands were excrescences of flesh representing nails, those on one side having round back heads, those on the other having rather long points, which bent back and grasped the skin. The saint's humility could not prevent a great many of his brethren beholding with their own eyes the existence of these wonderful wounds during his lifetime as well as after his death. The fact is attested by a number of contemporary historians, and the feast of the Stigmata of St. Francis is kept on 17 September.

2. There are 62 saints or blessed of both sexes of whom the best known were:

St. Francis of Assisi (1186-1226)
St. Lutgarde (1182-1246)
St. Margaret of Cortona (1247-97)
St. Gertrude (1256-1302)
St. Clare of Montefalco (1268-1308)
Bl. Angela of Foligno (d. 1309)
St. Catherine of Siena (1347-80)
St. Lidwine (1380-1433)
St. Frances of Rome (1384-1440)
St. Colette (1380-1447)
St. Rita of Cassia (1386-1456)
Bl. Osanna of Mantua (1499-1505)
St. Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510)
Bl. Baptista Varani (1458-1524)
Bl. Lucy of Narni (1476-1547)
Bl. Catherine of Racconigi (1486-1547)
St. John of God (1495-1550)
St. Catherine de' Ricci (1522-89)
St. Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi (1566-1607)
Bl. Marie de l'Incarnation (1566-1618)
Bl. Mary Anne of Jesus (1557-1620)
Bl. Carlo of Sezze (d. 1670)
Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-90)
St. Veronica Giuliani (1600-1727)
St. Mary Frances of the Five Wounds (1715-91)
St. Pio of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio) (1887-1968)
3. There were 20 stigmatics in the nineteenth century. The most famous were:

Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824)
Elizabeth Canori Mora (1774-1825)
Anna Maria Taïgi (1769-1837)
Maria Dominica Lazzari (1815-48)
Marie de Moerl (1812-68) and Louise Lateau (1850-83)
Of these, Marie de Moerl spent her life at Kaltern, Tyrol (1812-68). At the age of twenty she became an ecstatic, and ecstasy was her habitual condition for the remaining thirty-five years of her life. She emerged from it only at the command, sometimes only mental, of the Franciscan who was her director, and to attend to the affairs of her house, which sheltered a large family. Her ordinary attitude was kneeling on her bed with hands crossed on her breast, and an expression of countenance which deeply impressed spectators. At twenty-two she received the stigmata. On Thursday evening and Friday these stigmata shed very clear blood, drop by drop, becoming dry on the other days. Thousands of persons saw Marie de Moerl, among them Görres (who describes his visit in his "Mystik" II, xx), Wiseman, and Lord Shrewsbury, who wrote a defence of the ecstatic in his letters published by "The Morning Herald" and "The Tablet" (cf. Boré, op. cit. infra).

Louise Lateau spent her life in the village of Bois d'Haine, Belgium (1850-83). The graces she received were disputed even by some Catholics, who as a general thing relied on incomplete or erroneous information, as has been established by Canon Thiery ("Examen de ce qui concerne Bois d'Haine", Louvain, 1907). At sixteen she devoted herself to nursing the cholera victims of her parish, who were abandoned by most of the inhabitants. Within a month she nursed ten, buried them, and in more than one instance bore them to the cemetery. At eighteen she became an ecstatic and stigmatic, which did not prevent her supporting her family by working as a seamstress. Numerous physicians witnessed her painful Friday ecstasies and established the fact that for twelve years she took no nourishment save weekly communion. For drink she was satisfied with three or four glasses of water a week. She never slept, but passed her nights in contemplation and prayer, kneeling at the foot of her bed.

[coralie]

Explantions

The facts having been set forth, it remains to state the explanations that have been offered. Some physiologists, both Catholics and Free-thinkers, have maintained that the wounds might be produced in a purely natural manner by the sole action of the imagination coupled with lively emotions. The person being keenly impressed by the sufferings of the Saviour and penetrated by a great love, this preoccupation acts on her or him physically, reproducing the wounds of Christ. This would in no wise diminish his or her merit in accepting the trial, but the immediate cause of the phenomena would not be supernatural.

We shall not attempt to solve this question. Physiological science does not appear to be far enough advanced to admit a definite solution, and the writer of this article adopts the intermediate position, which seems to him unassailable, that of showing that the arguments in favour of natural explanations are illusory. They are sometimes arbitrary hypotheses, being equivalent to mere assertions, sometimes arguments based exaggerated or misinterpreted facts. But if the progress of medical sciences and psycho-physiology should present serious objections, it must be remembered that neither religion or mysticism is dependent on the solution of these questions, and that in processes of canonization stigmata do not count as incontestable miracles.

No one has ever claimed that imagination could produce wounds in a normal subject; it is true that this faculty can act slightly on the body, as Benedict XIV said, it may accelerate or retard the nerve-currents, but there is no instance of its action on the tissues (De canoniz., III, xxxiii, n. 31). But with regard to persons in an abnormal condition, such as ecstasy or hypnosis, the question is more difficult; and, despite numerous attempts, hypnotism has not produced very clear results. At most, and in exceedingly rare cases, it has induced exudations or a sweat more or less coloured, but this is a very imperfect imitation. Moreover, no explanation has been offered of three circumstances presented by the stigmata of the saints:

Physicians do not succeed in curing these wounds with remedies. On the other hand, unlike natural wounds of a certain duration, those of stigmatics do not give forth a fetid odour. To this there is known but one exception: St. Rita of Cassia had received on her brow a supernatural wound produced by a thorn detached from the crown of the crucifix. Though this emitted an unbearable odour, there was never any suppuration or morbid alteration of the tissues. Sometimes these wounds give forth perfumes, for example those of Juana of the Cross, Franciscan prioress of Toledo, and Bl. Lucy of Narni. To sum up, there is only one means of proving scientifically that the imagination, that is auto-suggestion, may produce stigmata: instead of hypothesis, analogous facts in the natural order must be produced, namely wounds produced apart from a religious idea. This had not been done.

It has often been proved by the microscope that the red liquid which oozes forth is not blood; its colour is due to a particular substance, and it does not proceed from a wound, but is due, like sweat, to a dilatation of the pores of the skin. But it may be objected that we unduly minimize the power of the imagination, since, joined to an emotion, it can produce sweat; and as the mere idea of having an acid bon-bon in the mouth produces abundant saliva, so, too, the nerves acted upon by the imagination might produce the emission of a liquid and this liquid might be blood. The answer is that in the instances mentioned there are glands (sudoriparous and salivary) which in the normal state emit a special liquid, and it is easy to understand that the imagination may bring about this secretion; but the nerves adjacent to the skin do not terminate in a gland emitting blood, and without such an organ they are powerless to produce the effects in question. What has been said of the stigmatic wounds applies also to the sufferings. There is not a single experimental proof that imagination could produce them, especially in violent forms.

Another explanation of these phenomena is that the patients produce the wounds either fraudulently or during attacks of somnambulism, unconsciously. But physicians have always taken measures to avoid these sources of error, proceeding with great strictness, particularly in modern times. Sometimes the patient has been watched night and day, sometimes the limbs have been enveloped in sealed bandages. Mr. Pierre Janet placed on one foot of a stigmatic a copper shoe with a window in it through which the development of the wound might be watched, while it was impossible for anyone to touch it (op. cit. supra).

www.catholic.org