Lesson 6: The Stigmata: Pains of Grace and Gnostic Scripture
In discussing Stigmata, we’ll talk less about the plot and characters of the film itself and talk more about some subjects that the film introduces. Among many other subjects, the film introduces the stigmata, Gnostic scriptures, and some questions about the grace of God.
Painful Facts about the Stigmata
St. Francis of Assisi is considered the first person to be blessed with the stigmata. (Note the protagonist of Stigmata, the movie, has the female form of his name, Francesca.) His stigmata occurred in the year 1224 at the age of 43, comparatively old for a stigmatic as most stigmata occur between the ages of 20 and 40. At the time, St. Francis was physically ill, nearly blind and in mental anguish because of the politics surrounding his newly established order. He was within two years of his death. Like many of the sixty stigmatized saints that followed him, the stigmata appeared immediately after St. Francis had a vision of Jesus Christ nailed to the cross.
Since St. Francis, hundreds of people have demonstrated the various wounds that Jesus Christ was said to have suffered during the Passion as described in the Gospels. The most common wounds of the stigmata appear on the palms of the hands, on both feet, and on the chest, all with varying degrees of depth. Others may be tears and sweat of blood, wounds circling the head (from crown of thorns), shoulder injuries (from carrying the cross), and injuries and markings found post mortem on the heart itself.
After St. Teresa of Avila’s death, her heart was extracted. “In that heart was found a wide horizontal fissure” as if she were physically stabbed with the long golden spear of her writings and hymn. Marked designs of a figure on a cross, three nails, a pillar and other symbols were found etched on St. Veronica Giuliani’s heart.
As well, the wounds of nearly every stigmatic have been individually unique in their placement, their depth, their number, their shape, and their associated features. As mentioned in the film, the nature and situation of the stigmata are directly influenced by the specific artistic model of the Passion that the stigmatic has in front of him or her at the time. Most models of the crucifix have the holes in the hands (and the images and statues of St. Francis have his stigmata in the palms as well). Historically, however, the film is right. The Romans probably put the nails through the wrists.
Historically, at least some of the stigmata were self-inflicted. Upon analysis of one pseudo-stigmatic who claimed to cry tears of blood, small razors were found on the inside of his eyelids.
Here are some of the more common characteristics of stigmatics:
- Most have been women (280 women vs. 41 men)
- Most, but by no means all, have been Catholics.
- During or immediately preceding the appearance of the stigmata, most stigmatics experience a state of ecstasy and trance accompanied by an image of Jesus on the cross.
- Nearly all have had previous and lasting conditions of poor physical and mental health.
- In many of the female cases, the stigmata occurs on a regular schedule, i.e. it begins on Friday afternoon and ends on Sunday.
One can see why the character Francesca may have been a good candidate to be a stigmatic: She meets at least four of the five characteristics. However, the character Father Andrew Kiernan character is right: the stigmatics have all been highly religious. It is by the grace of God that they have been given the wounds of their savior. We’ll examine the movie’s take on grace in Section C.
It is doubtful, however, that the Catholic Church would have sent an official investigator to check out a stigmatic, as it did in the movie. In fact, the Church would probably have stayed away from it and not recognized it at all.
The official Church began to shy away from recognizing the stigmata as a supernatural occurrence after the psychoanalysts and medical doctors began examining stigmatics more closely at the turn of the 20th century. Apparently, the Church did not want to acknowledge something that might be diagnosed as a mental health problem.
There have been no stigmatics in the past two hundred years who have been made saints, while before the rise of psychology and modern medicine, about 61 stigmatics were declared saints. In fact, the Church has never been comfortable with the popular authority given stigmatics, according to the Jesuit priest Herbert Thurston, and has been reluctant to authenticate stigmata since the time of St. Francis. The Church has always needed a “heroic standard of virtue” in order to make someone a saint.
