Invisible Stigmata

Stigmata of St Francis of Assisi by Giotto, details.

The stigmata find their origin in the Passion of Christ, which transfers symbolic marks as a sign of union: marks of the nails in the hands and feet, crown of thorns, pierced Heart, to which sometimes tears of blood are added. These are therefore the signs and continuation of Christ's Passion in the lives of Christians. The word stigmata means "marks." According to Saint Paul’s phrase:

"I bear on my body the stigmata (stigmata) of the sufferings of Jesus."

The Gift of the Stigmata

It is therefore assumed that St Paul received these stigmata, probably invisible since there are no visual testimonies outside of his Confession. The first person known by Tradition to have borne the visible stigmata of the Passion was Saint Francis of Assisi in the 13th century. In 1224, two years before his death, he was praying on the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, September 14. Before he died, he wished to experience in his Soul and in his body "the sufferings that You, he said to Christ, had to endure in your cruel Passion, and to feel that overwhelming love that led You, the Son of God, to suffer so many pains for us, miserable sinners!" He links Good love and suffering, the two facets of the word "Passion."

He then received, in a vision, five rays of light that struck his side, his two hands, and his two feet, at the same time as he felt a joy mixed with pain. These stigmata remained. Pope Sixtus V (1585-1590), a Franciscan, fixed the feast of the stigmata of Saint Francis on September 17, and Pope Paul V (1605-1621) extended this feast to the universal Church. In her vision of September 16, 1944, Maria Valtorta witnessed this moment in detail, in the place she describes perfectly without ever having been there. It is now the Franciscan sanctuary of La Verna.

Following Saint Francis of Assisi, there has been an uninterrupted flow of stigmatized persons. At the beginning of the 20th century, 321 stigmatized persons were officially recorded, including seven times more women than men, mainly religious brothers or sisters, but not exclusively. Among the most famous: Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), Mme Acarie (1566-1618), Veronica Giuliani (1660-1727), Anne-Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824), Mariam Baouardy (1845-1878) and in our era: Berthe Petit (1870-1943), Gemma Galgani (1878-1903), Padre Pio (1887-1968), Therese Neumann (1898-1962), Yvonne-Aimée de Malestroit (1901-1951), Marthe Robin (1902-1981), Alexandrina de Balazar (1904-1955), Maria Teresa Carloni (1919-1983), Natuzza Evolo (1924-2009), Myrna de Souhanieh in Syria.

The Transverberation

Maria Valtorta, in her vision of St Francis of Assisi, describes the seraph, a six-winged angel, who gradually reveals the Christ on the Cross from whom come rays of light that, like arrows, pierce the limbs of the Poverello.

This "transverberation" is described by St Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church, in chapter 29 of her Book of Life (a book that was also condemned in its time). She received her "wounds of Love" from the hand of an angel. The Church celebrates this transverberation on August 21. Others also reached the borders of life by reaching this paroxysm of love. The testimonies of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and Padre Pio are to be compared with what Maria Valtorta sees and what she will experience when she herself receives divine Fire.

A few days after my Offering to Merciful Love, wrote Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, I was beginning the exercise of the Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) in the choir, when I suddenly felt as if wounded by a dart of such ardent Fire that I thought I would die. There is no possible comparison to adequately convey the intensity of this flame. It seemed that an invisible force immersed me entirely in the Fire… And what Fire it was! What sweetness!…

She told the Prioress: "One moment, one more second, and my Soul would have separated from my body…" Padre Pio describes this moment of fusion almost with the same words:

I was in the Church giving thanks after Mass, when suddenly I felt my Heart pierced by a javelin of Fire so vivid and ardent that I thought I would die.

I lack words to make you understand the intensity of this flame: it is really impossible for me to describe it. Do you Believe me? The victim Soul of these Consolations becomes mute. I felt as if an invisible force plunged me completely into the Fire… My God, what Fire! What sweetness!

I have lived many of these passionate outbursts of love, and I remained for some time as if outside this world. Other times, this Fire was less intense, but this time, one moment, one second more, and my Soul would have separated from my body… it would have gone with Jesus.

The stigmata are not only the visible marks of the Passion of Christ on the hands, feet, and side: they may take the form of physical and moral inner sufferings borne by the stigmatized person. These Invisible Stigmata were the lot of Sister Josefa Menéndez, Sister Faustina, Luisa Piccarreta, and Maria Valtorta.

The Invisible Stigmata of Maria Valtorta

The year 1934, when she was 37 years old, marks a turning point in her offering. From the beginning of the year, she felt overwhelmed by a rising wave of love:

"I experienced a period of such an intense transport of love that it seemed I was living outside myself, outside my poor, quite defective being. A seraph had taken possession of me and was inflaming me with his blazes of love. I felt I was suffocating—my heart was swelling so in the incandescence. I would sing, with words created by me for spontaneous rhythms in order to give vent to my torment. I had even composed music for the Song of Brother Sun and many poems by St. Thérèse and repeated sacred songs. I needed an outlet so as not to explode..."

This transport of love reached its peak on Good Friday 1934. She was pierced by Love and received "this internal wound that cannot be seen but is painful like a hooked, incandescent lance that tears and burns living flesh." Three days later, on Easter Sunday, she was nailed permanently to the bed where she would remain for 27 years.

"Love grew as I contemplated my dying God—to such a point that it brought me a physical torment which culminated on Good Friday. Oh, love was so intense I thought I would die with my chest torn apart! I felt something lacerating me within, as if a lance were poking into my chest. Something must really have been lacerated, though, for even the wise Aesculapii mused upon a lesion which was intuitively felt to be in the mediastinum or between it and the heart and for which they could provide no explanation.

I believe that only the hand of Him who had wounded me dressed the wound itself in such a way that it would remain without killing. I believe so because that pain, superior to all that can be borne by a human creature, is felt by me again, especially in the hours of highest fusion with my Lord. I believe so because no human remedy is capable of soothing it. I believe so because it is never lacking when I reach such an absolute power in prayer as to wring a grace from heaven. I believe so because it suddenly disappears once a grace has been obtained, to return only in the hours of more intense love and more intense prayer, on a larger and larger scale.... If it were a human pain, it would drive one mad...!

A few days before undergoing that most gentle and cruel agony I had composed a prayer [...] : “O my Father, St. Francis, by that love with which Christ loved you and you loved Him, give me, I pray, the suffering and love you insistently requested for yourself. I do not ask you for the visible glory of the stigmata, of which I am not worthy, but for an intimate sharing in the afflictions and love of Jesus and yourself so that, in imitation of the two of you, I may die of love for God and souls.”

The good Lord gave me all I asked for. The inner wound, which was affliction and love, the wound which would lead me to death after a sea of pain crossed so willingly for the Lord and souls. [...] In always giving me everything I asked Him for, He also gave me the inner wound, which is not visible, but which hurts like a hooked, red-hot lance, wrenching and burning the most vital flesh. If on Good Friday 1930 I had my first hour of agony together with Jesus, in 1934 on Good Friday I was pierced by love on contemplating my Jesus on the cross."

As soon as she was able to get up, she adds in her Autobiography, she composed her Hymn to love and suffering which she often repeated, especially in the most painful Hours or during Lent.

The Stigmatization of the Spirit

On May 1, 1944, Maria Valtorta's morale was very low: she had been evacuated far from Viareggio and was suffering. Worse than anything, Heaven stubbornly remained silent and this silence lasted, lasted to the point that she thought she was abandoned. She then had the vision of St Francis of Assisi, her "Seraphic Father," bearer of the painful stigmata (Maria Valtorta would have the full vision of his stigmatization a bit later, on September 16, 1944 as noted above). He comforted her by inviting her to endure the "stigmatization of the Spirit":

"Strive, daughter, to find peace and joy in them. I said so, and I suffered so much then, for I, too, was disillusioned with men and, I would say, with God's approval of my work: 'Blessed are those who do God's will and for his sake face every tribulation. Try to reach this painful blessedness. It is the stigmatization of the spirit, and it is more painful than this One‑do you see?‑Which opens my flesh. I know. But try. Weep and try. I, too, suffered so much and for so many reasons. I, too, experienced fondness. I, too, was full of longing. I, too, felt the prayer I had offered in certain hours failing back upon me. I endured hours in which I was able only to moan. I know what your pain is. But I say to you, 'Strive to find peace and joy in all the pain.' Afterwards joy and peace come. Be good. I will stay close to you. I bless you with my blessing: 'May the Lord have mercy on you, turn his face towards you, and grant you peace. May He give you his blessing."

A Vocation of Exceptional Souls

In a dictation of June 14, 1943, Jesus explains that beyond "ordinary" holiness, there is a path that leads to the full knowledge of the Doctrine of Christ. This path passes through the understanding and sharing of His Passion, the summit of love and pain. This Call resonates in exceptional Souls who decide to follow Christ, to imitate Him to the Cross. They are called Victim Souls or Host. It is voluntarily and out of love that they formulate their act of victim offering, also called holocaust. This word originates from the sacrifices of Judaism in which animals were completely consumed by Fire in order to atone for the sins of an individual or the whole people. Through His Passion, Christ offered Himself as a victim for the definitive expiation of the sins of all humanity.

"As long as a soul does not agree to be admitted into the 'secret of pain' which I, the Christ, tasted to the utmost, it cannot claim to know my doctrine in depth or receive illuminations exceeding the small illuminations granted to all.

"From my Brow crowned with thorns, from my pierced hands, from my perforated feet, and from my rent chest I emit rays of special light. But they go to those who cleave to my Wounds and my pain and find pain and wounds to be more beautiful than every other created thing.

"Stigmatization is not always bloody. But every soul in love with Me to the point of following Me into torture and the death that is life bears my stigmata in its heart, in its mind. My rays are weapons that wound and lights that illuminate. They are grace that enters and vivifies; they are grace that instructs and elevates.

By my benignity I give to all, but I give infinitely to whoever gives himself to Me totally. And believe that in truth if the works of the just are written in the great Book which will be opened on the last day, the works of my loving ones reaching the point of holocaust, the works of the voluntary victims, in my likeness, for the redemption of their brothers and sisters, are written in my Heart and shall never be erased, forever and ever."