Stigmata: In Imitation of Christ

Stigmatic Profile

A look at stigmata as an evolving phenomenon also sheds light on the people involved. The previously mentioned census of 321 stigmatics reveals "an interesting seven-to-one proportion of women to men." Not only were almost all Roman Catholics, but "a very high proportion were cloistered priests or nuns"--as was, of course, the first stigmatic, St. Francis, and such thirteenth-century stigmatics as the Blessed Helen of Veszprim (1237); St. Christina of Stommeln (1268); and others (Harrison 1994, 10, 27-28; Wilson 1988, 131-133). Indeed, of the 321 stigmatics, 109 came from the Dominican Order and 102 from the Franciscans--an overall percentage of 66 percent from religious orders versus 34 percent layfolk (Biot 1962, 20).

Many stigmatics seem--also like St. Francis--to have had an early life that might be characterized as notably "worldly," before coming to believe they had been called to serve Cod. As a youth, Francis, the son of a wealthy merchant, was "gay, adventurous, generous, and popular" (Coulson 1958) and spent his leisure time in "hedonistic extravagance" (Jones 1994), even being crowned by his friends "king of the revelers" ("Francis" 1960). He later claimed he heard Christ's voice asking him to rebuild a church, whereupon he plunged into religious service, adopting the life of a hermit and later forming the order of friars named for him (the Franciscans; Coulson 1958).

Others who were transformed from worldly to austere included the Blessed Angela of Foligno (1250-1309) who had married and bore several children but lost them all after her husband's death. After selling all her possessions, she gave the proceeds to the poor and joined the Third Order of St. Francis (Wilson 1988, 132). Another example is St. Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510) who married at sixteen, spent "ten years of a pleasure-seeking existence," then, with her husband, devoted her life to tending to the sick in a local hospital (Wilson 1988, 133).

A more recent example is that of Father James Bruse (the Virginia priest with the wrist wounds mentioned earlier). Bruse's pre-ordination life included finding his way into the Guinness Book of World Records in 1978 for riding a roller coaster for five straight days. He became a Roman Catholic priest the following year but subsequently found he had lapsed into a routine. Then came the "dramatic" events of 1991-1992 in which he not only experienced the stigmata but discovered statues weeping in his presence (Harrison 1994, 80-87).

Also characteristic of many, if not most, stigmatics are a variety of symptoms "ranging from what have been described as the 'mystical' to the 'hysterical"' (Harrison 1994, 31). Taking the hysterical first, Marguerite of the Blessed Sacrament (Marguerite Parigot, 1619-1648) was prey to "devastating apparent diabolic attacks," while Anna Maria Castreca (1670-1736) "would hurl herself violently around the room" and revert "to the speech and manner of a child," and in his early life Padre Pio (1887-1968) was "emotionally disturbed." A few stigmatics were allegedly attended by "poltergeist phenomena" (disturbances attributed to "noisy spirits" but often found to be the pranks of adolescents); among them were Johann Jetzer (c. 1483-c. 1515) and Teresa Helena Higginson (1844-1905) (Wilson 1988, 131-148).