In fourth grade, our notoriously strict Language Arts teacher, Mrs. Hamick, let us read a comic book, but with a catch -- the comic book wasn’t about a superhero fighting villains and crime; it was about St. Francis of Assisi.
As best as I can remember, it was the type of thing our parents might have had in school -- the kitschy illustrations, the musty scent of old paper, the hokey faux action that baited young minds into attentiveness. 1 The reason I remember that comic so clearly is that this was the first time I learned about the stigmata. I don’t remember how much, as a nine-year-old, I could grasp the magnitude of crucifixion, but I remember thinking it was pretty cool that Francis shared these marks of Christ. Somehow, the comic delivered this potentially grisly thing in a way that highlighted the privilege of Francis’ stigmata.
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| Neat picture at St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans of St. Francis' receiving the stigmata. |
On Pentecost,
2 the Gospel of John tells us that Jesus showed the wounds of His crucifixion to His disciples just before He breathed the Holy Spirit on them. These marks are the evidence of His passion that prove His sacrifice, marks still visible on His resurrected body, and in our Tradition, they become bodily marks borne by some of the most Christ-like among us.
Pardon me while I get etymological again, but it has to be noted that stigmata comes from the Greek stigma. It’s a word that carried into modern English, but the old Greek word denotes a slightly different meaning: a mark made by pricking or branding. So, according to these origins, the old meaning fits literally (stigmata is the plural) as a descriptor of Christ’s wounds. But then, we layer the modern meaning of stigma on top of this: a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person. This only thickens up the gravity of the stigmata, which are not just a mark of physical torture and serious pain but also an indication of one’s social ostracization.
Such a multi-layered meaning draws my heart in two directions. First, I think of the martyrs, and I feel echoes of Augustine’s City of God3 in my reflection, specifically Augustine’s ideas of what heaven and the resurrected body will be like:
On the other hand, I think about the many of us who are not marked with these stigmata.4 It certainly is not something that we all experience on the journey to justification. However, I look at myself and feel like I duck many of the smaller moments that might draw me toward moments of martyrdom, moments of stigma, moments of being marked as a follower of Christ.
In some ways, it’s a hazard of my being a moderate (in personality and in ideology) as well as being an extroverted introvert. My tendency -- and my safe default mode -- is to hesitate, to hold my tongue, to sit back. I prefer not to be radical, loud, or the center of attention. So in everyday conversations, I may opt not to bring up the calls of our sexual ethic, of our economic justice, or of our environmental stewardship responsibilities in which I so committedly believe; when the person standing on the corner from Planned Parenthood or the ACLU tries to engage me, I politely decline instead of inviting the encounter to learn ideals and passions from each other; when the needy person on the off ramp walks up to the stopped cars, I muster the courage to make eye contact and smile but don’t slow down enough to talk while I can.
These moments aren’t anything on the scale of martyrdom or the scale of literal, visible, physical stigmata, but I think in too large a way, my hesitancy or self-doubt comes from social insecurity. Even with the good deal of self-confidence overall and conviction in my faith that I have, I still don’t respond to each invitation to love, in some way out of fear of its stigma. These missed moments are omissions due to misplaced fear that keep me from embracing the stigma of being a true disciple.
The life of faith may involve intense moments of revelation and epiphany, but on the whole, I feel the truth of metanoia is more insightful and apt. Our hearts are in need of constant, repeated conversion, and the heartbeat of Eucharistic living is how God comes to us to potently fuel that.
In response, I must seek to find more quality and quantity to embrace moments of stigmata to be the hands and feet of Christ that I’m called to be. In this way, I could pay better, even if small and simple, witness to the Gospel and with it allow the stigmata to mark me as one with Christ.
Pardon me while I get etymological again, but it has to be noted that stigmata comes from the Greek stigma. It’s a word that carried into modern English, but the old Greek word denotes a slightly different meaning: a mark made by pricking or branding. So, according to these origins, the old meaning fits literally (stigmata is the plural) as a descriptor of Christ’s wounds. But then, we layer the modern meaning of stigma on top of this: a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person. This only thickens up the gravity of the stigmata, which are not just a mark of physical torture and serious pain but also an indication of one’s social ostracization.
Such a multi-layered meaning draws my heart in two directions. First, I think of the martyrs, and I feel echoes of Augustine’s City of God3 in my reflection, specifically Augustine’s ideas of what heaven and the resurrected body will be like:
But the love we bear to the blessed martyrs causes us, I know not how, to desire to see in the heavenly kingdom the marks of the wounds which they received for the name of Christ, and possibly we shall see them. For this will not be a deformity, but a mark of honor, and will add lustre [sic] to their appearance, and a spiritual, if not a bodily beauty… But if it will be seemly in that new kingdom to have some marks of these wounds still visible in that immortal flesh, the places where they have been wounded or mutilated shall retain the scars without any of the members being lost. While, therefore, it is quite true that no blemishes which the body has sustained shall appear in the resurrection, yet we are not to reckon or name these marks of virtue blemishes. (Book 22, Chapter 19)Augustine here describes how the wounds of the martyrs will be visible on their resurrected bodies, and what’s more, they will look beautiful to our eyes. Surely, this is true for the disciples as they laid eyes upon the Risen Lord, yet I feel similar things when I think about other instances. I think also of my hero martyr saints and their sacrifice: the emaciated starvation in charity of St. Maximilian Kolbe, the fiery burns of St. Charles Lwanga, and the bullet wound of Blessed Oscar Romero. And on another level, I think of more familiar witness: the toll that pregnancy takes on the body of mothers (C-section scars, stretch marks, etc.), the surgical scars of organ donors, the bags under the eyes of a single parent. These are the selfless, loving people and actions that give witness to the Gospel of Christ; these are the marks of love which people of faith should strive to emulate.
On the other hand, I think about the many of us who are not marked with these stigmata.4 It certainly is not something that we all experience on the journey to justification. However, I look at myself and feel like I duck many of the smaller moments that might draw me toward moments of martyrdom, moments of stigma, moments of being marked as a follower of Christ.
In some ways, it’s a hazard of my being a moderate (in personality and in ideology) as well as being an extroverted introvert. My tendency -- and my safe default mode -- is to hesitate, to hold my tongue, to sit back. I prefer not to be radical, loud, or the center of attention. So in everyday conversations, I may opt not to bring up the calls of our sexual ethic, of our economic justice, or of our environmental stewardship responsibilities in which I so committedly believe; when the person standing on the corner from Planned Parenthood or the ACLU tries to engage me, I politely decline instead of inviting the encounter to learn ideals and passions from each other; when the needy person on the off ramp walks up to the stopped cars, I muster the courage to make eye contact and smile but don’t slow down enough to talk while I can.
These moments aren’t anything on the scale of martyrdom or the scale of literal, visible, physical stigmata, but I think in too large a way, my hesitancy or self-doubt comes from social insecurity. Even with the good deal of self-confidence overall and conviction in my faith that I have, I still don’t respond to each invitation to love, in some way out of fear of its stigma. These missed moments are omissions due to misplaced fear that keep me from embracing the stigma of being a true disciple.
The life of faith may involve intense moments of revelation and epiphany, but on the whole, I feel the truth of metanoia is more insightful and apt. Our hearts are in need of constant, repeated conversion, and the heartbeat of Eucharistic living is how God comes to us to potently fuel that.
In response, I must seek to find more quality and quantity to embrace moments of stigmata to be the hands and feet of Christ that I’m called to be. In this way, I could pay better, even if small and simple, witness to the Gospel and with it allow the stigmata to mark me as one with Christ.
1 Not quite like the campy Batman show, but pretty close. Makes me think of Bart Simpson learning about St. Sebastian.↩
2 Readings for Pentecost this year here.↩
3 Full text available online here.↩
4 Cool quote from Fulton Sheen shared by Jenny: “Show me your hands. Do they have scars from giving? Show me your feet. Are they wounded in service? Show me your heart. Have you left a place for divine love?”↩
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