September 17

The Stigmata Of St. Francis Of Assisi

Preparation. - To re-animate our devotion to the Saviour’s Passion, we shall meditate, first, on the love of St. Francis of Assisi for Jesus crucified, and secondly, the miracle wrought in his body by the power of his love. Thence we shall conclude with the sincere resolution often look at the crucifix and to draw therefrom the courage to bear generously in ourselves the stigmata of mortification by a life of penance and patience, like that of the saints. “I bear the marks of my Lord Jesus in my body” (Gal. 6. 17).

I. The Love Of St. Francis For Jesus Crucified

From the very beginning of his conversion Francis of Assisi had, like St. Bernard, made for himself a bouquet of myrrh from the remembrance of the diverse sufferings and humiliations of Jesus, to be able unremittingly to recall them and lovingly compassionate them. He considered the Saviour’s Passion as the source of all goods. And is it not, according to St. Paul, the power and the wisdom of God and for us sanctification and redemption? (1 Cor. 24. 30).

Our saint wept so much over the sufferings of his good Master, that he was near losing his sight. When meditating thereon, he would often utter plaintive cries. During an illness he looked continually at the crucifix, and the physician endeavored to distract him therefrom; but he replied that, if he was forbidden to contemplate so sweet an object, he preferred becoming blind, for he found nothing here below that could attract his look, except Jesus crucified. He said, moreover, that he could gaze on the crucifix to the end of the world without ever getting weary. So tender and ardent was the love of the seraphic patriarch for Jesus suffering!

Our divine Saviour was not indifferent thereto, for He often appeared to him covered with wounds to prepare him for the signal favor of the stigmata. A religious beheld a cross proceeding from the saint’s mouth, and another witnessed a vision in which two swords, in the form of a cross, pierced his bowels. Do not all these prodigies testify the intimate union of Francis with the suffering Redeemer?

Are we thus united to Jesus? We often meditate on the Passion; what profit do we derive therefrom? Instead of loving pain, humiliation and hardship, do we not abhor them? Do we not complain at the least untoward event, as if we were on earth merely to enjoy ourselves, and not in order to resemble the Chief of the predestined?

O my amiable Redeemer, I repent of having so often been ashamed of Thy cross by refusing the sufferings coming to me from The paternal Providence. Enable me not to seek any relief in my trials, except the remembrance of Thy torments and ignominies. I am resolved, first, to think habitually on Thy Passion, especially on Thy crucifixion on Calvary; and secondly, to draw from that touching sight sentiments of gratitude for Thy devotedness to my soul’s welfare, motives for confidence in Thy infinite merits and the most intense desire to testify my love for Thee by practicing mortification and patience.

II. Prodigious Effect Of Love In St. Francis Of Assisi

The whole life of this glorious patriarch having been a perfect imitation of Jesus crucified, was it not befitting, says St. Bonaventure, that after he had been so ardently inflamed with the desire of resembling Him in suffering, he should receive from Him sensible marks of His torments?

Being one day engaged in mental prayer on Mount Alverno, he beheld coming to him from heaven a seraph, having six luminous and flaming wings, who suddenly appeared to him as a crucified man. He at once felt in his soul a mixture of unspeakable joy and pain. After a sweet converse with the heavenly spirit, the vision disappeared. And then Francis felt in his heart a seraphic ardor, and his body painful impressions rendering him conformable to his crucified Saviour.

Thenceforth, O wonder, there appeared in his hands, feet and right side the marks of the Saviour’s wounds, whence much blood flowed. But how should this prodigy be explained? St. Francis de Sales answers, that the ardent love of the seraphic patriarch for Jesus caused the intense pain of his compassion to break out externally, so that the saint’s soul wounded its own body with the dart with which it was itself pierced.

Were we also interiorly wounded by the love of Jesus crucified, the world would appear to us so little worthy of our esteem and affection. We would life in it as in an exile, sighing constantly after Jesus Christ. But, alas! to judge from our conduct, it would seem as if Jesus had died, not for us, but only for the saints. We live without ever thinking of the labors and sacrifices He imposed upon Himself to keep us out of hell, and instead of thanking Him for it and corresponding with the exertions of His love, we forget and forsake Him, and we even offend Him, and by our tepidity and unfaithfulness, we render useless for us His blood, His sufferings, His opprobriums.

O Jesus, deign to forgive my ingratitude and grant me the gift of Thy love, but a generous, compassionate and active love. Engrave in my heart Thy sacred wounds, first, the wounds of Thy feet, so that they may penetrate me with repentance and the desire to walk in the ways of penance and resignation; secondly, the wounds of Thy hands, that they may help me to perform perfectly the works that interest and procure Thy glory; and thirdly, the deep wound in Thy divine side, from which the holy flames escape which should consume me with the love of Thee. After the example of Thy loving Mother and St. Francis of Assisi, enable me to bear with Thee and for Thee the stigmata of mortification and self-denial in my body and in my soul.