The Stigmata

This is a computer-generated transcription that has been included to make the homily searchable.  It has not been verified by the author. 

“May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” In this passage, St Paul is talking to men who have been circumcised, both Jews and Gentiles, and who used to boast about bearing in their body the marks of the sign of the covenant, the old covenant of circumcision. But then he goes on to say, “From now on, let no one make trouble for me, for I bear the marks of Jesus on my body.” I bear the marks of Jesus on my body. And the word that he’s using here can mean a mark or a tattoo or also a brand that was used to brand animals to show who they belonged to, and even slaves, slaves were sometimes branded with a mark to show who they belonged to. And St Paul calls himself, in other passages, a slave of Christ. And so, what does he mean by this passage? Something that he’s speaking of – the signs of His suffering. He says himself, he’s been lashed, he’s been beaten, he’s been stoned, and so his body has scars and wounds from what he has suffered for the Lord. But there might also be another sense. The word, the Greek word that St Paul is using here, is stigmata, and this is the origin of that word in our language and in our faith, the stigmata. Stigmata meaning so as I say that this Greek word for marks, and we know that there have been in history of the Church, a number of saints and mystics who have had the stigmata. We know that probably the most famous example, Saint Francis of Assisi, a great saint like St Francis of Assisi, but even in very modern times, even in these times that we’re living, there’s been a number of credible reports of people having the stigmata. And a famous example, very well, not so far from us is St Padre Pio. And I’ll read you the account, the account that Padre Pio gave of him receiving the stigmata. He says, “On the morning of September 20, 1918, after,” so he was a very young priest at that point, “after having celebrated Holy Mass,” so he went into the choir loft there in the church to pray in thanksgiving there in San Giovanni Rotondo. And then, this is his own account, he says, “all of a sudden, a great light shone round about my eyes. In the midst of this light, there appeared the wounded Christ. He said nothing to me before He disappeared, but” he said that the crucifix that he was praying in front of had transformed into a living being. “The hands, feet and side of the being were dripping blood. From Him, there came forth beams of light with the shafts of flame that wounded me in my hands and feet.” So, from the hands and feet of the Lord came shafts that wounded Padre Pio. “My side had already been wounded on the fifth of August of the same year.” And so, for some 50 years, Padre Pio would bear the wounds of Our Lord, and just a few minutes after his death, they disappeared. But Padre Pio was very famous, so there was a number of doctors and experts who studied his stigmata, and so this is very strongly attested, and it was especially during when he celebrated the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that he would feel especially intensely, the pain from the wounds of the stigmata. What would that be like to have the stigmata? Certainly, they’re very painful, but you would also know that you had been chosen by the Lord for this special grace, for this special mission to share His own wounds. Another example is St Catherine of Siena, who received the stigmata, but she asked immediately that they be hidden, and the Lord granted that request, and so she felt the pain of the stigmata, but they were not visible. And strikingly that after her death, the marks appeared on her body. So, Padre Pio, they were visible throughout his life, but disappeared right after his death, and St Catherine, the Lord, kept them hidden, according to her request, but they did appear after her death. And even though they caused much pain, she said, “My wounds not only do not afflict my body, but they sustain and fortify it. I feel that what formerly depressed me, now invigorates me.” So, she was sent like a grace from these wounds. So, why does the Lord give some people this grace, this visible grace? Because in St. Saint Catherine of Sienna they were hidden, but they became visible after her death, and others, they were visible. And maybe there’s a sign that the Lord is giving us through them, that these stigmata, or visible signs, to teach us something, to teach us that all of our suffering can be a participation in the Passion of Jesus Christ. That is to reveal that there can be a much greater, more mysterious meaning in our suffering.  And it can be physical suffering, wounds, infirmities, illnesses, age, which can be very painful and humiliating and limit us a lot. In the Anointing of the Sick, I’ll read you, as the Catechism expresses, what are the fruits of the of the sacrament. And I’ll read to you through those passages, one of the fruits. It says, because we think maybe of anointing the sick as trying to help the sick person get better or prepare them for death. But this gives another fruit. It says, “union with the passion of Christ.” That’s precisely what the stigmata manifests, union with the passion of Christ. And it says the Catechism says, “By the grace of the sacrament of the of the sick, the sick person receives the strength and gift of uniting himself more closely to Christ’s passion. In a certain way, he is consecrated to bear fruit by configuration to the Savior’s redemptive passion.” So, saying that this sacrament has the special significance, which is hidden in an illness of uniting the person more closely to Christ’s passion. It says, consecrating them to bear fruit by their union with the Lord’s Passion. And it goes on to say, “suffering a consequence of original sin.” So, it wasn’t willed by God, it came of sin. But it acquires a new meaning. It becomes a participation in the saving work of Jesus. So, the very illness, takes out what seems like something so negative, becomes a participation in the saving work of Jesus. And then the Catechism, speaking of it says “an ecclesial grace,” ecclesial meaning a grace of the Church, so, an ecclesial grace. It says, “the sick person who receives this sacrament by freely uniting themselves to the passion and death of Christ. So, there’s a key passage there. It’s not just the suffering, the suffering doesn’t do this automatically. It’s when the person, as it says here, freely unites themselves to the passion and death of Jesus. Because the suffering can be just suffering which has no special value. But when the person unites themselves to the Passion of Our Lord, then it takes on a great value, a great power. It says, “When the person does this, they contribute to the good of the people of God.” And so, when a person is sick, and especially when the sickness has been going on, the person often feels very useless, not just useless, they feel like they can’t do anything useful, on the contrary, they’re just a burden for other people. And so that’s the devil. It’s a terrible temptation of the devil. I know of a person not too long ago who had the stigmata, also from long years, and was bedridden and mainly paralyzed for many, many years, and they had that temptation, also feeling that they were useless and just a useless burden on people. And well, on the contrary, actually, their lives were being extraordinary fruit. So, just when the person feels most useless, this is saying that they can bear a special fruit. And it goes on to say, “by celebrating this sacrament, the Church and the communion of saints intercedes for the benefit of the sick person.” So, it’s saying that it’s not just the priests and the people who are there with the sick person, but it’s the whole Church, and not just the Church here on earth, but the Church in purgatory and the Church in heaven, which are all interceding for the sick person. But it also says, “the sick person, for his part, through the grace of the sacrament, contributes to the sanctification of the Church.” So, the sick person is helping the whole Church. And St John Paul with the heavy weight that he was sensing of the Church, for him, it was a very important part of his visits, to go visit the sick people, visit hospitals, because he says that you’re like my powerhouse, powerhouse of prayer and sacrifice. So, this person is contributing to the sanctification of the Church and to the good of all men for whom the Church suffers and offers herself through Christ to God, the Father. So, what the stigmata are showing in a visible sense, this sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick is the sacrament which is helping a person to live this mystery in their illness, of union with the suffering of Jesus, which is extremely fruitful. And so, it’s not just physical suffering. It can also be, for instance, interior scars, interior wounds, many different types, anxieties, fears, disappointments, humiliations, heartbreaks. And the greatest example is our Blessed Mother at the cross. She wasn’t suffering physically, but she was suffering extremely, interiorly. Jesus was suffering also in His flesh, but she was united with Him in her interior suffering in her heart. And this makes me think of a message that the Lord, a little excerpt that the message that the Lord gave, one of the reconquest messages. This was from May 21 of 2024. Our Blessed Mother said, “look at the holy wounds of my Jesus. Gaze at them in my heart. Hide your wounds in ours.” So, it’s talking about the wounds of Jesus, but also talking about our wounds. “Hide your wounds in ours, allowing us to wash them in the blood and water which flowed from them, so that purified of the venom of satan and of your own actions and offenses, they may be acceptable to our Abba as an offering of love, imitating the most holy offering that obtains everything.” So, she’s talking about our wounds and our wounds, we’re not immaculate like our Blessed Mother, or without sin, like our Lord, we know that in our own wounds there’s there can be a lot of our own humanity and our own sinfulness. And so that’s why she says to purify them of the venom of satan. For instance, there can be the desire for revenge, and of our own actions and offenses. Some of our wounds also come because of our own sins. And so, our wounds are not completely pure, but so that’s why she says, wash them in the blood and water so that purified of the venom of satan and of our own actions and of our own actions and offenses; that even though our wounds in themselves are not completely pure when we bring them to our Lord with our Blessed Mother, by the power of His blood and the water which flows from His heart, our wounds, which, as I say, are imperfect, can be washed purified, so that they may be an acceptable offering. And she says, “imitating the most holy offering that obtains everything.” And then another excerpt, this was from the message from March 14 of 2024, He says you have helped, so this is one of the messages, the reconquest messages. He says, “you have helped me for years in a hidden way, offering Me your sacrifices, your pain at seeing Me abhorred, hated, forgotten, giving Me your faith, your docility and love. I have taken all of these offerings My little children, each humiliation and trial, to help your brothers now. Nothing of what you have suffered in My honor, out of love for Me, has been lost. I have hidden this immense work from you, in which you have helped Me and your brothers to remove the scales from their eyes, from their ears, from their hearts, that they may be able to once again hear My voice that calls them.” And so notice what He’s saying here. So, we have the example of St Catherine of Siena, whose wounds were hidden from other people. But the Lord is talking also about, well, so, there’s a lot of wounds maybe that we’re carrying, a lot of suffering, that we’re carrying that other people don’t know about. But the Lord is talking about here even that. He’s saying that the fruits of our sacrifice are hidden, even from us. He says, “I have hidden this immense work from you so that we don’t see all the fruits that our sacrifice is bearing,” which makes it much harder. If we could see the fruits, that would be very motivating, but the fact that we don’t see the fruits makes them actually much more fruitful, because it’s a much greater sacrifice. Others don’t see. We can’t take pride, because others don’t see it, and we don’t even see it ourselves most of the time. And so that way, it’s not contaminated by pride, because that’s always our danger. Pride is always contaminating our good works. And so, this work, the Lord hides it even from ourselves, so that it can be pure and be united to this great offering. He says, “My children, I give these words of mine to you as a balm for your hearts, so that you may remember that everything that you offer to Me with love, with pain, everything is useful.” Everything that you offer to Me with pain, with love is useful. He emphasizes “everything.” “Your faith and My action make it infinitely useful.” The value of our sufferings in itself is not infinite. But when we offer it to Him, He says, “the value of our faith,” because what our faith does is united to Jesus. And He says, “Your faith and My action,” because by our faith, when we’re united to Jesus, it’s kind of like taking an electric appliance, and plugging it in. Faith is like making that connection with the Lord, so that that power can flow, so that by faith, we unite ourselves to the Lord, and then His divine power, His grace, can flow. And that’s what can give an infinite power to our sufferings, by uniting them to Him. So, He goes on – “Give everything to Me,” everything, everything, He’s emphasizing, everything. The stuff that seems, you know, just all the stuff in our life, which just seems so useless, so negative, so destructive, so humiliating. He says, “everything, I receive it in My heart, and there I make it fruitful,” beneficial. He says, I make it fruitful. It’s only His power that can give that divine fruitfulness. But He wants us to cooperate by giving it to him, we’re free to give it to him or not. So that’s why He says, “Give Me all your pain.” But notice when He’s saying, give Me, because that depends on us. We have the pain. He’s not saying, go out and try to find more pain for yourselves, right? I mean, there’s already a good abundance of pain in our lives, right? In our present life, in our past life. I think we already have, most of us, have a good bit, and if we don’t have a good bit, there’s a lot of people around that can share it with you. So, we have a lot of pain in our life. He’s not saying to go find more, but He’s saying the pain that we have in our lives now, or in our past life, that we might have forgotten about it, but it’s still painful for us. He says, “give Me” so that depends on us, to give it to Him. “Give Me all your pain, children, the anguish that envelops your hearts at seeing the devastation of My vineyard,” the devastation of His vineyard means, the devastation of the Church and the devastation in many in the souls of many people we know and love. “Unite your pain to mine.” And so, as St Paul speaking of these mysterious words of bearing in his body, the marks, the stigmata of Jesus. And so, in this Mass, and especially in the offertory that we’ll have in just a few moments, this moment, which is so important. That’s why sometimes I’d like to take, I mean, already, I know the Mass here seems like a long Mass, but the offertory is one of the periods where I feel like I’d like to stretch that out a lot longer, because we have so much to offer. I mean, when you say that so and so has so much to offer, you think of talents, right? Talents and gifts and so forth, knowledge, experience. But here we’re not talking about that. We’re talking when we say so much to offer, it’s stuff that would seem like stuff that nobody wants, stuff that I don’t want and anybody else wants. But it’s often precisely those things which, when we offer them to the Lord, become especially valuable, especially powerful, especially fruitful. And so that’s what, you know, I’ve said this many times; some of you have heard this many times, but I think it’s always good to remember, that’s what this Mass is about. That’s what every Mass is about. You know, sometimes life just seems to generate more and more suffering, but each Mass is an opportunity to come and give it to the Lord, offer it to the Lord, so He can unite it to His sacrifice, or His sacrifice on the cross. And so there we see Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, and there we see the risen Lord with the wounds, with the wounds in the Divine Mercy image. There is the stigmata, the wounds in His hands and His feet and in the side. But what’s happening – grace is flowing from those and so that’s what happens in the Mass, when we offer our sufferings with our Lord, then on the cross, then by His power, then graces flow from them. And so that’s what this Mass is all about. It’s not just something we have to do, we’re coming, in a sense, to help load, I mean, just to speak in very human terms, right? The human terms to kind of load up this engine, this great engine of salvation, to offer our suffering. And like, say like the engines that worked, but that like say that the railroad, the trains, or the boats that worked by coal, you had to shovel in the coal so that all that could be transformed into energy. And so in this, you know, the coal, which is just this dark, black stuff that doesn’t look like anything useful. But when we place it in that oven, that oven which is the fire of our Lord’s Sacred Heart, then He transforms it into power. And so, each Mass we come and dump our coal, the coal of our sufferings, of our of our struggles, of our humiliations, we dump all that in the offertory. That’s why the offertory is so important. That’s why it’s important that we don’t move too fast, because that’d be a shame if you have all this to offer but you don’t offer it, and so that offertory is to give us a chance to make this offering. So, with our Blessed Mother and the Holy Spirit, we come to bring all our offerings, our wounds, our scars, our infirmities, our anxieties, disappointments, heartbreaks, uniting them to the sacrifice of Jesus, to glorify God and to save souls. Amen.  

KEYWORDS / PHRASES:
Galatians 6:14-18
Luke 10:1-12, 17-20
Isaiah 66:10-14