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All Good Things
October 23, 2024

Embracing the Cross

This year, Franciscans around the world are celebrating the 800th Anniversary of the Stigmata (1224-2024). The stigmata, the scars of Christ’s passion on Francis’s body, were the special sign that revealed the cross he took up daily in the literal sense of the word.

Did not Jesus say: “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

Thomas of Celano wrote the first biography of St. Francis in 1229. He writes:

“While Francis was staying in that hermitage called La Verna, 2 years prior to the time that he returned his soul to heaven, he saw in the vision of God a man, having 6 wings like a Seraph, standing above him, arms extended and feet joined, affixed to a cross. Two of his wings were raised up, two were stretched out over his head as if for flight, and two covered his entire body. 

“When the blessed Servant of the Most High saw these things, he was filled with the greatest awe, but could not decide what this vision meant for him. Moreover, he greatly rejoiced and was much delighted by the kind and gracious look that he saw the Seraph gave him. The Seraph’s beauty was beyond comprehension, but the fact that the Seraph was fixed to the cross and the bitter suffering of that passion thoroughly frightened him. Consequently, he got up both sad and happy as joy and sorrow took their turns in his heart.

“While he was unable to perceive anything clearly understandable from the vision, its newness very much pressed upon his heart.  Signs of the nails began to appear on his hands and feet, just as he had seen them a little while earlier on the crucified man hovering over him.

“His hands and feet seemed to be pierced through the middle by nails, with the heads of the nails appearing on the inner part of his hands and on the upper part of his feet, and their points protruding on opposite sides. His right side was marked with an oblong scar, as if pierced by a lance, and this often dripped blood, so that his tunic and undergarments were frequently stained with his holy blood…

“He hid those marks carefully from strangers, and concealed them cautiously from people close to him, so that even the brothers at his side, and his most devoted followers, for a long time, did not know about them.”

Br. Gabriel O’Brien, OSF
Franciscan Brothers of Brooklyn

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