Saint Francis of Assisi

Saint Francis, two years before his death, retired to Mount Alverna to mont Alverne Famous site of the Franciscan Order where Conrad stayed. fast for forty days in honor of Saint Michael. In the course of his penance and in the fervor of his contemplation, he felt himself extraordinarily penetrated by a celestial sweetness and filled with such intimate graces that he desired with admirable ardor to unite himself more perfectly to Jesus Christ crucified. He was transported into God by these seraphic flames; his whole heart, through an extremely tender compassion, was transformed into his Savior, who, through an excess of charity, allowed himself to be put to death for the salvation of men; one day, around the feast of the Holy Cross, he had the following vision: A seraph, having six wings equally luminous and aflame, descended from the heights of heaven, and, approaching the place where he was, appeared to him in the form of a crucified man. He had his feet and hands extended and attached to a cross, and his wings were so arranged that two rose above his head, two extended for flight, and the other two covered his whole body. This prodigy surprised him marvelously, and at that very hour, a mixture of joy and sorrow took place in his soul. On one hand, he felt an unspeakable gladness to see a seraph appear to him so familiarly and in such an extraordinary manner. But, on the other, the figure of Jesus Christ suffering on the cross pierced his heart with a sword of bitterness. While he was attentively considering this divine object, an interior voice told him that, although sufferings were in no way fitting for a celestial spirit, which is impassible, he was nevertheless given the sight of a suffering seraph so that he might recognize that it was not by an exterior martyrdom, but by a mystical enkindling of divine love, that he was to be transformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ crucified, of whom he was to be a living image. After a mysterious and very familiar conversation with this blessed spirit, the vision disappeared; and immediately this holy patriarch felt his heart burn with a seraphic ardor, then painful impressions were made upon his body which rendered him conformed to the divine Crucified One he had seen; for, at that instant, the marks of the Savior's wounds appeared on his hands and feet, and his right side also received a red scar, as if it had been opened by a lance thrust, and such a great quantity of blood even issued from it that his garments were soaked with it. This is, in substance, what Saint Bonaventure says of such a surprising favor that Jesus Christ granted to Saint Francis, and of which no example had been seen in all the preceding centuries.

Saint Francis de Sales, in the sixth treatise of his incomparable book, th e Treatise on Amour de Dieu The saint's theological and mystical summa. the Love of God, in chapter IV, where he speaks of the amorous languor of a heart wounded by dilection, explains this mystery admirably well. His words are so devout, so touching, and so energetic that, although they are no longer in the exact purity of our language, we have not dared to alter them, both out of respect for this great Saint and for fear of diminishing the strength and unction he gave them through the ardors of his love. Here is how he speaks:

"This great servant of God, this entirely seraphic man, seeing the vivid image of his crucified Savior represented in a luminous seraph that appeared to him on Mount Alverna, was moved more than one could imagine, and was seized with sovereign consolation and compassion; for, looking at this beautiful mirror of love, which the angels can never tire of looking at, alas! he swooned with sweetness and contentment; but, seeing also on the other hand the vivid representation of the wounds of his crucified Savior, he felt in his soul the impetuous sword that pierced the holy breast of the Virgin Mary on the day of the passion, with as much interior pain as if he had been crucified with his dear Savior. O God! Theotimus, if the image of Abraham raising the blow of death upon his dear only son to sacrifice him, an image made by a mortal painter, had the power to soften and make the great Saint Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, weep every time he looked at it, oh! how extreme was the tenderness of the great Saint Francis when he saw the image of Our Lord sacrificing himself on the cross! An image that not a mortal hand, but the master hand of a celestial seraph had copied and drawn from its own original, and which represented so vividly and so naturally the divine King of angels torn, pierced, and crucified.

"This soul, therefore, thus softened and almost entirely melted in this amorous pain, found itself, by this means, extremely disposed to receive the impressions, the marks of the love and pain of its sovereign Lover; for his memory was entirely penetrated by the thought of this divine love; his imagination was strongly applied to representing to himself the wounds that appeared in the image presented to him; his understanding was filled with the infinitely vivid species that his imagination provided him; his love, finally, employed all the forces of his will to conform to the passion of his Beloved; thus, this soul found itself undoubtedly entirely transformed into a second Crucifix, and the soul, as the form and mistress of the body, using its power over it, imprinted upon it the pains of the wounds with which it was wounded, in the places corresponding to those where his Lover had endured them. Love caused the interior torments of this great Saint Francis to pass to the exterior, and wounded his body with the same dart of pain with which it had wounded his heart. As for the openings in the flesh, the ardent seraph darted rays of such penetrating clarity that it actually made in the flesh the exterior wounds of the Crucifix, which love had imprinted interiorly in the soul. Thus, the seraph, seeing Isaiah not daring to undertake to speak, inasmuch as he felt his lips defiled, came, in the name of God, to touch and purify his lips with a coal taken from the altar, seconding in this way the desire of the Prophet. Myrrh produces its strict and first liquor as if by sweat and perspiration; but in order for it to yield all its juice, it must be helped by incision. Likewise, the divine love of Saint Francis appeared in his whole life as if by sweat; for he breathed, in all his actions, only this holy dilection. But to make its incomparable abundance appear entirely, the celestial seraph came to pierce and wound him, and so that one might know that the wounds were wounds of divine love, they were made not with iron, but with rays of light! O true God! Theotimus, what amorous pains! For, not only then, but for the rest of his life, this poor Saint went on always dragging and languishing, as one very sick with love." Such are the words of Saint Francis de Sales: they show us that divine love is infinitely more operative than natural and sensual love, and that, if we do so little for God, while we find nothing difficult to please the world, it is because we hardly love the former and are entirely passionate for the latter.

The blessed servant of God, after completing his forty-day fast, left the mountain and returned to his monastery to celebrate the feast of Saint Michael. As the sacred wounds were visibly present on his body, he did what he could to keep them hidden from the eyes of men. He had not previously worn shoes, but from that time on he wore them, and took care to always keep his hands covered; yet, despite all his precautions, the wonders that God had wrought in him were noticed. Several of his friars saw them, as they later attested under oath. Some cardinals also had the consolation of seeing them, as they certified both by word and in writing. Pope Alexander IV, while still a cardinal, was among them, and in a ser mon attended by S pape Alexandre IV Pope who summoned Albert to Rome. aint Bonaventure, he affirmed that he had seen them with his own eyes. After his death, Saint Clare also saw them, along with fifty friars and a great numb er of secular sainte Claire Disciple of Saint Francis and witness to the stigmata after his death. persons, who kissed them on the day of his burial.

This signal favor was a reward that God gave him in this life, because of his devotion to Jesus crucified. At the beginning of his conversion, his soul had been penetrated with a tender compassion for the sufferings of his Savior. The Crucifix had spoken to him several times and had given him hope that he would one day be conformed to Him; a friar had seen a cross emerge from his mouth, and another had been a witness to a vision in which two swords, in the shape of a cross, pierced his entrails. He was seen raised in the air during a sermon by Saint Anthony of Padua, who was speaking about the inscription of the cross. Finally, his whole life had bee saint Antoine de Padoue Franciscan saint and contemporary of Francis. n nothing but a perfect imitation of Jesus Christ crucified. It was necessary, says Saint Bonaventure, that before his death he should be a perfect image of Him, and that after having burned inwardly with the desire to be like his dying God, he should gloriously bear the likeness of Him on his body through the holy stigmata.

Several miracles were performed through the virtue of these mysterious wounds. In the province of Rieti, a horrible plague ravaged all the livestock, without it being possible to stop it by any human remedy. A God-fearing man was warned in a vision to go to the convent of Saint Francis, to ask there for water that had been used to wash the feet and hands of this faithful servant of God, and then to throw some of this water on the livestock. He did so, and immediately the animals were entirely healed. Before the appearance of the seraphic one on Mount Alverna, hailstorms would form which, discharging themselves on the neighboring places, ruined the fruits of the earth; but since the Saint's stay there and the grace he received, these storms ceased, and the sky, to the great astonishment of the inhabitants, became as serene in that place as it was in the surroundings. Having touched a poor man frozen with cold with his hand, he caused in him a heat so gentle and so powerful that it gave him the strength to walk easily on the rocks and in the midst of the snows.

Other miraculous things are also reported that happened on the occasion of these divine wounds. Pope Gregory IX doubted the pape Grégoire IX Pope who attested to the miracles of Bruno. one in the side: the Saint appeared to him, and, after having reproved him for his incredulity, he raised his arm, uncovered it for him, and blood flowed from it which the Pope himself received in a vial. A religious of his Order, who, unable to understand how this mystery had been brought about, called it into doubt, was very severely reprimanded by Saint Francis, who also appeared to him. A priest from the pro vince o Pouille Region in southern Italy mentioned in connection with a skeptical priest. f Apulia, in the kingdom of Naples, looking at an image where our Saint was represented receiving the stigmata, began to doubt the truth of this story, and immediately he felt himself struck in the palm of his hand with an acute pain, and, having removed his glove, he perceived a wound there which made him confess by his own experience that the thing was possible, and confess loudly that he believed the fact represented on the painting.

All these wonders, which God wrought to prove that of the stigmata, led the Church to institute a particular feast to excite the faithful to devotion toward the passion of Our Lord, and to rekindle in their hearts the love of sufferings, which render Christians perfect images of His holy humanity. The sovereign Pontiffs Gregory IX and Alexander IV issued express bulls for this purpose. Benedict XI permitted the office to be celebrated publicly. Subsequently, Sixtus V ordered its me Sixte V Pope who edited the works of Ambrose. mory to be inserted into the Roman Martyrology on September 17. Finally, the Pope granted all ecclesiastics the right to celebrate it as a double office, as appears by a decree of the Congregation of Rites.