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The Stigmata of St Francis are one of the most thoroughly well-attested miracles in the history of the Church; they were of course seen by many people in the two-year period from when he first received them to his death. The revised Butler’s Live of the Saintsquotes one of the very earliest documents to speak of them, the letter which Brother Elias, whom Francis personally chose to run his Order, sent to his brethren in France to announce the death of their founder. “From the beginning of ages there has not been heard so great a wonder, save only in the Son of God who is Christ our God. For a long while before his death, our father and brother appeared crucified, bearing in his body the five wounds which are verily the Stigmata of Christ; for his hands and feet had as it were piercings made by nails fixed in from above and below, which laid open the scars and had the black appearance of nails; while his side appeared to have been lanced, and blood often trickled therefrom.”
St Francis Receives the Stigmata, by Giotto, 1295-1300; originally painted for the church of St Francis in Pisa, now in the Louvre. The predella panels show the vision of Pope Innocent III, who in a dream beheld St Francis holding up the collapsing Lateran Basilica, followed by the approval of the Franciscan Rule, and St Francis preaching to the birds. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)
One of the very few acts of the brief pontificate of the Dominican Pope Benedict XI (October 1303 – July 1304) was to grant to his fellow mendicants of the Franciscan Order permission to keep a special feast of the Stigmata of St Francis. St Bonaventure’s Legenda Major, which the Order recognized as the official biography of its founder, and read at Matins on his feast day, states that Francis received the Stigmata “around the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross”, which is on September 14th. Since the 15th was at the time the octave of Our Lady’s Nativity, and the 16th the very ancient feast of Ss Cornelius and Cyprian, the feast of the Stigmata was assigned to the 17th, where it is still kept to this day.
Continued below.
New Liturgical Movement: The Stigmata of St Francis
St Francis Receives the Stigmata, by Giotto, 1295-1300; originally painted for the church of St Francis in Pisa, now in the Louvre. The predella panels show the vision of Pope Innocent III, who in a dream beheld St Francis holding up the collapsing Lateran Basilica, followed by the approval of the Franciscan Rule, and St Francis preaching to the birds. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)
One of the very few acts of the brief pontificate of the Dominican Pope Benedict XI (October 1303 – July 1304) was to grant to his fellow mendicants of the Franciscan Order permission to keep a special feast of the Stigmata of St Francis. St Bonaventure’s Legenda Major, which the Order recognized as the official biography of its founder, and read at Matins on his feast day, states that Francis received the Stigmata “around the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross”, which is on September 14th. Since the 15th was at the time the octave of Our Lady’s Nativity, and the 16th the very ancient feast of Ss Cornelius and Cyprian, the feast of the Stigmata was assigned to the 17th, where it is still kept to this day.
Continued below.
New Liturgical Movement: The Stigmata of St Francis
