A century of St. Father Pio of Pietrelcina Holy Stigmata

The Peace of God to all that belong to the Light
Dear Readers

This incoming September 20th is going to be the 100th Anniversary of one of the most mysterious paranormal events ever registered in modern times.

This is the story of something that modern medicine was unable to understand and to explain fully, a confirmed fact that defied any logical reasoning.

A Capuchin Friar became the first Catholic Priest in History to experience along the rest of his life the Holy Stigmata: the presence of the wounds of Christ on his body.

Before Father Pio of Pietrelcina there were since Ancient times, specially in medieval ones other Stigmatics, and there have been few more along the XX century:

- St. Francis of Assisi,
- St. Rosa of Lima,
- Sg.Maria Esperanza de Bianchini.
- St. Rita of Cascia.
- Bl.Maria Theresa Chiramel.
- Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich.
- Sg.Natuzza Evolo.
- Marie Rose Ferron.
- St. Gemma Galgani.
- St. Veronica Giuliani
- St. John of God
- Sg. Teresa Helena Higginson
- Bl. Marie of the Incarnation
- Marie Julie Jahenny
- St. Mary of Jesus Crucified
- Louise Lateau
- Therese Neumann
- Marcelline Pauper

They were religious people but none other Stigmatized was a formally ordered Priest.

Impressed for the terrible outcome of WWI over Italy, the barbaric violence of the battle fields this recently ordered priest offered himself as a victim for the sins of the purgatory souls, and his prayers were heard from above granted to him the Stigmata.

Stigmata is by extension part of what has been called by theologians the experience of types of Christ, different occasions a long History when the same mysterious human sacrifice characteristics associated with the arrival of the Messiah, as a way of perfect communion with God and accomplishment of his salvation plan, is reproduced.

The term originates from the line at the end of Saint Paul's Letter to the Galatians where he says, "I bear on my body the marks of Jesus." Stigmata is the plural of the Greek word στίγμαstigma, meaning a mark, tattoo, or brand such as might have been used for identification of an animal or slave.

Interestingly Father Pio became recipient of the Stigmata almost in the anniversary that other famous Saint also got it on September 14th of 1226, St. Francis of Assisi.

Here some other specific characteristics of Father Pio Stigmata explained from one of his biographies:

Shortly after his ordination, he wrote a letter to his spiritual director, Father Benedetto Nardella, in which he asked permission to offer his life as a victim for sinners.

He wrote, “For a long time I have felt in myself a need to offer myself to the Lord as a victim for poor sinners and for the souls in Purgatory. This desire has been growing continually in my heart so that it has now become what I would call a strong passion. . .It seems to me that Jesus wants this.”

The marks of the stigmata, the wounds of Christ, appeared on Padre Pio’s body, on Friday, September 20, 1918, while he was praying before a crucifix and making his thanksgiving after Mass.

He was thirty-one years old and became the first stigmatized priest in the history of the Church. With resignation and serenity, he bore the painful wounds in his hands, feet, and side for fifty years.

In addition, God endowed Padre Pio with many extraordinary spiritual gifts and charisms including the gift of healing, bilocation, prophecy, miracles, discernment of spirits, the ability to abstain beyond man’s natural powers from both sleep and nourishment, the ability to read hearts, the gift of tongues (the ability to speak and understand languages that he had never studied), the gift of conversions, the grace to see angelic beings in form, and the fragrance which emanated from his wounds and which frequently announced his invisible presence.

When a friend once questioned him about these charisms, Padre Pio said, “You know, they are a mystery to me, too.”

Although he received more than his share of spiritual gifts, he never sought them, never felt worthy of them. He never put the gifts before the Giver.

He always remained humble, constantly at the disposal of Almighty God.

Father Pio continues having his wounds along the rest of his life, but they disappeared from his body as mysteriously as they appeared a little after He died.

His body remains incorrupt in his Tomb as it was confirmed this decade when his remains were exhumated, on occasion of the 40 years of his passing away and the visit to his sanctuary by H.H. Pope Benedict XVI.

Father Pio performed until his death as spiritual adviser of H.H. Pope John Paul Il

The thread is a space of reflection of the Stigmata phenomena, a material evidence of a supernatural power acting over human flesh.

Thanks for your attention,

The Angel of Lightness

originally posted by: The angel of light
The Peace of God to all that belong to the Light

So those of us who belong to the dark, need not read?

Divisionist.

a reply to: The angel of light

Great thread!

Padre Pio was one of the few priests that was able to bi-locate, meaning being in 2 places at once. He has been sainted after his death.

So let me get this right, your God wants people to suffer these horrible wounds, inflictions to prove to people it exists
The Holy Spirit that is about peace love and order wants people to have nail hole wounds in their hands so...

You should think about this ridiculous example of proof you believe in
No wonder normal people think the religious are nutters

I think religious fanatics are creepy.

a reply to: Raggedyman

First at all to understand this a person must have received the Holy Ghost.

God has its mysterious paths to show that He is still acting among humanity, that He has not yet abandoned us, who are we to question Him in any way?

The Stigmas of Christ is the mark of the Lamb of God to show who are his most beloved and chosen ones.

Stigmata is s symbol of mystical communion with the divinity, it is only scandalous or embarrassing for whom are slaved by the materialistic superstition that is so spread in the world.

The Angel of Lightness

a reply to: The angel of light

Don't all Christians receive the Spirit, isn't that a promise from Christ?
Do you have a different belief?

Doesn't God act without stigmata, is that just for bad people, holes in your hands, sounds like a punishment?
Again, I thought all people were His beloved, Christs death was for all, He loved everyone. So only the beloved, the rest are just common nobodies to Christ who died for us?

Stigmata is communion, sounds like an occult form of witchcraft separating people from the Christian community

If God needs to put holes in people's hands to show He loves them more than others, it is not my God
In fact, biblically there is no precedence for this, it doesn't sound Christian at all

But, if you think it's special, good luck to you
For me it's paganism occultism

originally posted by: Raggedyman
For me it's paganism occultism.

The part I like about stigmata is that it's been fairly well proven that if you want to crucify somebody and keep them up there, you can't put nails into their palms because the weight of the body will pull the flesh of the hand through the nail and they'll fall off. So you need to put the nail in the wrist at the base of the hand so that it will have enough bone and ligaments to support the weight. So the Gospel stories are likely wrong or mistranslated.

But you never see stigmatics with blood coming from their wrists, only their palms, according to the inaccurate story. So is it divine, or is it a manifestation of these people's beliefs?

a reply to: Raggedyman

It is clear that you have a lot of misunderstandings about this thing, and far to grasp its meaning really, you are confusing what is Holy with what is evil.

First at all a Christian is not who believes it is just as a personal decision taken in solitude or approved by other people that believe to be Christians, is who has received a valid Baptism.

The Holy Spirit is only transferred to a person through a Sacrament, that is the Baptism, that is not just a ceremony or rite only, it must be ministered by a Priest that was consecrated by who has authority according with an Apostolic tradition.

Therefore only who has a Baptism of a Church that belongs to the Apostolic Tradition can claim to be in communion with the Holy Spirit, this is nothing a sect or a secular ruled religious organization can grant, only an actual branch of the original Church founded by Jesus Christ in person, and so able to trace back its origins from at least one of his original Apostles.

It is not serious at all to think you are Christian just because one day you open a book and decide to trust on it, that is just a will to convert, a decision to approach God, there are requirements to follow, step to accomplish.

Now, your claims of witchery are of course a clear signal that you are far to enter in that category of people, there is not too much difference between your bold and wrong accusations and the false ones that the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem made against Jesus Christ to condemn him to a terrible death.

The death of Christ was painful certainly but he was innocent of any charge and moreover free of sin, as are the Saints that have had a deep mystic communion with him through the Holy Ghost.

Have you ever considered you can be dramatically wrong? Have you ever have heard about the sacrament of Exorcism by the way?

The Angel of Lightness

a reply to: The angel of light

Acts of the apostles
(Apostle means a person sent with a message, check it out)
2.38. Repent and be baptised and you will receive the Holy Spirit, nothing about holes in your hands there either
But I guess a man told you what to believe, no need for the bible?

As for my claims, I claim I am a messenger of Jesus, His broken servant, not bound to or by a church, just Jesus my Lord and Savior, redeemed by His love. No stigmata thankfully

I have met many people who claim they are Christians in the Protestant church, clearly they are not, many Catholics who think they are, some are
As for your stigmata, please keep it to yourselves.

I previously said, what ever floats your boat but I can see why people think Christians are crazy when they look at bloody hands and think that's of God proving Himself to the world. Parlor tricks is all

a reply to: Blue Shift

Stigmata is Not restricted to wounds on any point of the wrists or hands, it is also wounds that appear spontaneously on the head as well as on the back, legs as well as on the right side of the torso.

Many crucified victims in Roman times were also tied with ropes to the cross, so the weight of the body was not solely supported by the nails, it was hanging from the points those ropes were knitted to the horizontal beam of wood.

There were cases in which the executed was also tied to the vertical pole with ropes to assure its position on it.

In 1980 the remains of a crucified were found in Jerusalem excavations and no evidence of any use of wholes in the wrists were found.

Pls check:
www.biblicalarchaeology.org...

It is likely that the martyrs of the beginning of the Christian church were crucified on many different ways, the tradition tell us that St Andrew was crucified on a X shaped cross and St Peter was hanging upside down.

The Angel of Lightness

Stigmata;s are too easy to fake.

Professor Sergio Luzzatto here claimed Padre Pio used carbolic acid to self-inflict the stigmata. Perhaps not for fame. But to try save as many souls in a Christain sense as he could. Totally prepared to accept the sin of trickey to help others.

But if GOD wanted to be believed he could have easily encoded that belief into our DNA. Therefore, the path of non-belief must have purpose. Perhaps we cannot understand light without first experiencing darkness.

originally posted by: glend
But if GOD wanted to be believed he could have easily encoded that belief into our DNA. Therefore, the path of non-belief must have purpose. Perhaps we cannot understand light without first experiencing darkness.

Or... just maybe... there ain't no such thing as God, however you want to try (and fail) to define it.

a reply to: Blue Shift

You'd make a fine Buddhist In Christianity it says that you cannot know the father without knowing the son. The son I belief is symbolic for our true self (deeper soul if you like or atman in hinduism). So if we cannot understand our true self we shouldn't even try to comprehend GOD (Yes thats if GOD exists).

originally posted by: glend
You'd make a fine Buddhist

Sure. Except for having no use for the Eight-Fold Path, and also not believing in karma or reincarnation.

In Christianity it says that you cannot know the father without knowing the son.

Yeah, and guess who thought up that idea. The guy claiming to be the son.

originally posted by: Blue Shift

originally posted by: glend
You'd make a fine Buddhist

Sure. Except for having no use for the Eight-Fold Path, and also not believing in karma or reincarnation.

In Christianity it says that you cannot know the father without knowing the son.

Yeah, and guess who thought up that idea. The guy claiming to be the son.

A. Thats fine. We all travel different roads. Reincarnation is not exactly a Buddhist belief. Moreso Hinduism. Such things in Buddhism is noise. Not important.
B. Yes, thats the one.

a reply to: glend

No that is not substantiated at all, it was a mere speculation of that physician who wanted so badly to find a way to discredit what it was a miracle. As a matter of fact that was one of his many tries to find a way to attack the holiness of the Stigmata.

He tried unfruitfully for years to show that Father Pio was hysteric and when it was clear he was not at all, then he started to claim he self suggested himself to have the wounds of Christ by looking at a crucifix.

Father Pio about claims of hoax against him through self induced suggestion:
"Go out to the fields and look very closely at a bull. Concentrate on him with all your might. Do this and see if horns grow on your head!"

You must understand that Not everybody is a believer in Italy, that is a country that has a large community of people into atheistic ideologies, including Marxism and Fascism.

The substance he mentioned was used not to inflict any wounds but to disinfect the area that was affected and moreover, any treatment of the wounds was carried out under strict medical supervision, not the one of that person of course, but of qualified health professionals.

The kind of gloves Father Pio used to cover his hands were also sealed with stamps that if they become broken by him or anybody else different that the physicians monitoring them it was going to be detected.

It is understandable that any person that has permanently wounds bleeding requires a periodic disinfection with appropriate pharmaceutical antiseptics to prevent a major illness to appear on them, a for instance Gangrene.

Thanks,

The Angel of lightness

a reply to: The angel of light

And I think there are a few of us who don't talk about it.

a reply to: The angel of light

Excellent reply, The angel of light

originally posted by: Blue Shift
I think religious fanatics are creepy.

I think people with creepy avatars are creepy.