St. Francis receives the Stigmata.

From the visions of the Catholic mystic Maria Valtorta.

 

Above, against the pure, so blue and gentle sky, stands a flaming figure that seems to be made only of incandescent fire. A fire whose brilliance is more vivid than that of the sun, which emerges from behind a wooded mountain range with a splendor of rays and glories that sets everything ablaze with joy. This being of fire is clothed in feathers. […] It looks like an angel because two immense wings hold it suspended and fixed against the immaterial cobalt of the September sky, two immense open wings that form a cross, supported by the resplendent body. 

 

Two immense wings that are the whiteness of incandescence, open against the shimmering incandescence of the body, clothed in other wings that completely envelop it, gathered with their supernatural feathers of pearl, diamond, and pure silver, around the person. It seems that even the head is wrapped in this singular feathery garment. Because I cannot see it. I only see, where that seraphic face should be, a glimmer of such vivid splendor that I am left as if dazzled. […] The cross of burning feathers stands fixed in the sky with its mystery.

 

Below, a gaunt little friar, whom I recognize as my seraphic Father [Francis], prays on his knees on the grass, not far from a bare, rough cave, frightening like a precipice of hell. The ravaged body seems not to inhabit the […] overly large habit. The neck emerges, a pale brown, from the grayish cowl, a color between that of ash and certain slightly yellowish sands. The hands emerge with their thin wrists from the wide sleeves and are extended in prayer, palms turned outwards and raised as in the "Dominus vobiscum". Two hands, once brown, now yellowish, of a suffering and emaciated person. The face is a thin face that seems sculpted in old ivory, neither beautiful nor regular, but possessing a particular beauty made of spirituality. 

 

The brown eyes are beautiful. But they do not look upwards. They look, wide open and fixed, at the things of the earth. But I don't think they see. They are open, resting on the dewy grass; they seem to be studying the grayish embroidery of a wild thistle and the feathery one of a wild fennel, which the dew has transformed into a green, diamond-studded "aigrette" [headdress]. But I am certain that he sees nothing. Not even the robin that descends with a chirp to look for some small seed on the grass. 

 

He prays. His eyes are open. But his gaze does not go outwards, but inwards, into himself. How and why and when he becomes aware of the living cross that is fixed in the sky, I do not know. Whether he felt it by attraction or saw it by an inner calling, I do not know. I know that he raises his face and searches with his eyes, which now come alive with interest, confirming my conviction of his previous lack of external vision. 

 

The gaze of my seraphic Father meets the great, living, flaming cross. A moment of astonishment. Then a cry: “My Lord!”, and Francis falls back slightly on his heels, remaining in ecstasy, with his face lifted, smiling, shedding the first two tears of beatitude, with his arms more open. And behold, the Seraph moves its shining, mysterious figure. It descends. It approaches. It does not come to earth. No. It is still very high up. But not as it was before, midway between heaven and earth. And the earth becomes even more luminous because of this living sun that in this blessed dawn unites with and surpasses the other sun of every day.

 

As it descends, with wings always outstretched in a cross shape, cleaving the air not by the movement of feathers but by its own weight, it gives off a sound of paradise. Something that no human instrument can produce. [...] And now, while Francis laughs, and cries, and shines even more in ecstatic joy, the Seraph opens its two wings – now I understand well that they are wings – that are towards the middle of the cross. And the most holy Feet of my Lord appear nailed to the wood, and his long legs, of a splendor, in this vision, as vivid as his glorified Limbs have in Paradise. And then two other wings open, right at the top of the cross.

 

And my sight, and I believe also that of Francis, however much he is aided by divine grace, suffers from the joy of the blinding light. Behold the trunk of the Savior that pulsates with breath, and behold, oh! behold the Fire that only grace allows one to gaze upon, behold the Fire of his Face that appears when the shroud of the sparkling feathers is fully opened. 

 

The fire of all volcanoes and stars and flames, surrounded by six sublime wings of pearls, silver, and diamonds, would still be little light compared to this indescribable, inconceivable radiance of the Most Holy Humanity of the Redeemer nailed to his cross. The Face, then, and the five wounds find no comparison to describe them. I think of the most resplendent things […], this is a condensation of the sun multiplied by an incalculable number of times. 

 

The peak of La Verna must appear as if a thousand volcanoes had opened around it to crown it. The air, because of the light and heat, which burns but does not consume, emanating from my crucified Lord, trembles with waves perceptible to the eye, and stems and leaves seem unreal, so much does the light penetrate even the opacity of bodies and makes them light. […] Francis, then, upon whom the light pours and invests and penetrates him, no longer seems a human body. But a lesser seraph, brother of the one who gave his wings to the service of the Redeemer. 

 

Now Francis is almost prostrate, so much is he bent backward, with arms completely open, under his Sun God Crucified! He is immaterial in appearance, so much do the light and joy penetrate him. He does not speak, he does not breathe, materially. He would seem a glorified dead man if it were not for that pose that requires at least a minimum of life to subsist. The tears that fall, and perhaps serve to temper the human aridity of this mystical flame, shine like streams of diamonds on his thin cheeks.

 

I hear no words from either Francis or Jesus. An absolute, profound, astonished silence. A pause in the world surrounding the mystery. So as not to disturb. So as not to profane this sacred silence where a God communicates with his blessed one. Contrary to what one might expect, the birds do not burst into more acute trills and joyful flights for this celebration of light, no butterflies or dragonflies dance, no lizards or geckos dart about. Everything is still in an anticipation in which I feel the adoration of all beings towards Him for whom they were made. Not even that gentle breeze that made a sighing sound among the leaves remains. Not even that slow, arpeggiated sound of water hidden in some hollow of stone, which before occasionally cast its notes, like rare pearls, on a tonal scale. Nothing. There is Love. And that is enough. 

 

Giotto

Jesus looks at and smiles at his Francis. Francis looks at and smiles at his Jesus. But now, the glorified Face, so luminous as to appear almost as lines of light, like that of the Eternal Father, materializes a little. His eyes take on that blazing sapphire brilliance as when He performs a miracle. The lines become severe, imposing, as always in those hours, imperious, I would say. A command from the Word must go to His Flesh; and the Flesh obeys. And from the five Wounds shoot five arrows, five small lightning bolts, I should say, that descend without zigzagging in the air but perpendicularly, very quickly, five needles of unbearable light that pierce Francis.

 

I do not see, naturally, the feet, covered by the robe and limbs, and the side covered by the tunic. But I see the hands. And I see that, after the fiery points have entered and passed through – I am as if behind Francis – the light, which is on the other side, towards the palm, passes through the hole on the back of the hand. They look like two open eyelets in the metacarpus, from which two threads of blood descend, flowing slowly down the wrists, onto the forearms, under the sleeves.

 

Francesco lets out a sigh so deep that it reminds me of the last breath of the dying. But he doesn't fall. He remains as he was for some time longer. Until the Seraph, whose face I have never seen – I have only seen his six wings – spreads these sublime wings like a veil over the most holy Body and hides it, and with the two initial wings he ascends, ever higher, into the sky, and the light diminishes, finally remaining only that of a serene sunny morning. And the Seraph disappears beyond the cobalt of the sky that swallows him and closes upon the mystery that has descended to bless a son of God and that has now ascended to his kingdom. 

 

Then Francesco feels the pain of the wounds and with a groan, without getting up, he moves from his previous position to sitting on the ground. And he looks at his hands and uncovers his feet. And he opens his garment on his chest. Five streams of blood and five cuts are the memory of God's kiss. And Francesco kisses his hands and caresses his side and soles, weeping and murmuring: "Oh, my Jesus! My Jesus! What love! What love, Jesus!... Jesus!... Jesus!..."

And he tries to stand up, pressing his fists to the ground, and succeeds with pain in his palms and soles, and he sets off, a little unsteady like someone who is wounded and cannot lean on the ground and stumbles from pain and weakness from fainting, towards his cave, and falls to his knees on a stone, with his forehead against a cross made of only wood, two branches tied together, and there he looks at his hands on which a nail head seems to be forming, penetrating and piercing, and he weeps. He weeps for love, beating his chest and saying: “Jesus, my sweet King! What have You done to me? Not for the pain, but for the praise of others, this gift of Yours is too much for me! Why me, Lord, me unworthy and poor? Your wounds! Oh! Jesus!”

Maria Valtorta, The Notebooks 1944, September 16, pp. 554-559.

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