Notes and Reflections for a talk on Franciscan Mysticism by Maury Smith
2B Fran Stigmata mjs.doc, fstigma.htm
[I make my comments in green so the reader may distinguish the notes from others. Friar Maury Smith]
The Stigmata of
St. Francis
May I say from
the very beginning that no one knows the kind of detail of what happened when
Francis received the stigmata. I will come back to this later. The focus of this reflection is on the
meaning of the stigmata event then what actually happen.
McGinn notes in footnote 163 (p. 349) that between 1850 and 1985 there have been 372 items published. And there continue to be serious research such as Chiara Fugoni’ Francis of Assisi which proposed that the stigmata was a theological concoction of Bonaventure. However serious works by Cusato, Dalarum and Hellman have rejected this proposal by Fugoni. Dalarun notes (writing in 2006) that “over the past fifteen years many scholars have reexamined and reaffirmed the phenomenon we call the stigmata of Francis of Assisi.”
Cusato. Michael, Jacques Dalarum and Carla Salvati. The Stigmata of Francis of Assisk: New Studies New Perspectives. St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Inst Pubs, 2006. Preface, p.v.
new book on Stigmata with Cusato and Dalarun
Hellman’s two articles on seraph
McGinn refers to Hayes in writng that Bonaventure’s sermons are the best interpretation of the Stigmata.
During the course of the Life, Bonaventure often dwells on Francis's ecstatic experiences
(e.g., 1.5, 2.1, 3.6, 8.10, 9.2, 10.1-4, 11.13, 12.1).
It is clear that he sees the stigmata as the highest of these.
But the reception of the wounds of Christ through the appearance of the "Seraph . . .
with the figure of a man crucified" (13.3-4)
has an eschatological-apocalyptic meaning
as well as an ecstatic-contemplative one.137
Bonaventure had already compared Francis with Enoch and Elijah.
Both were noted contemplatives due to their ascents into heaven, and
they were also eschatological figures identified with the two witnesses of Apocalypse 11
who would preach against Antichrist in the last days (see, e.g., Prol. 1, 4.4, 15.8).
The stigmata, however, establishes Francis as an even more potent apocalyptic figure,
the angel of Apocalypse 7:2, who seals God's chosen ones with the TAU mark of the cross. McGinn Flowering p. 96
Notes on Hayes
on the STIGMATA (pp. 333-345) Hayes, Zachary.
“The Theological Image Of St. Francis Of
in Bonaventuriana Miscellanea in onore di Jacques Guy
Bougerol, ofm a cura di Francisco de Asis Chavero Blanco OFM Vol. I
Edizione Antonianum Roma 1988. pp. 309-345
The meaning of Francis’ stigmata according to Bonaventure’s Sermons and Legenda.
The mystery of the Stigmata plays a significant role in Bonaventure’s sermons on Francis.
While all present the Stigmatization in the context of a visionary experience,
only Bonaventure emphasizes that this was an «unusually intense ecstatic experience. »
The significance of the sermons lies not so much in the recounting of the facts
but in the extensive theological reflection in which Bonaventure engages
We will limit ourselves to a consideration of five basic points in this image:
1) The Stigmatization is the supreme experience of Francis;
2) the Stigmatization is pre-eminently an ecstatic, contemplative experience;
3) the Stigmatization has eschatological significance;
4) the Stigmatization has retroactive significance as a validation of Francis' life.
5. The stigmata as a sacrament of God’s love (Maury Smith).
1) THE SUPREME EXPERIENCE OF FRANCIS
In all the sermons, the Stigmatization is the supreme experience of Francis.
It represents the spiritual martyrdom of Francis.
Francis « became an example of perfect contemplation as he had previously been of action,
the Stigmatization as the point at which Francis moved from being
an exemplar of the Cherubic order to become the exemplar of the Seraphic order.
Thus, as Francis approaches the end of his spiritual journey,
his most profound experience is of the mystical order.
At its most basic level, the mystery of Francis is distorted if it is reduced to debates
about poverty or about any other particular factor of Franciscanism such as minority or fraternity.
In essence, Francis represents none of those things alone.
His mystery is above all the experience of a profound spiritual journey.
The goal or end of Francis’ spiritual journey is found in the experience of Alverna.
Francis was open to God and was filled with a divine presence that marked
not only his spirit but overflowed into his flesh as well.
2) AN ECSTATIC-CONTEMPLATIVE EXPERIENCE
The ecstatic-contemplative nature of the Stigmatization corresponds to what Bonaventure calls, in Hexaemeron 22, the Seraphic ordo.35
Biblical figures anticipate this particular dimension of Francis' experience.
In comparing Francis with Elijah, was taken up in a fiery chariot as a type of the ecstatic rapture of Francis on Alverna.36
Bonaventure compares Francis to John the Evangelist, the « friend of the bridegroom, and the Eagle among the evangelists. »
Bonaventure draws a parallel between Francis and Moses, principally in two respects.
Both experience a remarkable intimacy with God.
And as Moses received the Law, Francis received the rule.
Bonaventure reaches to the love-mysticism of the Victorines. In the De arrha animae, Hugh of St. Victor writes of the power of a love-communion that transforms the lover into the likeness of the beloved. this text explains the inner dynamic of Francis' experience.42
the specific form of mysticism involved in the Stigmata as a love-mysticism.
The transforming power of love is symbolized by the heat of a fire which can so soften iron that the molten material can be imprinted with any mark.
The form of the Seraph evokes the same idea, for its very name — according to Bonaventure — means a « burning love. »
The way to Christ, therefore, is only through the most burning love.
Francis is the exemplar that integrates nature and grace,
body and soul,
action and contemplative ecstasy.
He is now of the ordo seraphicus.
3) THE STIGMATA HAS ESCHATOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE
The focus here is not so much on the four last things: death, judgment, heaven and hell
but rather the focus is on a theology of history, of the end time, of Francis’ place in history.
The eschatological significance of the Stigmata is developed from a number of perspectives.
First, the choice of biblical figures and motifs makes it unmistakably clear that
Bonaventure saw Francis' ecstatic experience in eschatological terms.
Sermon IV is built entirely around the text of Matthew 24:30: «
“Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven”
The sign of the Son of Man is the cross of Christ which will appear in the heavens on the day of judgment.
The cross has a two-fold symbolic significance.
The marks of the passion in the cross that spans the four points of the compass are,
first of all, signs of the limitless mercy of God extended to all peoples and every nation.
Only those who bear this sign in their spirit belong truly to Christ.
But, just as surely the cross is a sign of judgment on everything that stands in the way of grace.
The victory of grace and the awesome reality of judgment:
the one is
reflected in
the other is reflected in Francis for whom the cross was a call to penance and conversion.46
Bonaventure identifies Francis with the « angel ascending from the rising of the sun with the seal of the living God.
When the « sign of the living God» is identified with the cross,
the connection between these texts and the older Tau-cross tradition seems clear.
The Tau-cross can well be seen as an expression of Francis' own eschatological awareness.
To this extent, the tradition which sees an eschatological significance in the Saint of Assisi has some basis in the self-awareness of Francis himself.
The interpretation of the Tau-cross tradition by means of Ezechiel 9:4 underscores an aspect of Franciscan eschatology often overlooked.
We readily speak of Francis in terms of grace, joy, and peace.
But this text underscores very strongly the price of those eschatological gifts:
conversion, purgation, and penance.
If there is a gentleness about Francis, there is just as truly a sternness.
The Tau-cross tradition
Francis himself used the Tau cross, very likely in the sense that Innocent III used it at Lateran Council IV as an appeal for the reform of the church.
Francis’ use of the Tau expresses his understanding of his mission in the life of the church.
These are the mysteries into which Francis was drawn on Alverna.
Perhaps this is the significance of the mysteries which he hesitated to reveal?49
The two citations from the Apocalypse raise the further question of
the place of Francis in the course of Church history.
It conjures up the much discussed question of the sixth age of history and of the significance of Francis and the Order of Friars Minor in the overall context of the theology of history.
Francis, then, is the exemplar both for the Order of Friars and for all humanity.
As the friars themselves strive to move in the way of Francis, they serve as a special guide for humanity. No doubt, Bonaventure hoped that a goodly number of friars would — in fact — attain to the seraphic ordo. But, no doubt, so would many who were not friars.
The role of Francis — and therefore, the mission of the friars — is to show by example to all people how they should arrive at the threshold of the passage to ecstatic union with God.
Hence, the miracle of the Stigmata was necessary to enkindle love by showing God's boundless love and mercy.
the relation between the body of Francis in the experience of the Stigmata and the unusual quality of his corpse in death.
we find the corpse of Francis described in what can only be called resurrection-glory.56
4) THE STIGMATA AS VINDICATION OF FRANCIS' LIFE
The retroactive significance of Francis' Stigmata is a theme found consistently in Bonaventure, both in the Legenda major and in the sermons.
It is NOT found explicitly in Celano or in the Three Companions.
In the Legenda major, the Stigmatization is seen to validate Francis' life and to give it authority for the friars. Francis’ word and example must be regarded as genuinely Christian because he « bears the seal of the High Priest, Jesus Christ. »58
Bonaventure uses the analogy of a papal seal which, when affixed to a document, renders the document official. So it is that Christ affixed his seal to Francis' body, a fact which irrevocably confirms the teaching of the Poverello.
Bonaventure's principal concern seems to be the establishment of the reality of the miracles as a fact that legitimates the life of Francis and therefore that of the friars.
5.) THE STIGMATA AS A SACRAMENT OF GOD’S LOVE. (MJS
You will recall that the seven sacraments are defined as visible signs of God’s invisible love.
In Chapter thirteen of the Legenda, Bonaventure writes of the fact of the stigmata, proof of the stigmata by many witnesses before and after Francis’ death and the meaning of the stigmata.
“As Christ’s servant realized that he could not conceal from his intimate companions the stigmata that had been so visibly imprinted on this flesh, he feared to make public the Lord’s sacrament.”. Francis presented his doubts about revealing a gift from God to the brothers. Br. Illuminato said to the holy man: : Brother, you should realize that at times divine sacraments are revealed to you not for yourself along but also for others. You have every reason to fear that if you hide what you have received for the profit of many, you will be blamed for burying that talent.”
Francis then “recounted the vision in detail.” (FAED II p. 633)
Celano also referred to the stigmata as a sacrament in both of his lives of Francis. (FAED I pp. 261 and 281 and FAED II p. 377.)
Hence, the miracle of the Stigmata was necessary to enkindle love by showing God's boundless love and mercy.
CONCLUSION Refer to Haye's Image of Francis article
No fundamental distinction between the vocation of Francis and the vocation of the Order.
Francis is presented emphatically as a figure who is exemplary for the Christian spiritual journey whether for friars or for the laity.
an exemplary invitation « to all truly spiritual persons » who « have been invited by God to a passage of this kind, and to mental transport by example rather than by word.
It symbolizes that growing number of people who,
imitating the example of Francis of
Francis and his followers are to be exemplars of the dynamic of the spiritual journey.
end of Hayes article
Hayes, Zachary. “The Theological Image Of St. Francis Of Assisi In The Sermon's Of St. Bonaventure,” in Bonaventuriana Miscellanea in onore di Jacques Guy Bougerol, ofm a cura di Francisco de Asis Chavero Blanco OFM Vol. I Edizione Antonianum Roma 1988. pp. 309-345
Four aspects of the Stigmata: a) supreme example, b) ecstatic-contemplative, c) eschatological, d) vindication of Francis’s life.
References to Stigmata in Sermons of Bonaventure in FAED II: 513-15, 719-20, 722, 727, 739, 742-43, 746.
Bonaventure reflects: “Moreover, it pleased the Lord to endorse and confirm the teaching and Rule of Saint Francis, not only by miraculous signs, but also by the marks of the own stigmata, so that no true believer could possibly call them into question on external or internal evidence. … Christ, having recognized the teaching of Saint Francis as his own, affixed the seal of his stigmata to his body, and thereby irrevocably confirmed his teaching.” (FAED II Bon. Morning Sermon 1255, p. 513; see p. 514 for a description of the stigmata..) Bonaventure explains that this miracle of the stigmata “was made necessary under the low of divine providence, for the needs of the church in this final age and because of Saint Francis’s eminent holiness. (p. 515).
“… the Holy Spirit himself approved and confirmed the life of poverty by the sign of the cross. For at the very time Saint Francis sought approval of his Order from the pope, the stigmata of our Lord were imprint don his body.” Bonaventure continues his thought with an analogy: As the Pope gave a bull approving Francis’s rule, “the Lord himself issued his own bull approving poverty by imprinting the stigmata of his passion on the poor and humble Saint Francis.” (FAED II p. 722)
Bonaventure in the Evening Sermon is exhorting people to the love of Christ Crucified:
“Do you desire to imprint Christ crucified on your heart?” And then he explains what the stigmata of Francis meant: “The cross or sign of the cross imprinted on his body symbolized his love of Christ crucified and by the flame of that love he was totally transformed into Christ.” … “So, because Saint Francis had a love as vast as the heavens, and the cross is the sign of the greatest love in the world, it is to be expected that we should find this sign on him. (FAED II pp 726=727.)
In a Sermon that Bonaventure preached on the thirty-seventh anniversary of the transferal of Saint Francis’s body to the basilica in 1267, Bonaventure choose as his scripture text: “Friend, go up higher.” Francis received the stigmata because he was a friend of Jesus and so he was conformed to Jesus Crucified. (FAED II pp. 738-739; repeated p. 743) Later in the sermon is written that “Saint Francis was an intimate friend of the Lord because of the serenity of his contemplative soul.” At the end of the sermon Bonaventure compares Francis to Mordecai in the Book of Esther whom the king honored by clothing him with the king’s apparel and crown; so was Francis clothed and crowned when he was canonized. (FAED II p. 746)
Bonaventure teaches that Francis and his true followers were models for the Christian values that all must practice who set forth on the Itinerarium mentis in Deum. … There are other occasions when Bon proclaims “the universality of the call to mystical consciousness.” confer p. 101 – 112.
The fact is that Francis received the Stigmata.
It is attested to by many people, especially after his death
for while he was living he attempted to hide the marks of Christ Crucified.
events of LaVerna and a description of the wounds, it provided details
bolstering the belief of those brothers in
FAED II pp. 471-72
[XXI: The Frivolous and the Talkative Religious]
1 Blessed is the servant who, when he speaks, does not disclose
everything
about himself under the guise of a reward and is not quick to
speak, but who is wisely cautious about
what he says and how he responds.
2
Woe to that religious who does not
hold in his heart the good things
the Lord reveals to him and does not reveal
them by his behavior, but,
under the guise of a reward, wishes
instead to reveal them with his
words.3 He receives his
reward and his listeners carry away little fruit.
FAED I p. 135 cf FAED II p. 19. re: doubts
Not even Leo saw the actual stigmatization contrary to all the artists who put Leo in the picture of Francis’ stigmata.
Celano gives the first description in his Life of Saint Francis which is then practically copied by the all the biographers after Celano.
Celano, the first official hagiographer appointed by Pope
Gregory IX to right a biography of Francis as part of the canonization process.
Celano went to and lives in
Cusato agrees: “Celano … who was the fist person to attempt to put into narrative form
an experience which neither he nor probably any other friar witnessed themselves.” [Cusato Of Snakes p. 30
Cusato notes that Celano and all the accounts dependant on his attest to the silence of Francis on the experience of the stigmata lest he lost the grace associated with so great a gifts and that this is a typical hagiographical motif. Keeping silent on special graces was also the teaching and practice of the Desert Fathers and Mothers. In fact all of the biographers seem to go out of their way to repeatedly tell us that he did not talk about the experience. This implies that the imagery used is theirs and not Francis’. (Cusato Of Snakes… p. 44.)
Celano in his first life choose to use the image of the seraph in Isaiah 6:2 to describe what Francis was seeing or experience and the biographers after Celano’s First Life repeated the image.
A close reading of both 1 Celano
and Bonaventure shows quite clearly that what Francis was seeing was “a man
… affixed to a cross” (Celano) and “a man crucified in the midst of the
wings … nailed to a cross” (Bonaventure). In other words, the seraph/seraph is
not really a snake at all: it is a man. And that man is Jesus
Christ. Thomas chooses to use the vehicle of the imagery of the seraph
(the winged seraph) … in order to convey the mystical experience of Francis,
meditating upon Christ on the Cross. What Francis saw above him … was
not an angel but Christ lifted up, spatially above him, on the cross for
the healing of the human race.
(Cusato Of Snakes… p. 49.)
From this Cusato concludes that we can begin to appreciate that the stigmatization was something that came from deep within Francis, that the object of Francis’ prayer, Christ Crucified was so thoroughly interiorized that the marks of the stigmata comes up out of the very depths of Francis’ being, manifesting its effects in Francis’ body. Thus Bonaventure’s theological insight that Francis actually bore the stigmata with himself from the very moment of his conversion and that it gradually deepened and intensified until it emerged on this flesh on La Verna is not far from the truth. (Cusato Of Snakes… pp. 52-53)
How Francis received the stigmata is a mystery that no one penetrates.
We certainly with our modern mentality and attitude would like to have all the scientific facts with test, pictures, videos and analysis and we are not accustom to an older mentality that was more concerned about the meaning and the theological significance of the historic event of the stigmata of Francis. Yet I think that a careful reading of the texts and the history of the interpretation of the meaning of the stigmata event is what has had more of an positive influence on the Franciscan Order and on Christian spirituality and mysticism then the knowing of the details of this historical event which ultimately must be accepted as a mystery of God’s relationship to Francis and to us.
The best exegete of Thomas’s tale is Bonaventure himself in the Itinerarium mentis in Deum and in his sermons FAED , 514-15, 722, 726-27, 734-35, 738-39, 742-43 and 757-58.
[Dalarum Great Secret p.15 ftnt 33.]
Cusato in an article on the charism of Francis discusses how Bonaventure “ in his defense of the Franciscan vocation against the Paris masters uses the stigmata of Francis “ the fact that their founder, Francis of Assisi, bore within his own flesh the stigmata, the marks of the Crucified One on the cross, as God’s undeniable validation and testimony to the world that the way of return to the life of paradise was the way of absolute poverty” and so Bonaventure offers the stigmata as proof of the validity of the Franciscan Order. . Cusato p. 367
Cusato p. 370-371
Bonaventure sees the stigmata of Francis as “the divine confirmation that the life of Christ, had indeed been realized, fully, in the virtuous man Francis, member of the ordo seraphicus. …He alone is fully identified with the life of Christ, as demonstrated in his life of absolute poverty and exemplified in the gift of the stigmata.”
Paul Lachance calls the stigmata of Francis “the most celebrated mystical experience of the Middle Ages.”
He thinks that it became “an incorporated mandala” which was expressed in numerous paintings
and so influenced medieval and Franciscan Spirituality.
The Formation of Angela’s Book in Angela of Foligno.
Angela of Foligno Complete Works: Classics of Western Spirituality
Translated with an Introduction by Paul Lachance. (NY: Paulist Press, 1993), p. 29
The paradigm of Francis's stigmata is the model that Bonaventure holds up as the ideal of mystical union.
To attain the level of ecstatic union with Christ, therefore, is to be crucified with him in body and spirit; it is to be inflamed by fire of the Holy Spirit (Itin. 7, 6) who is the Spirit of love. (Delio Hist Myst p136)
McGinn in Flowering: Early Franciscan Mysticism p. 96f
Bonaventure, as Ewert Cousins puts it, "is ultimately concerned with the way in which Francis developed spiritually through assimilation into the mystery of Christ."135 This development centers on the saint's progressive identification with Christ crucified until, by the reception of the stigmata, "he is totally transformed into the likeness of Christ crucified, not through the martyrdom of the flesh but through conflagration of mind" (Leg. maj. 13.3). The Seraphic Doctor introduces seven manifestations of the cross into the Life, some given to Francis himself and some accorded to others about him (see Leg. maj. 1.3, 1.5, 2.1, 3.5-6, 4.9, 4.10, and the stigmata account in 13). These mark stages in an itinerary of deepening understanding of the meaning of the cross which leads on to the decisive event of the stigmata, whose account (briefly announced in chapter 4.11 and fully described in chapter 13) frames the treatment of the saint's virtues in chapters 5-12. These seven visions of the cross correspond to the seven stages of ascent of The Mind's Journey into God: "like six steps leading to the seventh in which you finally reach your resting place,... the summit of evangelical perfection" (Leg. maj. 13.10). In true Franciscan fashion, however, Bonaventure links the full imitation of the Crucified to the practice of total poverty. As he put it in another context: "Poverty is the virtue necessary for the integrity of perfection to such a degree that no one is able to be perfect without it, as the Lord says."136
McGinn Flowering p. 96
Notes on MICHAEL F. CUSATO OF SNAKES AND ANGELS pp 46-53
Therefore, Leo's use of the term seraphim is late. However, while not totally excluding that the use of the image of the seraph might have originated with him (or another companion who had been with Francis on La Verna), a much simpler and more credible explanation is certainly available to us: namely, that it comes from Thomas of Celano himself, author of the first narrative account in the Vita prima. All other authors who wrote on the matter-Julian of Speyer, Henri d'Avranches, the author of the Three Companions, Bonaventure, even Leo himself-simply take over the imagery used by the official hagiographer in this first foundational account. It becomes, in other words, the classic account of the event and its imagery the standard manner of describing an unknown (if not unknowable) experience.
Indeed, in drafting the first narrative of the event, it is Thomas who explicitly chooses to use the image from Isaiah 6: 2-the text we examined earlier-to describe what Francis was seeing or experiencing in the stigmatization vision in which a man "like a saraph [or seraph]" with six wings is perceived as hovering above him. The question is: why does he choose this particular text of Isaiah? To assert that the hagiographer was simply borrowing the veiled allusions to the image of the seraph evoked by Gregory IX in his bull of canonization for Francis, Mirca circa nos, is not enough by itself; such allusions do not explain the significant development of the content and meaning of the experience now found in the narrative. No, the answer lies elsewhere.
Thomas would have heard the testimony of those friars who had seen the body of their founder after his death. He would also have known what Elias had written in his encyclical letter, boldly affirming that Francis had "appeared crucified, bearing in his body the five wounds."4 And finally, he would have been keenly aware of the bull of canonization wherein Gregory likewise described Francis's flesh as having been "crucified."42 Nevertheless, it is Celano who takes it upon himself to go one step further: to link the wounds of the Crucified with an experience of the Crucified. And that experience, for Celano, was inescapably and indelibly linked with a profound meditation upon the cross of Jesus Christ. 43
ardent").
However, the context in all three texts is an asceticism undertaken for the love of God. If Celano had caught the allusion made by Gregory EX to these classic texts-and he almost assuredly did-he then went on to radically change the orientation of the traditional allusion from asceticism (crucifying his flesh through ascetical practices) to something else. For Celano will transform the allusion from an ascetical mastery of his flesh out of love for God into an account of a profound meditation upon the cross of Christ in which his own flesh is transformed not by ascetical acts but by the experience of prayer itself.
Celano, in other words, must have surmised that what Francis on La Verna was meditating upon was the cross of Christ depicted so powerfully, for example, in the text of the gospel of John 3 or possibly even-though less graphically-in the text of the gospel of John 12. Indeed, Celano is less concerned with the day upon which this might have occurred as he is about the text and the prayer which might have prompted the ecstatic experience.44
44Hence, it seems to me, the absence of a specific time-reference in 1 Gel 92-94. Given our close examination thus far of the content of the first texts that deal with the stigmatization of Francis, I would summarize the development of events in the following manner:
(1) the experience of the stigmatization (September, 1224);
(2) the public announcement of its occurrence in the 1226 encyclical letter of Brother Elias upon the death of Francis;
(3) Gregory FX's 1228 association of the marks of the stigmata with a life-long and intense asceticism by Francis (crucifying his flesh out of love for God), with a veiled allusion to the Seraph-the symbol par excellence of ardent, burning love;
(4) in 1229, Celano's critical transposition of this experience from the realm of asceticism to that of mysticism, now directly associated with Francis's meditation upon the cross of the Crucified Christ, who is identified explicitly with the image of the Seraph; and lastly
(5) the association of Francis's profound meditation on the cross (and thus the event of the stigmatization) with the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross ("on or about the feast") in 1246 by the author of the Legend of the Three Companions. Hence, the identification of which Gospel was actually used on the feast becomes somewhat secondary; what is crucial is what Celano thought Francis was meditating on-the cross of Christ-and how he chose to dramatize that. The Vita prima is thus the critical link between Mira circa nos and 3 Soc in two ways: through his identification of the experience with a meditation upon the cross of the Crucified and through his imaginative, even ground-breaking use of the seraphic imagery (from John, Numbers and Isaiah) in order to try to explain that experience. No one had until then made such an explicit identification of the saraph/seraph with the cross of Christ (except, of course, the Gospel of John itself)- It was the event of the stigmatization and Celano's desire to understand it from within that prompted him, it seems to me, to boldly cross this threshold.
Moreover, it is Thomas-and not Francis-who would have known of the resonances between the image of the cross lifted up for the healing and salvation of the world and the more explicit account of Numbers 21 which mentions the saraph serpents: those fiery snakes whose bronze replicas would bring healing to all who looked upon them. But again: it is not a snake that Francis would have been contemplating during his mystical transport. Rather, what Francis is seeing in ecstasy-and what Celano is trying to render in language that unites no less than three biblical accounts (John 3, Numbers 21 and Isaiah 6)-is the figure of Jesus Christ lifted up on the cross for the healing and salvation of the world. For just as Moses lifted up the saraph serpent in the desert so that all who looked upon it would find healing, now Francis, in contemplating Christ lifted up on the cross, was being assured of the ultimate healing and salvation of the world promised in Christ crucified.
A close reading of both 1 Celano and Bonaventure shows quite clearly that what Francis was seeing was "a man . . . affixed to a cross" (Celano) and "a man crucified in the midst of the wings . . . nailed to a cross" (Bonaventure).45 In other words, the saraph/seraph is not really a snake at all: it is a man. And that man is Jesus Christ. Thomas chooses to use the vehicle of the imagery of the seraph (the winged seraph)-cited textually from Isaiah 6:2 but evoking Numbers 21—in order to convey the mystical experience of Francis, meditating upon Christ on the cross. What Francis saw above him-and Celano knew this-was not an angel but Christ: lifted up, spatially above him, on the cross for the healing of the human race. …
Note that Thomas never says it was an angel that Francis saw. Indeed, he never uses the word angelus in his account at all.
But our recovery of the original association has more profound, even radical, implications. For if indeed it is not an angel or an angelic presence that hovers above Francis during that momentous day on La Verna, then we are in a much better position to appreciate the extraordinary depth of the actual experience. Rather than conceive of the stigmatization of Francis as an event whereby an angelic figure literally zaps something onto Francis from the outside (an impression that can indeed be conveyed in medieval and renaissance artistic representations of the event), we can now begin to appreciate that the stigmatization was, in fact, something that came from deep within him and out of him, onto his very flesh. The trajectory of the experience, in other words, was not from the outside-in but rather from the inside-out. Indeed, Celano's own description of the wounds-marks that begin appear on his body shortly after the experience clearly describes skin that is protruding outward rather than something that has been pushed inward into him.48
For in truth, at least from a post-Enlightenment perspective, angels do not go around hovering above people and zapping them.
However, profound, intense, even mystical prayer can begin to literally explode out of one's psyche (one's soul) into and through one's very flesh, when the object of one's prayer-like Christ nailed to the cross-has been so thoroughly interiorized. This is the deepest and most authentic form of a psychosomatic event: not in the sense of something fraudulently induced but of something that comes up out of the very depths of one's being, manifesting its effects in one's own body.
We are, in other words, in the presence of a breathtaking and awesome experience of human prayer at its most intense, where grace and nature have become so commingled through the medium of a meditation upon Christ's passion. Brother Elias was probably not far from the truth in calling the result of this commingling the novitas miraculi: not in the sense that nature has been contravened but rather in the sense that what appears on Francis's body—in Francis's body—has become a !sign of God's deepest conversatio with the human person. Perhaps, therefore, Bonaventure's theological insight-namely, that Francis actually bore the stigmata (that is, the cross of Christ) within himself from the very moment of his conversion and that it gradually deepened and intensified until it emerged onto his flesh on La Verna-is not very far from the truth of the mystical experience of Francis in September 1224.
Michael F. Cusato Of Snakes And Angels Pp 46-53
Notes on MICHAEL F. CUSATO OF SNAKES AND ANGELS pp. 71-74
In early August 1224, accompanied by several companions, Francis would have gone to La Verna with a deeply aggrieved spirit but with the intention of doing a "Lent of St. Michael" in supplication to God concerning the deteriorating situation between Christianity and Islam, and was his fervent prayer for the protection of his friend, Malik al-Kamil. And it does not seem insignificant that he went there in the company of Illuminato, his companion in Damietta.85
85Illuminate knew the importance of those events in
It is probably no exaggeration to posit that Francis would have gone there disturbed and even confused about the values that had been revealed to him by God through his encounter with the lepers: values which had consistently shaped the contours of his whole life; values which had inexorably led him to adopt a posture of radical non-violence in relationship to the human community, so much in need of further healing and not further destruction. And yet the Church of his day, backed by immense military force, insisted on another way, impelled by different set of values.
In the course of this intense period of fasting, on or around the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, inwardly tormented,
Francis entered into a profound meditation upon the mystery of the passion of Jesus Christ or, more precisely, the image of Christ lifted up on the cross as a sign of healing for the human race, drawn from the Gospel of John 3 (or John 12). This meditation became transformed into mystical ecstasy in which he himself experienced- as the author of the Fioretti puts it-the love which Christ felt for humanity in giving himself on the cross and the pain that was an integral part of that act of ultimate self-giving.86 The fruit of this intense prayer manifested itself in Francis becoming, as it were, the very object of his prayer: a crucified man marked with the stigmata.
But why did the image of Christ on the cross have such resonance within Francis to the extent that it would transport him into so intimate an experience of ecstasy and result in him tasting such incredible sweetness and abiding solace?
The reason can be found in what the cross of Jesus Christ had come to symbolize and mean for Francis. For in his later writings, Francis had developed what can only be called a veritable mysticism of the cross in which the cross of Christ had become for him the quintessential sign of the non-violent response of Jesus of Nazareth to the violence and injustices of the world.87
87The three most critical texts are: the Letter to the Minister, the Salutation to the Virtues and the Testament. Cf. my dissertation, La renonciation au pouvoir, 104-22, but especially the previously mentioned unpublished article: "Guardians and the Use of Authority among the Early Franciscans" where I treat more systematically and in greater depth the theme of the cross in these texts.
He who opened his arms on the cross, refusing to respond to the violence done to him with a reciprocal act of violence, accepting out of love for the human race even death, has, through that very act (the Gospel of John tells us), brought healing and salvation to the world. In so doing, the cross of Christ has become the sign of full and true obedience to the Father's will: not in the mechanical and masochistic sense of certain medieval and contemporary soteriologies; but obedience in the sense of a total commitment to what God wants for the human race and how God wants us to live with each other in the human fraternity he has created us to be and wills us to be (if only we would live like his Son). But these actions will bring one inevitably into conflict with the ways of the world, with the carnal spirit, with evil cloaked by power as virtue—with all the consequences of such a clash. This is the way of the cross and the way of the gospel; it is, therefore, the forma vitae fratrum minorum.
As such, the vision of the seraphic Christ lifted up on the cross for the healing of the world indelibly confirmed for Francis and in Francis what had been revealed to him during ; his encounter with the lepers: that all members of the human fraternity were sacred creatures of God and that every attitude and action that does violence to this sacred community must be repented of; that this vision was indeed true and trustworthy; that it was, in fact, salvific. Far from having wasted his life attempting to live out this radical vision, Francis found himself validated by God on La Verna as a truly evangelical man, an authentic obedient servant, faithful to the values of Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
If Christ upon the cross is the quintessential example of the non-violent Jesus, the cross of Christ is also what it means to be minor et subditus omnibus (minor and subject to all): that bedrock posture of Francis and his movement which is found articulated throughout the opuscula from the first layers of the Early Rule; to his instruction on the manner of exercising authority among the brothers; to the behavior of those friars sent on mission among the Saracens; to the heart-rending advice given to the aggrieved minister in the Letter to a Minister; to the final lines of the Salutation of the Virtues where true obedience is once again compared to the non-violent Jesus on the cross, refusing to reply in violence to violence and injustice, even to the point of death on a cross. And yet, paradoxically and scandalously, only in such a way will the human heart and the world be healed.
The seraphic vision, therefore, confirmed Francis in his deepest existential and spiritual convictions. It filled him with great and abiding solace and at the same time generated within him ecstatic praise to God for having reconfirmed this in the depths of his soul, indeed in his very flesh. This is what led him to give praise to God in the simplest of terms, in the mode of his Islamic brothers and sisters and his newly discovered frater, for whom he had been praying. For even in death, if one is faithful to the values of love manifested by and incarnated in the Crucified One, his meditation now assured him, will the healing of the human race be achieved.
La Verna thus joins
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