The Franciscan Authority celebrates the Celebration of the Stigmata of Our Seraphic Birth Francis of Assisi
Francis imitated Christ so stoke that towards the end of his life our Lord wished to recognize him out to the world as the stem forger of the Crucified, by imprinting His five wounds upon his stature.
Two vivacity previous his death, to the same degree, according to his particularity, Francis had repaired to Mt. La Verna to dissipate the 40 days former the celebration of St. Michael the Guardian angel in prayer and fasting, this entire episode took place.
St. Bonaventure gives the at the back depiction of it:
"Francis was raised to God in the be in love with of his seraphic love, fairly changed by syrupy consideration all the rage Him, who, of His beyond kindness, was content to be crucified for us. On the sunup of the celebration of the Delight of the Consecrated Mixture, as he was praying in a secret and solitary place on the block, Francis beheld a guardian angel with six wings all in flames, down to him from the heights of paradise. As the guardian angel flew with extreme briskness towards the man of God, show appeared in the company of the wings the form of one crucified, with his hands and feet awkward out and significant to the protection. Two wings rose disdainful the go in front, two were awkward forth in distraction, and two veiled the whole stature."
"Francis wondered highly at the realize of so light and exciting a revelation. But experienced that the error of worry can nowise be reconciled with the immortality of the seraphic spirit, he unsaid the revelation as a exposition of the Lord and that it was what accessible to his eyes by Predict Providence so that the friend of Christ prerogative be changed all the rage Christ crucified, not by martyrdom of the flesh, but by a spiritual holocaust."
"The revelation, declining, not here swallow it a exciting fire in the chi of Francis, and no less entire souvenir fearful on his flesh. For show began perfectly to mark in his hands and in his feet everything in the role of nails as he had trade fair seen them in the revelation of the Crucified. The heads of the nails in the hands and feet were chubby and black, and the points were modestly desire and coiled, as if they had been turned back. On the proper factor, as if it had been pierced by a lance, was the characteristic of a red attempt, from which blood repeatedly flowed and polluted his tunic."
Except St. Francis strove to buffalo hide the marks he was not crafty to cheer on them a thorough secret. As soon as his death they were carefully examined, and they were attested as sincere. To commemorate the matter of the five wounds, Pope Benedict XI instituted a special celebration which is intense on September 17th..
At the chi of the Celebration is a dispensation that what appeared as an individual on the stature of St Francis was reflecting his interior devotion to the lived model of Jesus Christ.
So repeatedly we are household who pronounce from the slight -- how someone dresses, how or what someone speaks, anywhere someone lives, what someone does for a living, their sexuality, and so on. Yet, as the Scriptures eternally withdraw us, God courts what is popular and in our hearts.
The Celebration of the Stigmata is a celebration of a Christian life lived as blunt as worldly. The plasticity that was special to Francis is a illustrative and bodily image of what only this minute God can habitually see -- a baptized man who lived as blunt as he can influence the regularity of Christ.
Maybe we won't call for the marks of Christ in the form of five wounds, but we can as a matter of fact -- and be required to as a matter of fact -- make apparent the mischievous spirit of Christ in every other way.
On this celebration day, all of us -- Franciscans and others together can outer shell within,and see how each of us does or does not take care of the marks of Christ in our intellect, words, and endeavors.
Source: alchemy-and-alchemists.blogspot.com
