Regarding the appearance of the stigmata of Saint Francis, the book of Saint Bonaventure, Major legend, details: “The signs of nails began to appear on his hands and feet; The heads appeared on the palms of the hands and on the tops of the feet, and the toes appeared on the other side. The right side of the body, as if it had been pierced by a spear blow, was furrowed by a red scar that often oozed blood.”
Father Massimo Fusarelli, Minister General of the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor, noted, during the January 5 ceremony in Alverna, that the commemoration of the stigmata of Saint Francis “is not only a memory of the past, of what happened on this sacred mountain 800 years ago to Francis, but to relive today that meeting that marked the Poor guy (as San Francisco was known).”
“‘From wounds, new life It is not only the motto chosen for this centenary year, but a perspective: the wounds of Christ, the wounds of Francis, the wounds that our world suffers today with wars, climate change, situations of injustice, even the wounds that each one carries with them. . They are not a dead point, but a possibility of new life,” he concluded.