Tuesday, July 2, 2013

STIGMATICS

 
 
 
 
MARIE-ROSE FERRON:
STIGMATIC
 
Sunday morning, quiet reigns
over the cemetery grave of
 
Marie-Rose Ferron.
 
Silence that haunts –
 
full of mystery – presence.
 
Silence is not empty –
 
touches me
at my center – still point.
Silence watches over me as
a gentle cool morning breeze.
Silence is full – presence of the
divine – the Beloved –
full of presence of Marie-Rose –
full of mystery of life –
death – wars – violence – injustices.
Marie-Rose wounds bleed from these.
I sit in the silence
letting mystery touch – overwhelm me.
It overwhelmed Marie-Rose –
her wounds bled from it.
Such is our journey in life –
we carry a heavy load – our sins –
sins of the world.
I made a pilgrimage
to the grave of Marie-Rose.
I will never understand life – its dark side –
Marie-Rose did not either.
She carried that burden –
wounds show it.
She will give me strength
To carry burden of living.
 
Robert Trabold
 
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PILGRIMAGE OF SILENCE:
STIGMATICS
 
Robert Trabold
 
When we think of stigmatics, we usually believe that they are people and a phenomenon of Europe, such as, Theresa Neumann of Germany and Padre Pio of Italy. But if we do our homework, we will find that there have been four Americans who have been stigmatics in recent times. Marie-Rose Ferron, a French Canadian who immigrated to Woonsocket, RI and died in 1936. Little Audrey Santo was a native of Worchester, Mass. and passed away in 2007. The two others were Veronica Lueken, Bayside, New York, 1923 - 1995 and Rhoda Wise, Canton, Ohio, 1888 - 1948. During the year, I frequently attend the various prayer sessions of the V. Lueken Movement and visit her gravesite which is not far from where I live. Recently, I decided to make a pilgrimage to the places in southern New England where M. R. Ferron and A. Santo lived and are buried.  In that area, another visionary and stigmatic, Marie Esperanza from Venezuela, worked and was instrumental in the founding of house of prayer, Betania 2, in Medway, Mass. These places are a holy corner of the globe which was blessed with the presence of three saintly people.
I made the pilgrimage by myself and wanted it to be one of silence and meditation. The highlights of the trip were the times of prayer at the gravesites of Marie-Rose and Little Audrey and having the privilege of seeing the latter’s little chapel and room and the bed where she suffered. The visits to the graves touched me very much because I felt a silence which was so deep that it was not only an indication of the stigmatic’s presence but also that of Jesus. The two stigmatics led me into the presence of the divine. I usually visited the graves for up to an hour resting in the quiet and mentioned certain petitions of the needs of myself and the world. I had the privilege of being able to enter the chapel and bed room of Little Audrey and I felt a deep silence there. Audrey led me into the presence of Jesus and I was deeply touched. These two rooms had statues of Jesus which in recent years have had blood and oil coming out of them. Upon investigation, the blood is true human blood and the oil is genuine.  This is truly a miraculous phenomenon since these statues are made of plaster of Paris. In all, the heavens opened up for a moment and preformed wonderful signs which should strengthen our faith and give us confidence that God has not forgotten us.
In praying at the graves of the stigmatics and visiting the chapel and room of Audrey Santo, I was confronted with the great mystery of why certain people manifest the wounds of Christ on their body. This phenomenon has been around for a while and St. Francis of Assisi was the first one recorded in history. Stigmatics are people who have a very intense love of Jesus and a desire to be attached and united to him. This unity with the beloved Jesus leads them to share in his sufferings and as a result, the wounds of the Lord appear on their bodies. This is the great mystery of love which confronts us on visiting their places of residence and burial sites and which we will never completely understand while we are on earth. We should remember however that we are called to this unity with and love of Jesus in our life time. Our daily faithfulness to contemplative prayer puts us into the presence of the Lord who calls us to a deep union with him although we may never share his physical wounds.
While praying at the various sites of the stigmatics, I believe that we do participate in the wounds of Jesus by our living. Our world is full of violence, hatred and endless wars and many innocent lives are lost in such violence. Wars just go on and do not seem to end. The stigmatics also lived in this world and carried the burden of its endless violence and conflicts.  They intensely felt this and it was part of the pain of the wounds of Jesus. On top of this, we humans have the pain of seeing and carrying our own sins and failings and have this burden until our death. We may never have on our bodies the physical wounds of Jesus but we have those interior wounds of suffering under the injustices and violence of our world and our failings which never end. We are stigmatics burdened with our world and a pilgrimage to Southern New England hopefully will help us not get discouraged. It reminds us that we have to keep our eyes on Jesus who is our hope and despite it all, had his Easter Sunday. He will let us share in this victory.
 
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