St. Francis, St. Clare, St. Catherine
The man who was marked with the wounds, the woman who received the hidden stigmata, the town that still looks like a fresco. Assisi is not a Franciscan souvenir shop, though it contains several. It is the place poverty became a love affair.
Umbria and TuscanyFeast 4 October (Francis); 29 April (Catherine)
The pilgrimage
To pray at the tomb of Francis, and at San Damiano where the crucifix spoke.
La Verna, if you can — the mountain of the stigmata.
Siena for Catherine: the head in San Domenico, the house, a Doctor of the Church who told popes to go home to Rome.
The apparition, the Gospel sign, the body, the image — whatever this place is known for, told as a file of its own.
La Verna, TuscanySeptember 1224
Two years before his death, Francis of Assisi receives the wounds of the Crucified on the mountain of La Verna — the first widely attested stigmata in Catholic history, and the pattern for all later ones.
Siena and RomeStigmata 1375; died 1380
A Dominican tertiary, mystic, and Doctor of the Church who received invisible stigmata, lived on the Eucharist for long periods, and told a pope to go home to Rome — and was obeyed.
