 One of the most baffling of all scientific phenomena is the phenomenon known as Stigmatization and in spite of our inability to explain it that it has occurred even in contemporary times can hardly be disputed More than seven centuries have passed since St. Francis of Assisi No one during his lifetime merely his brother Francis went into the Apennine Mountains and with his disciples climbed down to Alvarna There in a rude cell he fasted and prayed for 40 days a night the 40th day was September 14th 1224 and It was the day the vision came to him the vision of a winged seraph nailed to a cross Invited his disciples into a cell to witness it and one of them looking down at him cried This is no vision brother Francis This is not a dream This is a miracle a miracle of God 725 years is a long time It is sufficient time for facts to be twisted and for legends to grow But there is the written word of Pope Alexander the fourth that he saw evidence of the miracle with his own eyes There is the testimony of those later men and women who underwent the same mystical experience Benedicta ratio of Bologna and John Gray and Nicholas of Ravenna and Anna Katharina Emerick The peasant girl of Munster And if anyone still remains skeptical Then we must refer him to the newspapers of July 10th 1922 But the miracle of St. Francis is not confined to the misty past It happened again to an ordinary young girl named Mary Riley in the ordinary American town of Peace kill New York There at the home of the sisters of the good shepherd Mary Riley awoke from a deep sleep Feeling a sharp pain in the side glanced down It was there when I woke mother I had a strange dream and then my side hurt me and that awakened me and it was there a cross of blood Yes Just like st. Francis. Isn't it mother the wounds of Christ appeared on him? I knew it is a cross of blood But there can be no question. It is the same thing the same miracle of God The appearance on the body of wounds even the form of a cross or in the pattern of Christ's own wounds Sometimes it has occurred during a cataleptic condition Sometimes only during a heavy sleep But that it has occurred cannot be dotted Nor has its cause ever been satisfactorily explained As far as our knowledge goes It remains what it was in the days of st. Francis a miracle a Miracle incredible, but true