I think that one is a lie and the other is the Truth. That is important to us. I saw a Crucifixion in the Church the other day in one Parish and for the first time I saw Jesus being crucified by the wrist. It has been understood by the Church from the beginning that Jesus was pierced by the hands. Jesus says hands and feet, that is enough for me. I don’t care what scientific evidence they can come with, I know the scientific world doesn’t believe in God and spend most of its time trying to discredit God in every possible way they can.
Don’t forget that the term hand, used in the Greek includes the wrist. The Greeks actually used terminology that was more related to our own medical terminology, carpel, metacarpal, ulna and radius, etc when they wanted to be very specific about which part of the hand they’re talking about. Even today, if you speak in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and French, the term hand includes the wrist. When you ask, what part of the hand, the speakers of Romance languages would then say: the wrist, the palm, the heal, the finger, the nail and so forth. As you can see, the term hand for speakers of Greek and Latin has several parts. We’re thinking hand in a very American way. Even then, I’m not so sure about that. Even in American English, a physician or nurse would break the hand down and include the wrist as part of the hand, because it’s the point where the two sets of bones meet.
That being said, the is another point. The two famous stigmatists, St. Francis and his son, St. Pio, did not have the stigmata in the same place. St. Francis’ hands were wounded just above the heal of the hand, if the palm is facing you. If you’re looking at the hand with palm facing down, flex your wrist. Find the point where there is a hollow at what appears to be the hinge, where hand and arm meet. That’s where his stigmata was recorded to have been.
Celano mentions the stigmata in the hand. However, Clare mentions wrapping his wrists to cover the sacred wounds. Given that both are speaking in Italian and Latin, they could both be speaking about the same thing, for the reasons that I pointed above. In Latin and Greek, hand is not the palm. It’s the whole thing.
Padre Pio’s wounds seemed larger and started at the center of the palm and spread out. Because of the questions that both stigmatas raise, the Church has never spoken formally on the matter. Nor has the Church ever invested time and money to study the question.
Even the shroud is a matter of private veneration. There is no confirmation or denial from the Church that this is or is not the shroud in which Jesus was buried. What is of great significance to us is that the shroud is proof positive that there were such barbaric crucifixions and that what the Evangelists describe using words, barely captures the horror of these executions as well as the shroud does. The shroud helps us to reflect on how much Jesus suffered for our sins. Whether this was his shroud ot that of another person, it does not change the fact that crucifixion was his fate. That thought alone should move us to convert from sin toward virtue.
If you look at the Cross of San Damiano, which is very popular in Franciscan houses and chapels, there are four nails, not three. The feet are side by side, not over each other and the head is above the shoulders. Jesus is not hanging from the cross. People made assumptions and ran with them.
Whatever other people want to research, they are free to do so. They cannot accuse Christians of lying, because we never said that the nails were through the palm or the wrist. We never said that there were three nails or four. That was the conception of different artists. This is neither a matter of truth or of faith. It’s a matter of historical research. The triumph of the cross is enough for the Church.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
And Gregory, yes that is a correct point as well. I wasn’t trying to say my two points are the only way. Just the debated ones.