Replies

>>Random lumps and bruises? What an insult to the apostle!>>

Umm, you're the one insisting that they were random lumps and bruises, though you feign shock and horror at sych a description.

Superstition? Please tell me how they are superstition.

1. An irrational belief that an object, action, or circumstance not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome.
2. 1. A belief, practice, or rite irrationally maintained by ignorance of the laws of nature or by faith in magic or chance.
2. A fearful or abject state of mind resulting from such ignorance or irrationality.
3. Idolatry.

So you equate empathy for Christ with idolatry? Do you accuse stigmatists of being of a "fearful or abject state of mind." Quite the opposite. Or is it that you hold that Christ is "not logically related to a course of events"? Of course you don't, but that's what you say when you call such things superstition.
Stigmata do not magically appear. These people are so in love with Christ that they joyfully share in his suffering, and by doing so enter into an unfathomably deep sense of prayer. It is not a cruelty they are inflicted with. Most describe being able to reach an ecstatic level of prayer which is truly experiencing Heaven on Earth.