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Knowest thou, said Christ, what I have done to thee. I have given thee the stigmata, which are the insignia of my passion,

that thou mayest be my standard-bearer. Then, after long and secret conference together, that marvelous vision disappeared, leaving

in the heart of St. Francis an excessive fire and ardor of divine love, and on his flesh

a wonderful trace and image of the passion of Christ.

For upon his hands and feet began immediately to appear the figures of the nails, and thus

the hands and feet appeared pierced through the midst by the nails.

The heads whereof were seen outside the flesh in the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet.

In like manner, on the right side appeared the image of an unheeled wound, as if made by a lance,

and still red and bleeding from which drops of blood often flowed from the holy breast of St. Francis, staining his tunic in his drawers.

That was a condensed passage from Fioretti, or Little Flowers, a 14th century book of assembled tales of St Francis of Assisi.

It describes the first known, or at least first recorded, case of stigmata, the alleged miraculous appearance of Jesus Christ's crucifixion wounds on the bodies of people.

The phenomenon is rare, disturbing, and undeniably controversial.

It sparked debate over authenticity for centuries, believers against doubters, testimonials and videos versus scientific explanation and experiments,

the adamantly faithful facing the smugly sceptical.

And it all comes down to this.

Have some people experienced a physical manifestation of the passion of Christ.

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