Over forty distinct mystical phenomena have been documented in the lives of the saints — wounds that bleed for fifty years, bodies that do not decay, ecstasies that lift a friar from the ground. The Church investigates each one with care.
The Stigmata of St. Francis
The first recorded case of the stigmata in Church history — the five wounds of Christ, received by Francis while praying near the feast of the Holy Cross.
St. Anthony of Padua's Bilocation to Lisbon
Preaching at Padua, St. Anthony was simultaneously seen in Lisbon — appearing in a courtroom to defend his own father from a murder charge by carrying the dead man into court to bear witness.
The Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine of Siena
At the end of her three-year enclosure as a Dominican tertiary in her parents' house, Catherine received a vision in which Christ took her as His mystical bride before His Mother, with David, Paul, and Dominic as witnesses. He gave her a ring visible only to herself.
The Invisible Stigmata of St. Catherine of Siena
Praying before a crucifix in Pisa on the Sunday after Laetare Sunday 1375, Catherine received the five wounds of Christ — but at her own prayer they were given to her invisibly during life, visible only after her death.
St. Lidwina of Schiedam — the Skater Saint's Inedia
After a skating accident at fifteen left her progressively paralysed for 38 years, St. Lidwina of Schiedam reportedly lived on no food except the Eucharist for the last 28 years of her life — the earliest extensively documented case of inedia.
The Transverberation of St. Teresa of Ávila
Teresa described an angel piercing her heart repeatedly with a fiery, gold-tipped dart. After her death, anatomical examinations of her preserved heart reportedly found a corresponding perforation through the muscle tissue.
The Levitations of St. Teresa of Ávila
Recorded by Teresa herself with embarrassment in her Autobiography: she was repeatedly lifted from the ground during prayer in the choir of the Monastery of the Incarnation, and would beg the sisters to hold her down to prevent the phenomenon from being witnessed.
The Bilocations of St. Martin de Porres
A Peruvian Dominican lay-brother — son of a Spanish nobleman and a freed slave from Panama — was witnessed in his lifetime in Mexico, Japan, the Philippines, China, and North Africa, while never leaving his monastery in Lima.
The Levitations of St. Joseph of Cupertino
Over 70 documented episodes of human levitation, witnessed by popes, cardinals, royalty, and the Lutheran philosopher Leibniz. The most thoroughly attested case of levitation in the historical record.
St. Veronica Giuliani — the Heart with the Imprints of the Passion
An Italian Capuchin nun who received the stigmata in 1697 and bore them for 30 years. After her death in 1727, the autopsy revealed the instruments of the Passion physically imprinted on her heart — discovered with the original Vatican-attested instruments laid out beside the body.
Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich — Stigmata and Visions of the Passion
An Augustinian nun of Westphalia bore the stigmata and a crown-of-thorns wound from 1812 until her death in 1824, and dictated visions of Christ's Passion, the life of Mary, and the Old Testament patriarchs. Beatified 2004.
St. Gemma Galgani — Stigmata of the Lay Mystic
A young Italian laywoman of Lucca, orphaned and poor, received the stigmata at 21 in 1899. The wounds appeared on her hands, feet, and side every Thursday evening and bled until Friday afternoon — for two years until they were ordered to cease by her spiritual director.
St. Padre Pio — Stigmata and Bilocation
Padre Pio bore the visible wounds of Christ for ~50 years. Doctors could not explain them. He was also widely reported in bilocation, reading hearts in confession, and inedia.
The Documented Bilocations of St. Padre Pio
Across his fifty-year ministry, Padre Pio was reportedly seen simultaneously in places hundreds or thousands of miles from San Giovanni Rotondo — including by Allied bomber pilots in 1943, who saw him in the sky above Foggia and could not release their bombs.
Therese Neumann of Konnersreuth — Stigmata and 36-Year Inedia
A Bavarian peasant woman bore the stigmata from 1926 until her death in 1962, weekly bleeding the wounds of the Passion — and during those 36 years took no food, drink, or medication except the Eucharist daily. Beatification cause opened 2005.
Marthe Robin of Châteauneuf — Stigmata and Fifty Years on the Eucharist Alone
Marthe Robin (1902–1981), a French farm-girl of the Drôme paralysed since 1928 and blind from 1940, is said to have taken no food or drink from 1930 until her death in 1981 — only a fragment of the consecrated Host about once a week — and to have borne the stigmata, reliving the Passion each Friday. Over 100,000 visitors came to her darkened bedroom. Declared Venerable by Pope Francis on 7 November 2014; the claims themselves have never been pronounced on by the Church.
Alexandrina da Costa — Thirteen Years on the Eucharist Alone
Bl. Alexandrina Maria da Costa (1904–1955), a Portuguese mystic paralyzed after leaping from a window at nineteen to escape sexual assault, from March 27, 1942 until her death consumed nothing at all except the daily Eucharist. Two Portuguese medical commissions — 1943 and 1944, the second under state supervision at Foz do Douro Hospital — conducted continuous forty- and thirty-day fasts under twenty-four-hour observation and reported no other intake. Beatified by John Paul II on April 25, 2004.