ABSTRACT
The body of the mystic can become a channel through which divine revelations can reach the believers. Such experiences played a prominent part in the lives of Birgitta and Catherine as well. The most expressive of this kind of bodily signs in medieval Christianity was stigmatization, the appearance of Christ’s passion wounds on the body of a living devout believer. Since this became one of the emblems of Catherine, this chapter, reversing the strict historical order, discusses first the stigmatization of Catherine, and the related bodily signs of her ongoing close contact with Christ and his Passion. The author then turns to evaluate the mystical pregnancy of Birgitta, an imitation of the body of the Virgin Mary instead of that of Christ, the significance of which could be assessed in the framework of this comparison.
