Born in Bois-d’Haine, Belgium, in 1850, Louis Lateau grew up in poverty. In April 1868, Louise Lateau is said to have begun bleeding on the left side of her chest, a laceration that would soon be accompanied by additional wounds on her hands and feet. These stigmata would soon be accompanied by a state of ecstasy and a bloody crown on her head, an experience that would continue for many years. Refusing any food or drink but the daily communion, and no longer sleeping or reacting to heat or cold, Louise Lateau became a marvel to visitors. In addition, as a stigmatic, she was both idealized and demonized. Some scientists attempted to find a logical explanation for her experiences. Simultaneously, she became a symbol for the Catholics of her time. Her marks of the Passion would continue each Friday until she passed away in 1883, at thirty-three years old.
Image:
François Sodar, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Sources:
Lachapelle, Sofie. "Between Miracle and Sickness: Louise Lateau and the Experience of Stigmata and Ecstasy." Configurations 12, no. 1 (2004): 77-105. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/con.2005.0003.
Van Osselaer, Tine. "Stigmata, Prophecies, and Politics: Louise Lateau in the German and Belgian Culture Wars of the Late Nineteenth Century". Journal of Religious History, 42 (2018): 591-610. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9809.12545.
