Ecstasies in Saints' Lives
In saints' lives, ecstasy is a state of rapture or absorption in which the person appears withdrawn, for a time, from their ordinary environment. Sources describe immobility, loss of external perception, a transformed face, or long prayer, sometimes during Mass. The experience may be accompanied by a vision, levitation, or stigmata, but none of these signs is necessary to speak of ecstasy. The page must therefore rely on the word and the description of the account rather than deducing a phenomenon from simple fervor. The corpus is limited, and each episode offers above all access to the spirituality and language of its time. Sancteo does not translate these states into psychological or neurological diagnoses and does not confirm their origin. It presents the way biographers made visible an inner experience that is difficult to recount.
- Accounts
- 14
- Saints
- 14
- Period
- 5th century – 19th century
Definition
Understanding this type of miracle
In saints' lives, ecstasy is a state of rapture or absorption in which the person appears withdrawn, for a time, from their ordinary environment.
Forms included from the sources
- rapture or mystical absorption explicitly described
Not to be confused with…
- ordinary prayer and levitation without mentioned ecstasy
Documented examples
Major figures
- Blessed Peter of Luxembourg 14th century · 1 account
« Public ecstasies in Avignon and Neufchâtel »
- Saint Michael of the Saints 17th century · 1 account
« Rapt in ecstasy during the elevation at mass »
-
Saint Veronica of Binasco 15th century · 1 account « His life is marked by ecstasies and revelations about the life of Christ and the saints »
- Saint Catherine de' Ricci 16th century · 1 account
« Catherine receives the stigmata and experiences the Passion of Christ weekly »
Classified sources
Accounts in the corpus
14 results
Editorial transparency
Method and sources
Sancteo presents these accounts as hagiographic and historical traditions, without ruling on their origin or making medical or spiritual promises.
Volumes are calculated from technically validated classifications in the canonical database. Each figure above has a quotation directly linked to this theme. Last recalculated: .
Editorial responsibility: Sancteo · Corpus source: Les Petits Bollandistes and documented enrichments. Version: miracle-topic-editorial-en-v1.