Imagine, if you will, a photographic representation of twentieth-century stigmatic Therese Neumann. Cataracts of blood gush from her eyes, carving dark trails of viscous liquid down her cheeks. Her white nun's habit is bespattered with unseemly splotches of blood, like misshapen cells randomly replicated across her body. Her stiff, outstretched arms protrude woodenly, as she raises them to reveal a small circular cavity in either hand, oozing a substance more akin to tar than blood. It is a grotesque picture. Indeed, is a picture of pain. (1) Few things may be more perplexing to modern students of spirituality than pursuit of pain in service of God. In a world dominated by modern medicine, pain is regarded as an enemy, something to be vanquished from human experience, whether in fierce pangs of labor when a child is born or in hospice wards of cancer patients and others who suffer slow, agonizing deaths. Easing or ending pain has become an obvious ethical good--a medical, religious, and even human duty. What sense, then, can we make of those spiritual outsiders who seek out pain and or at least prize its presence in their lives? This question about spiritual meaning of pain is at heart of Ron Hansen's 1991 novel, Mariette in Ecstasy. Hansen's novel focuses on a fictional stigmatic named Mariette, who dedicates herself to life as a nun in upstate New York convent where her older sister, Mother Celine, is prioress. The novel's conflict emerges from two parallel patterns of painful events: first, Mariette's sister Ce1ine suffers and dies from cancer, and then Mariette herself experiences a series of trances and ecstatic visions that culminate in manifestations of stigmata--the wounds of Christ. Mariette's painful wounds earn reverence of some of her sisters and suspicion of others, raising a bevy of disturbing questions. As New York Times reviewer Michiko Kakutani asks: Are these wounds real stigmata, miraculous physical symbols of Christ's passion on cross? Or are they self-induced lacerations, created by Mariette to call attention to herself? Has Mariette really talked to Christ, or is she suffering from delusions, induced by grief over her sister's death and months of self-abnegation? Is Mariette a modern-day saint, doubted by those who are jealous of her calling, or is she a clever con woman, manipulating people's need to believe in miraculous? (17) The interrogations Mariette undergoes by convent's authorities, Pere Marriott and Mother Saint-Raphael, ultimately tend toward suspicious, resulting in Mariette's dismissal from monastery because of disturbance she has created. Hansen himself, however, does little to undermine reader's trust in Mariette's experience; as another reviewer remarks, the reader never doubts authenticity of Mariette's experience, only suspense element is priory's response to it (Kirkus Review 1032). I suggest, however, that there is a more important element of suspense in novel: not about authenticity of Mariette's experience or even priory's response to it, but rather regarding meaning of her pain(2)--the spiritual conundrum created by her pleasurable bleeding for God. Given reality of Mariette's experience, what sense is a modern reader to make of pain she experiences and her subsequent sanctification of it? How does Hansen interpret her painful wounds within his novel? How do his novel's style, structure, and theme affect our theological reception of her experience? And finally, what does her sacred pain illuminate about spiritual and aesthetic significance of pain in human experience? In article to follow, I shall explore these questions about bodily pain, aesthetics, and theology in relation to Mariette's story. Unlike modern photograph of Therese Neumann described in my introduction, Hansen's portrayal of Mariette is notable for beauty he evokes in his depiction of her painful wounds. …