The way the movie portrays the stigmata is atypical of the true life events in the matter of who receives this "blessing." In reality the stigmata are gifts bestowed upon a devout ecstatic believer as an intense connection to the savior. In the film our heroine is the very antithesis of this kind of believer. This would lead us to the belief that God's work may be done through whatever vessel, of or not of his household. This reminds me of the old wives tale of the widow was about to starve after her husband's passing. As she knelt to pray for salvation, the devil lay in wait outside her window listening to what he felt to be her idle prayer. He then buys all the things she requests in her prayer and leaves them on her doorstep waiting for her to discover them. When she does and begins to weep in thanks of her Lord, the devil immediately appears and begins to tell her how he had brought all these things and to mock her for believing in a god she couldn't see. Her rebuttal is a calm response saying that her Lord always answered prayers and though the devil couldn't see past himself, her God saw bigger and had used him to provide her needs. If you look for it you can see how the film lets viewers see how the Lord can use the very worst of vessels to deliver a message and to do his wonders, even sinners as was our hedonistic protagonist, an outright atheistic defiler of self.
The movie suggests the fact that organized religion would possibly cease to exist if gnostic, or spiritual, knowledge became public knowledge available for interpretation by individuals outside of established church. This knowledge would allow even the lay to observe that an institution, which for centuries has kept fat religious advocates, is not totally adverse, but ultimately irrelevant in the eyes of the god to which they supposedly provide connection to and exclusive voice for to the masses.
