About the book: Under the appearance of a simple nun, Anne Catherine Emmerich (Coesfeld, 1774 – Dullmen, 1824) hides one of the great catholic mistycs of the last centuries. Since her earliest childhood, she was a soul of exceptional kindness, devotion and purity. Her life and her legacy will enlighten for centuries Christianity and all mankind.
French writer Léon Bloy said: “If the book “Life of Anne Catherine Emmerich”, written by Father Schmoeger, was read by twenty people in each diocese, God would change the face of the world”. The potential of the legacy of this extraordinary Augustinian nun could not be described any better.
As incomprehensible as it may be to us, Anne Catherine was already blessed since her early childhood with a gift, according to her intense devotion: to have access to a direct knowledge of the life of Jesus, of the Holy Family, of the apostles and of other saints. Those are her “visions”, through which she does not only contemplate historical events, but she is also able to perceive the feelings and thoughts of the protagonists. In the literature on mysticism it is explained how a similar capacity comes occasionally to spiritually developed people.
The extremely detailed, profound and truthful account of her visions about the life of biblical characters and of Jesus Himself, gives the reader an intimate understanding of Christianity that goes beyond that of other Holy Scriptures. Her visions are eloquent, beautiful, powerful, a must read.
For many people today, believing that there has been such a miracle, that someone through visions can access knowledge of past events, is unacceptable. In this regard, it is interesting to consider this account by Anne Catherine Emmerich herself, looking back on a conversation she had as a child with her devoted father, Bernard Emmerich, a humble and self-sacrificing German peasant:
“I had to go out to the country with my father and take a horse, drive the reins and do all kinds of work. When we would turn around or stop, he would say: “How beautiful this is! Look, from here we can see the church of Koesfeld and contemplate the Blessed Sacrament and adore Our Lord and Our God. From there, He is seeing us and blessing our work”. When they officiated mass, he took off his hat and prayed, saying: “Let’s hear Mass now!”. As he worked, he said: “Now the priest is saying the Gloria; now it reaches Sanctus; and now we must ask with him this or that and receive the blessing”. Afterwards he sang or repeated some tune. When I raised the corn, he said: “People are frightened when they hear the word “miracle”, and behold, we live by pure miracle and grace of God. Look at the grain in the earth: there it is and from it comes a stem that produces a hundred for one. Is not this a great miracle? “On Sunday, after eating, he referred the sermon to us and explained it in a very edifying way. He also read us the explanation of the Gospel.“
The story of her visions has come to us thanks to her friend the writer Clemens Brentano and her doctor William Wesener, who transcribed and ordered the detailed explanations that she narrated of her visions. Clemens Brentano was a fiery romantic writer who converted to Catholicism after his contact with Anne Catherine. William Wesener was convinced of the spiritual height of Anne Catherine when she revealed to himself secrets of his personal life that no one could know.
In regard to the reason for these visions, Anne Catherine herself refers to us as follows: “Yesterday I fervently asked God to stop giving me these visions, to see me free from the responsibility of referring them. But the Lord did not want to listen to me; rather, I have understood, as I have done on other occasions, that I must refer everything I see, even if they make fun of me and I do not understand the benefit that results from this. I have also known that no one has ever seen these things in the degree and extent to which I see them, and I have understood that they are not my things, but of the Church. “I give you these visions, the Lord told me, not for you, but to be consigned: you must, therefore, communicate them. Now is not the time to work outward wonders. I give you these visions and I have always given them to you, to show that I am with my Church until the end of the centuries. But the visions, by themselves, do not make anyone blessed: you must exercise, then, charity, patience and all virtues. The admirable visions of the Old Testament and the numerous visions of the lives of saints were communicated to me by the goodness of God, not only for my instruction, but also for me to publish them and make known so many things hidden and ignored. Many times this mandate was instilled in me. I should have died long time ago. I have known through a vision that some time ago I should have died, if it was not for the fact that I had to make these things known through the Pilgrim (that was the name she used to refer affectionately to the writer Clemens Brentano). He must write everything. It is my sole responsibility to communicate my visions. When the Pilgrim has ordered everything and everything is finished, he will die too.“
The visions of Anne Catherine have a capacity to make Christianity understandable and a potential for renewal and intimate approach to the message of Jesus, which is difficult to find an event of such significance in recent centuries. It is now up to each one of us to make the small effort to get closer and know His message.
The story of The Complete Visions of Anne Catherine Emmerich (2014) is an immeasurable spiritual treasure.
The above synopsis is taken from http://annecatherineemmerich.com/
About the author: Anne Catherine Emmerich, CRV (also Anna Katharina Emmerick; 1774-1824) was a Roman Catholic Augustinian canoness of the Congregation of Windesheim in Germany. During her lifetime, she was a purported mystic, Marian visionary and stigmatist. Emmerich was born in Flamschen, an impoverished farming community at Coesfeld, in the Diocese of Münster, Westphalia, Germany, and died in Dülmen, aged 49, where she had been a bedridden nun (Wikipedia).
Her parents, both peasants, were very poor and pious. In her childhood, the supernatural was already ordinary to her. Our Lord would appear and speak to her and she could tell whether an object had been blessed. At twelve, she was sent as a worker to a farmer and later was a seamstress for several years. Of delicate constitution, her parents sent her to study music, but finding the organist’s family very poor, she gave them the little she had saved to enter a convent and waited on them as a servant for several years. She was at times so pressed for something to eat that her mother brought her bread at intervals, parts of which went to her master’s family.
In her twenty-eighth year, she entered the Augustinian convent at Agnetenberg, Dulmen. Here she was content to be regarded as the lowest in the house. However, her zeal disturbed the tepid sisters, who were puzzled and annoyed at her strange powers and weak health, and treated her with some antipathy. Despite this additional cross, she discharged her duties cheerfully and faithfully.
When Jerome Bonaparte closed the convent in 1812, she was compelled to find refuge in a poor widow’s house. In 1813 she became bedridden. Blessed Anne foresaw the downfall of Napoleon twelve years in advance. She displayed a marvellous knowledge when the sick and poor came to her seeking aid; she knew their diseases and prescribed remedies that did not fail. She prayed and suffered much for the souls in purgatory whom she often saw, and for the salvation of sinners whose miseries were known to her even when far away. Soon after she was confined to bed, the stigmata came externally.
At the end of 1818, God granted her prayer to be relieved of the stigmata. The wounds in her hands and feet closed. However, the other wounds remained, and on Good Fridays all wounds would reopen for the duration of the day. In 1819 the government sent a committee of investigation, which discharged its commission most brutally. She was moved to a large room in another house and kept under the strictest surveillance day and night for three weeks, away from her friends except for her confessor. The commission departed without finding anything suspicious.
Klemens Brentano, the famous poet, was induced to visit her about this time. To his great amazement, she recognized him and told him he had been pointed out to her as the man who was to enable her to fulfil God’s command, namely, to write down the revelations made to her. During their meetings, he would write down her comments and then read to her what he wrote and make changes until she gave her complete approval. Like so many others, he was won over by her purity, her humility and patience under great sufferings.
Among the books written based on the visions of Blessed Anne are: The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to the Meditations of Anne Catherine Emmerich and The Life of The Blessed Virgin Mary.
Sister Emmerich died at Dulemen, in 1824. A rumour that the body had been stolen caused her grave to be opened six weeks after her death. The body was found fresh, without any sign of corruption. In 1892 the process of her beatification was introduced by the Bishop of Münster (EWTN).
Pope John Paul II beatified Emmerich on 3 October 2004, highlighting her personal virtues and Catholic piety. The purported “House of the Virgin Mary” in Ephesus is piously associated to her name (Wikipedia).
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