An Augustinian nun, stigmatic, and ecstatic, born 8 September, 1774, at
Flamsche, near Coesfeld, in the Diocese of Munster, Westphalia, Germany;
died at Dulmen, 9 February, 1824.
Her parents, both peasants, were very poor and pious. At twelve she was
bound out to a farmer, and later was a seamstress for several years. Very
delicate all the time, she was sent to study music, but finding the
organist's family very poor she gave them the little she had saved to
enter a convent, and actually waited on them as a servant for several
years. Moreover, 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 (1802) she entered the Augustinian
convent at Agnetenberg, Dulmen. Here she was content to be regarded as the
lowest in the house. Her zeal, however, disturbed the tepid sisters, who
were puzzled and annoyed at her strange powers and her weak health, and
notwithstanding her ecstasies in church, cell, or at work, treated her
with some antipathy. Despite her excessive frailty, 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. She foresaw the downfall of Napoleon twelve years in
advance, and counseled in a mysterious way the successor of St. Peter.
Even in her childhood the supernatural was so ordinary to her that in her
innocent ignorance she thought all other children enjoyed the same favours
that she did, i.e. to converse familiarly with the Child Jesus, etc. She
displayed a marvellous knowledge when the sick and poor came to the
"bright little sister" seeking aid; she knew their diseases and prescribed
remedies that did not fail. By nature she was quick and lively and easily
moved to great sympathy by the sight of the sufferings of others. This
feeling passed into her spiritual being with the result that she prayed
and suffered much for the souls of 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 (1813) the stigmata came
externally, even to the marks of the thorns. All this she unsuccessfully
tried to conceal as she had concealed the crosses impressed upon her
breast.
Then followed what she dreaded on account of its publicity, an
episcopal commission to inquire into her life, and the reality of these
wonderful signs. The examination was very strict, as the utmost care was
necessary to furnish no pretext for ridicule and insult on the part of the
enemies of the Church. The vicar-general, the famous Overberg, and three
physicians conducted the investigation with scrupulous care and became
convinced of the sanctity of the "pious Beguine", as she was called, and
the genuineness of the stigmata. At the end of 1818 God granted her
earnest prayer to be relieved of the stigmata, and the wounds in her hands
and feet closed, but the others remained, and on Good Friday were all wont
to reopen. In 1819 the government sent a committee of investigation which
discharged its commission most brutally. Sick unto death as she was, she
was forcibly removed to a large room in another house and kept under the
strictest surveillance day and night for three weeks, away from all her
friends except her confessor. She was insulted, threatened, and even
flattered, but in vain. The commission departed without finding anything
suspicious, and remained silent until its president, taunted about his
reticence, declared that there was fraud, to which the obvious reply was:
In what respect? and why delay in publishing it? About this time Klemens
Brentano, the famous poet, was induced to visit her; 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 for the good of innumerable souls the revelations made to her. He
took down briefly in writing the main points, and, as she spoke the
Westphalian dialect, he immediately rewrote them in ordinary German. He
would read what he wrote to her, and change and efface until she gave her
complete approval. Like so many others, he was won by her evident purity,
her exceeding humility and patience under sufferings indescribable. With
Overberg, Sailer of Ratisbon, Clement Augustus of Cologne, Stollberg,
Louisa Hensel, etc. he reverenced her as a chosen bride of Christ.
In 1833 appeared the first-fruits of Brentano's toil, "The Dolorous
Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to the Meditations of Anne
Catherine Emmerich" (Sulzbach). Brentano prepared for publication "The
Life of The Blessed Virgin Mary", but this appeared at Munich only in
1852. From the MS. of Brentano Father Schmoeger published in three volumes
"The Life of Our Lord" (Ratisbon, 1858-80), and in 1881 a large
illustrated edition of the same. The latter also wrote her life in two
volumes (Freiburg, 867-70, new edition, 1884). Her visions go into
details, often slight, which give them a vividness that strongly holds the
reader's interest as one graphic scene follows another in rapid succession
as if visible to the physical eye. Other mystics are more concerned with
ideas, she with events; others stop to meditate aloud and to guide the
reader's thoughts, she lets the facts speak for themselves with the
simplicity, brevity, and security of a Gospel narrative. Her treatment of
that difficult subject, the twofold nature of Christ, is admirable. His
humanity stands out clear and distinct, but through it shines always a
gleam of the Divine. The rapid and silent spread of her works through
Germany, France, Italy, and elsewhere speaks well for their merit.
Strangely enough they produced no controversy. Dom Guéranger extolls their
merits in the highest terms (Le Monde, 15 April, 1860).
Sister Emmerich lived during one of the saddest and least glorious
periods of the Church's history, when revolution triumphed, impiety
flourished, and several of the fairest provinces of its domain were
overrun by infidels and cast into such ruinous condition that the Faith
seemed about to be completely extinguished. Her mission in part seems to
have been by her prayers and sufferings to aid in restoring Church
discipline, especially in Westphalia, and at the same time to strengthen
at least the little ones of the flock in their belief. Besides all this
she saved many souls and recalled to the Christian world that the
supernatural is around about it to a degree sometimes forgotten. A rumour
that the body was 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.
E.P. GRAHAM
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