Pope Raises German Nun and Mystic to the Altar
VATICAN CITY, 3 OCT. 2004 (ZENIT)Anna Katharina Emmerick, the newly
beatified Augustinian nun, endured long physical sufferings. Her
reputation, too, suffered for years after her death.
Emmerick, whose writings inspired Mel Gibson in the making of "The Passion
of the Christ," had nine siblings.
She was baptized on Sept. 8, 1774, the day of her birth in a modest farm
in the village of Flamske, in Coesfeld, in the Diocese of Muenster, in
what is now northwestern Germany.
By the time she was 4 years old, she had frequent visions of the history
of salvation. In 1802, after many difficulties due to the family's poverty
and opposition to her choice of the religious life, she joined the
Canonesses Regular of St. Augustine, in the Agnetenberg convent in Duelmen.
She made her religious vows the following year. She participated in
community life with great earnestness, although "the cloistered life was
quite hard" because the other "canonesses did not fail to point out her
low social status," according to the postulator of her cause of
beatification, Andrea Ambrosi.
Moreover, the religious' health "began to decline rapidly," he told
Vatican Radio.
"Ever since she was little she suffered from rickets which became so
accentuated once she was in the convent, that she spent years in bed,"
Ambrosi said. In fact, the biography issued by the Holy See emphasizes the
great pains Emmerick suffered.
When in 1811 the authorities suppressed the convent of Agnetenburg
— it
had been influenced by secularism
— the
future blessed was forced to leave the area.
Father Lambert, a French refugee priest living in Duelmen, took her in as
a housekeeper. From 1813 onward, sickness immobilized her, so her younger
sister Gertrude took her place as housekeeper.
"By the end of 1812, when supernatural gifts were already manifested in
her, she had the added phenomenon" of "the appearance of the stigmata,"
postulator Ambrosi noted.
"At the beginning she did everything she could to hide them, but then her
case became known and everyone wanted to see her, not only because of the
stigmata, but because of her goodness and her gift to penetrate the souls
that suffered most, those that were most lacerated, leading them to
peace," Ambrosi said.
Last July, Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, prefect of the Congregation for
Sainthood Causes, publicly read the decree of recognition of a miracle
attributed to Emmerick's intercession.
"She bore the stigmata of the Lord's passion and received extraordinary
charisms that she used to console numerous visitors," the cardinal said in
the presence of John Paul II. "She carried out her great, fruitful
apostolate from her bed."
From 1812 onward, Emmerick's only nourishment was the Eucharist. She had
to endure three exhaustive investigations by the diocese, Napoleon
Bonaparte's police, and the authorities.
During the last years of her life, she lived every day the preaching and
passion of Jesus. She died on Feb. 9, 1824, consumed by her illnesses and
penances.
Emmerick "lived perfectly attuned to the mystery of the life, passion and
death of Jesus. Her stigmata is a very clear testimony of her existential
union with Jesus," Ambrosi said on Vatican Radio. "Her willingness to
suffer had no other motive than her love for the crucifix and concern for
her neighbor."
Emmerick, who was forced from the cloister because of the Napoleonic
invasion, was a stigmatized invalid. She tried to write in her Low German
dialect the daily visions of the supernatural which she herself thought
were indescribable.
On learning this, Clemens Brentano, a notable German writer, met the
ex-nun, was converted, and remained at the foot of her sickbed writing
down the visionary's accounts from 1818 to 1824.
The result of his work is "The Bitter Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ."
Brentano died before finishing the visions of the "Life of Mary."
Subsequently, various specialists edited the "Diaries" and compiled, each
in his own way, Emmerick's purported visions on the Church, the Old
Testament, Jesus' public life and the nascent Church.
Shortly after the German mystic's death "her fame for sanctity was so
alive among all the population and also the clergy" of the Muenster
Diocese, that there was an intense "desire to promote her cause of
beatification," postulator Ambrosi explained.
However, obstacles arose because of the difficult historical and religious
times Germany was going through. There was also a lack of clarity in the
nun's writings, some texts "bordering on the limit of 'orthodox'
Catholicism," Ambrosi said.
The Holy Office intervened several times to block the cause and asked for
further opinions from theologians, the postulator added. After
"manipulations" of Emmerick's revelations by Brentano were identified,
"the cause took on a faster pace," he said.
At the end of the 19th century, Emmerick was declared venerable. Her
process of beatification was resumed in 1972. The heroic degree of her
virtues was declared in 2001.
Her life was characterized by profound union with Christ, and an ardent
devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy See says in its biography.
Ambrosi added that the new blessed can serve as a model for the faithful
today in her commitment to "the work of salvation through faith and love."
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