Anne Catherine Emmerich

The life of Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich

1. The biography of Anne Catherine Emmerich

The present biography of Anne Catherine Emmerich is taken from The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ: From the Meditations of Anne Catherine Emmerich. With a preface by Edmond de Cazalès. London: Burns & Oates, 1928. Repr., Rockford, Ill.: TAN, 1983.

(p. 3) ANNE CATHERINE EMMERICH was born at Flamske, a village situated about a mile and a half from Coesfeld, in the bishopric of Munster, on the 8th of September 1774, and was baptised in the church of St. James at Coesfeld. Her parents, Bernard Emmerich and Anne Hiller, were poor peasants, but distinguished for their piety and virtue. […]

Her angel-guardian used to appear to her as a child; and when she was taking care of sheep in the fields, the Good Shepherd himself, under the form of a young shepherd, would frequently come to her assistance. From childhood she was accustomed to have divine knowledge imparted to her in visions of all kinds, and was often favoured by visits from the Mother of God and Queen of Heaven, who, under the form of a sweet, lovely, and majestic lady, would bring the Divine Child to be, as it were, her companion, and would assure her that she loved and would ever protect her. Many of the saints would also appear to her, and receive from her hands the garlands of flowers which she had prepared in honour of their festivals. […]

(p. 4) While yet a child, she used to speak with innocent candour and simplicity of all that she saw, and her listeners would be filled with admiration at the histories she would relate from Holy Writ; but their questions and remarks having sometimes disturbed her peace of mind, she determined to keep silence on such subjects for the future. In her innocence of heart, she thought that it was not right to talk of things of this sort, that other persons never did so, and that her speech should be only Yea, yea, and Nay, nay, or Praise be to Jesus Christ. The visions with which she was favoured were so like realities, and appeared to her so sweet and delightful, that she supposed all Christian children were favoured with the same; and she concluded that those who never talked on such subjects were only more discreet and modest than herself, so she resolved to keep silence also, to be like them.

Almost from her cradle she possessed the gift of distinguishing what was good or evil, holy or profane, blessed or accursed, in material as well as in spiritual things […]. In her earliest childhood she used to bring out of the fields useful herbs, which no one had ever before discovered to be (p. 5) good for anything, and plant them near her father’s cottage, or in some spot where she was accustomed to work and play; while on the other hand she would root up all poisonous plants, and particularly those ever used for superstitious practices or in dealings with the devil. Were she by chance in a place where some great crime had been committed, she would hastily run away, or begin to pray and do penance. She used also to perceive by intuition when she was in a consecrated spot, return thanks to God, and be filled with a sweet feeling of peace. When a priest passed by with the Blessed Sacrament, even at a great distance from her home or from the place where she was taking care of her flock, she would feel a strong attraction in the direction whence he was coming, run to meet him, and be kneeling in the road, adoring the Blessed Sacrament, long before he could reach the spot.

She knew when any object was consecrated, and experienced a feeling of disgust and repugnance when in the neighbourhood of old pagan cemeteries, whereas she was attracted to the sacred remains of the saints as steel by the magnet. When relics were shown to her, she knew what saints they had belonged to, and could give not only accounts of the minutest and hitherto unknown particulars of their lives, but also histories of the relics themselves, and of the places where they had been preserved. During her whole life she had continual intercourse with the souls in purgatory; and all her actions and prayers were offered for the relief of their sufferings. She was frequently called upon to assist them, and even reminded in some miraculous manner, if she chanced to forget them. Often, while yet very young, she used to be awakened out of her sleep by bands of suffering souls, and to follow them on cold winter’s nights with bare feet, the whole length of the Way of the Cross to Coesfeld, though the ground was covered with snow.

(p. 6) From her infancy to the day of her death she was indefatigable in relieving the sick, and in dressing and curing wounds and ulcers, and she was accustomed to give to the poor every farthing she possessed. So tender was her conscience, that the slightest sin she fell into caused her such pain as to make her ill, and absolution then always restored her immediately to health.

The extraordinary nature of the favours bestowed on her by Almighty God was no hindrance in the way of her devoting herself to hard labour, like any other peasant-girl […]. She allowed herself no more sleep or food than was absolutely necessary; passed whole hours in prayer every night; and in winter often knelt out of doors on the snow. She slept on the ground on planks arranged in the form of a cross. Her food and drink consisted of what was rejected by others; she always kept the best parts even of that for the poor and sick, and when she did not know of anyone to give them to, she offered them to God in a spirit of child-like faith, begging him to give them to some person who was more in need than herself. When there was anything to be seen or heard which had no reference to God or religion, she found some excuse for avoiding the spot to which others were hastening, or, if there, closed her eyes and ears. She was accustomed to say that useless actions were sinful, and that when we denied our bodily senses any gratification of this kind, we were amply repaid by the progress which we made in the interior life, in the same manner as pruning renders vines and other fruit trees more productive. From her early youth, and wherever she went, she had frequent symbolical visions, which showed her in parables, as it were, the (p. 7) object of her existence, the means of attaining it, and her future sufferings, together with the dangers and conflicts which she would have to go through.

She was in her sixteenth year, when one day, whilst at work in the fields with her parents and sisters, she heard the bell ringing at the Convent of the Sisters of the Annunciation, at Coesfeld. This sound so inflamed her secret desire to become a nun, and had so great an effect upon her, that she fainted away, and remained ill and weak for a long time after. When in her eighteenth year she was apprenticed at Coesfeld to a dressmaker, with whom she passed two years, and then returned to her parents. She asked to be received at the Convents of the Augustinians at Borken, of the Trappists at Darfeld, and of the Poor Clares at Munster; but her poverty, and that of these convents, always presented an insuperable obstacle to her being received. At the age of twenty, having saved twenty thalers (about 3l. English), which she had earned by her sewing, she went with this little sum – a perfect fortune for a poor peasant-girl – to a pious organist of Coesfeld, whose daughter she had known when she first lived in the town. Her hope was that, by learning to play on the organ, she might succeed in obtaining admittance into a convent. But her irresistible desire to serve the poor and give them everything she possessed left her no time to learn music, and before long she had so completely stripped herself of everything, that her good mother was obliged to bring her bread, milk, and eggs, for her own wants and those of the poor, with whom she shared everything. […] (p. 8) She remained some years at Coesfeld, employed in labour, good works, and prayer, being always guided by the same inward inspirations. She was docile and submissive as a child in the hands of her guardian-angel. […]

When about twenty-four years of age, she received a favour from our Lord […]; namely, to experience the actual and visible sufferings of his sacred Head, when crowned with thorns. […]

(p. 9) Her desire to embrace a religious life was at length gratified. The parents of a young person whom the Augustinian nuns of Dulmen wished to receive (p. 10) into their order, declared that they would not give their consent except on condition that Anne Catherine was taken at the same time. The nuns yielded their assent, though somewhat reluctantly, on account of their extreme poverty; and on the 13th November 1802, one week before the feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin, Anne Catherine entered on her novitiate. […]

In many ways her position in the convent was excessively painful. Not one of her companions, nor even any priest or doctor, could understand her case. She had learned, when living among poor peasants, to hide the wonderful gifts which God had bestowed on her; but the case was altered now that she was in familiar intercourse with a large number of nuns, who, though certainly good and pious, were filled with ever-increasing feelings of curiosity, and even of spiritual jealousy in her regard. Then, (p. 11) the contracted ideas of the community, and the complete ignorance of the nuns concerning all those exterior phenomena by which the interior life manifests itself, gave her much to endure, the more so, as these phenomena displayed themselves in the most unusual and astonishing manner. She heard everything that was said against her, even when the speakers were at one end of the convent and she at the other, and her heart was most deeply wounded as if by poisoned arrows. Yet she bore all patiently and lovingly without showing that she knew what was said of her. More than once charity impelled her to cast herself at the feet of some nun who was particularly prejudiced against her, and ask her pardon with tears. Then, she was suspected of listening at the doors, for the private feelings of dislike entertained against her became known, no one knew how, and the nuns felt uncomfortable and uneasy, in spite of themselves, when in her company.

Whenever the rule (the minutest point of which was sacred in her eyes) was neglected in the slightest degree, she beheld in spirit each infringement, and at times was inspired to fly to the spot where the rule was being broken by some infringement of the vow of poverty, or disregards of the hours of silence, and she would then repeat suitable passages from the rule, without having ever learned them. She thus became an object of aversion to all those religious who broke the rule; and her sudden appearance among them had almost the effect of apparitions. God had bestowed upon her the gift of tears to so great an extent, that she often passed whole hours in the church weeping over the sins and ingratitude of men, the sufferings of the Church, the imperfections of the community, and her own faults. […] (p. 12) Her confessor had enjoined that she should receive the holy communion more frequently than the other nuns, because, so ardently did she hunger after the bread of angels, that she had been more than once near dying. […]

About Christmas, of the year 1802, she had a very severe illness, which began by a violent pain about her heart. This pain did not leave her even when she was cured, and she bore it in silence until the year 1812, when the mark of a cross was imprinted exteriorly in the same place […]. On the 13th of November 1803, at the age of twenty-nine, she pronounced her solemn vows, and became the spouse of Jesus Christ, in the Convent of Agnetenberg, at Dulmen. […]

(p. 14) Anne Catherine had always been weak and delicate, and yet had been, from her earliest childhood, in the habit of practising many mortifications, of fasting and of passing the night in watching and prayer in the open air. She had been accustomed to continue hard labour in the fields, at all seasons of the year, and her strength was also necessarily much tried by the exhausting and supernatural states through which she so frequently passed. At the convent she continued to work in the garden and in the house, whilst her spiritual labours and sufferings were ever on (p. 15) the increase, so that it is by no means surprising that she was frequently ill; but her illnesses arose from yet another cause. […] Sometimes she asked for the illness of a person who did not bear it patiently, and relieved him of the whole or of a part of his sufferings, by taking them upon herself; sometimes, wishing to expiate a sin or put an end to some suffering, she gave herself up into the hands of God, and he, accepting her sacrifice, permitted her thus, in union with the merits of His passion, to expiate the sin by suffering some illness corresponding to it. […]

(p. 16) Four years before the suppression of her convent she went to Flamske for two days to visit her parents. Whilst there she went once to kneel and pray for some hours before the miraculous Cross of the Church of St. Lambert, at Coesfeld. She besought the Almighty to bestow the gifts of peace and unity upon her convent, offered him the Passion of Jesus Christ for that intention, and implored him to allow her to feel a portion of the sufferings which were endured by her Divine Spouse on the Cross. From the time that she made this prayer her hands and feet became burning and painful, and she suffered constantly from fever, which she believed was the cause of the pain in her hands and feet, for she did not dare to think that her prayer had been granted. Often she was unable to walk, and the pain in her hands prevented her from working as usual in the garden. On the 3rd December 1811, the convent was suppressed, and the church (p. 17) closed. The nuns dispersed in all directions, but Anne Catherine remained, poor and ill. A kindhearted servant belonging to the monastery attended upon her out of charity, and an aged emigrant priest, who said Mass in the convent, remained also with her. These three individuals, being the poorest of the Community, did not leave the convent until the spring of 1812. She was still very unwell, and could not be moved without great difficulty. The priest lodged with a poor widow who lived in the neighbourhood, and Anne Catherine had in the same house a wretched little room on the ground-floor, which looked on the street. There she lived, in poverty and sickness, until the autumn of 1813. Her ecstasies in prayer, and her spiritual intercourse with the invisible world, became more and more frequent. […] From her very earliest childhood she had besought our Lord to impress the marks of his cross deeply upon her heart, that so she might never forget his infinite love for men; but she had never thought of receiving any outward marks. Rejected by the world, she prayed more fervently than ever for this end. On the 28th of August, the feast of St. Augustine, the patron of her order, as she was making this prayer in bed, ravished in ecstasy and her arms stretched forth, she beheld a young man approach her surrounded with light. It was under this form that her Divine Spouse usually appeared to her, and he now made upon her body with his right hand the mark of a common cross. From this time (p. 18) there was a mark like a cross upon her bosom, consisting of two bands crossed, about three inches long and one wide. Later the skin often rose in blisters on this place, as if from a burn, and when these blisters burst, a burning colourless liquid issued from them, sometimes in such quantities as to soak through several sheets. She was long without perceiving what the case really was, and only thought that she was in a strong perspiration. The particular meaning of this mark has never been known.

Some weeks later, when making the same prayer, she fell into an ecstasy, and beheld the same apparition, which presented her with a little cross of the shape described in her accounts of the Passion. She eagerly received and fervently pressed it to her bosom, and then returned it. She said that this cross was as soft and white as wax, but she was not at first aware that it had made an external mark upon her bosom. A short time after, having gone with her landlady’s little girl to visit an old hermitage near Dulmen, she all on a sudden fell into an ecstasy, fainted away, and on her recovery was taken home by a poor peasant woman. The sharp pain which she felt in her chest continued to increase, and she saw that there was what looked like a cross, about three inches in length, pressed tightly upon her breast-bone, and looking red through the skin. As she had spoken about her vision to a nun with whom she was intimate, her extraordinary state began to be a good deal talked of. On All Souls’ Day, 1812, she went out for the last time, and with much difficulty succeeded in reaching the church. From that time till the end of the year she seemed to be dying, and received the last Sacraments. At Christmas a smaller cross appeared on the top of that upon her chest. It was the same shape as the larger one, so that the two together formed a double forked cross. Blood flowed from this cross every Wednesday, so as to leave the impression of its shape on paper laid over it. After a (p. 19) time this happened on Fridays instead. In 1814 this flow of blood took place less frequently, but the cross became as red as fire every Friday. At a later period of her life more blood flowed from this cross, especially every Good Friday; but no attention was paid to it. […].

She received the stigmas on the last days of the year 1812. On the 29th December, about three o’clock in the afternoon, she was lying on her bed in her little room, extremely ill, but in a state of ecstasy and with her arms extended, meditating on the sufferings of her Lord, and beseeching him to allow her to suffer with him. She said five Our Fathers in honour of the Five Wounds, and felt her whole heart burning with love. She then saw a light descending towards her, and distinguished in the midst of it the resplendent form of her crucified Saviour, whose wounds shone like so many furnaces of light. Her heart was overflowing with joy and sorrow, and, at the sight of the sacred wounds, her desire to suffer with her Lord became intensely violent. Then triple rays, pointed like arrows, of the colour of blood, darted forth from the hands, feet, and side of the sacred apparition, and struck her hands, feet, and right side. The triple rays from the side formed a point like the head of a lance. The moment these rays touched her, drops of blood flowed from the wounds which they made. Long did she remain in a state of insensibility, and when she recovered her senses she did not know who had lowered her outstretched arms. It was with astonishment that she beheld blood flowing from the palms of her hands, and felt violent pain (p. 20) in her feet and side. […]

(p. 21) Anne Catherine being, as we have said, no longer able to walk or rise from her bed, soon became unable also to eat. Before long she could take nothing but a little wine and water, and finally only pure water; sometimes, but very rarely, she managed to swallow the juice of a cherry or a plum, but she immediately vomited any solid food, taken in ever so small a quantity. […] (p. 23) On the 23rd of October 1813, she was carried to another lodging, the window of which looked out upon a garden. […]

(p. 27) The saintly maiden continually besought the Almighty to remove the exterior stigmas, on account of the trouble and fatigue which they occasioned, and her prayer was granted at the end of seven years. Towards the conclusion of the year 1819, the blood first flowed less frequently from her wounds, and then ceased altogether. On the 25th of December, scabs fell from her feet and hands, and there only remained white scars, which became red on certain days, but the pain she suffered was undiminished in the slightest degree. The mark of the cross, and the wound on her right side, were often to be seen as before, but not at any stated times. On certain days she always had the most painful sensations around her head, as though a crown of thorns (p. 28) were being pressed upon it. […] On Good Friday, April 19th, 1819, all her wounds re-opened and bled, and closed again on the following days. A most rigorous inquiry into her state was made by some doctors and naturalists. For that end she was placed alone in a strange house, where she remained from the 7th to the 29th of August; but this examination appears to have produced no particular effects in any way. She was brought back to her own dwelling on the 29th of August, and from that time until she died she was left in peace, save that she was occasionally annoyed by private disputes and public insults. […]

(p. 29) On Good Friday, the 31st of March 1820, blood flowed from her head, feet, hands, chest, and side. […] In 1821, a few weeks before Easter, she told us that it had been said to her during her prayer: ‘Take notice, you will suffer on the real anniversary of the Passion, and not on the day marked this year in the Ecclesiastical Calendar.’ On Friday, the 30th of March, at ten o’clock in the morning, she sank down senseless. Her face and bosom were bathed in blood, and her body appeared covered with bruises like what the blows of a whip would have inflicted. At twelve o’clock in the day, she stretched herself out in the form of a cross, and her arms were so (p. 30) extended as to be perfectly dislocated. A few minutes before two o’clock, drops of blood flowed from her feet and hands. […]

On the 19th of February 1822 she was again warned that she would suffer on the last Friday of March, and not on Good Friday.

On Friday the 15th, and again on Friday the 29th, the cross on her bosom and the wound of her side bled. Before the 29th, she more than once felt as though a stream of fire were flowing rapidly from her heart to her side, and down her arms and legs to the stigmas, which looked red and inflamed. On the evening of Thursday the 28th, she fell into a state of contemplation on the Passion, and remained in it until Friday evening. Her chest, head, and side bled; all the veins of her hands were swollen, and there was a painful spot in the centre of them, which felt damp, although blood did not flow from it. No blood flowed from the stigmas excepting upon the 3rd of March, the day of the finding of the holy Cross. […] (p. 31) In the year 1823, on Holy Thursday and Good Friday, which came on the 27th and 28th of March, she had visions of the Passion, during which blood flowed from all her wounds, causing her intense pain. […]

(p. 32) Anne Catherine, in her ecstatic life, beheld the series of her prayers for the Church under the forms of parables bearing reference to agriculture, gardening, weaving, sowing, or the care of sheep. All these different occupations were arranged, according to their signification, in the different periods of the common as well as the ecclesiastical year, and were pursued under the patronage and with the assistance of the saints of each day, the special graces of the corresponding feasts of the Church being also applied to them. […]

(p. 34) Her journeys to the Holy Land were made, according to the accounts she gave of them, by the most opposite roads; sometimes even she went all round the earth, when the task spiritually imposed upon her required it. In the course of these journeys from her home to the most distant countries, she carried assistance to many persons, exercising in their regard works of mercy, both corporal and spiritual, and this was done frequently in parables. At the end of a year she would go over the same ground again, see the same persons, and give an account of their spiritual progress or of their relapse into sin. Every part of this labour always bore some reference to the Church, and to the kingdom of God upon earth.

The end of these daily pilgrimages which she made in spirit was invariably the Promised Land, every part of which she examined in detail, and which she saw sometimes in its present state, and sometimes as it was at different periods of sacred history; for her distinguishing characteristic and special privilege was an intuitive knowledge of the history of the Old and New Testaments, and of that of the members of the Holy Family, and of all the saints whom she was contemplating in spirit. She saw the signification of all the festival days of the ecclesiastical year under both a devotional and a historical point of view. She (p. 35) saw and described, day by day, with the minutest detail, and by name, places, persons, festivals, customs, and miracles, all that happened during the public life of Jesus until the Ascension, and the history of the Apostles for several weeks after the Descent of the Holy Ghost. […]

She never considered her visions to have any reference to her exterior Christian life, nor did she regard them as being of any historical value. Exteriorly she knew and believed nothing but the catechism, the common history of the Bible, the Gospels for Sundays and festivals, and the Christian almanac, which to her far-sighted vision was an inexhaustible mine of hidden riches, since it gave her in a few pages a guiding thread which led her through all time, and by means of which she passed from mystery to mystery, and solemnised each with all the saints, in order to reap the fruits of eternity in time, and to preserve and distribute them in her pilgrimage around the ecclesiastical year, that so the will of God might be accomplished on earth as it is in Heaven. She had never read the Old or the New Testaments […].

(p. 52) During the last days of her life, when her death was momentarily expected, several of her friends remained constantly in the room adjoining hers. […] (p. 54) Her lifeless body sank gently back on the pillows at half-past eight o’clock p.m., on the 9th February 1824. […] (p. 56) On Wednesday the 11th of February her body was prepared for burial. A pious female, who would not give up to anyone the task of rendering her this last mark of affection, described to me as follows the condition in which she found her: “Her feet were crossed like the feet of a crucifix. The places of the stigmas were more red than usual. When we raised her head blood flowed from her nose and mouth. All her limbs remained flexible and with none of the stiffness of death even till the coffin was closed.” On Friday the 13th of February she was taken to the grave, followed by the entire population of the place.

2. The biography of Anne Catherine Emmerich taken from the Vatican

Anna Katharina Emmerick was born on September 8, 1774 in the farming community of Flamsche near Coesfeld. She grew up amidst a host of nine brothers and sisters. She had to help out in the house and with the farm work at an early age. Her school attendance was brief, which made it all the more remarkable that she was well instructed in religious matters. Her parents and all those who knew Anna Katharina noticed early on that she felt drawn to prayer and to the religious life in a special way.

Anna Katharina labored for three years on a large farm in the vicinity. Then she learned to sew and stayed in Coesfeld for her further training. She loved to visit the old churches in Coesfeld and to join in the celebration of Mass. She often walked the path of Coesfeld’s long Way of the Cross alone, praying the stations by herself.

Anna Katharina wanted to enter the convent, but since her wish could not be fulfilled at that time, she returned to her parental home. She worked as a seamstress and, while doing so, visited many homes.

Anna Katharina asked for admission to different convents, but she was rejected because she could not bring a significant dowry with her. The Poor Clares in Münster finally agreed to accept her if she would learn to play the organ. She received her parents’ permission to be trained in Coesfeld by the organist Söntgen. But she never got around to learning how to play the organ. The misery and poverty in the Söntgen household prompted her to work in the house and help out in the family. She even sacrificed her small savings for their sake.

Together with her friend Klara Söntgen Anna Katharina was finally able to enter the convent Agnetenberg in Dülmen in 1802. The following year she took her religious vows. She participated enthusiastically in the life of the convent. She was always willing to take on hard work and loathsome tasks. Because of her impoverished background she was at first given little respect in the convent. Some of the sisters took offence at her strict observance of the order’s rule and considered her a hypocrite. Anna Katharina bore this pain in silence and quiet submission.

From 1802 to 1811 Anna Katharina was ill quite often and had to endure great pain.

As a result of secularization the convent of Agnetenberg was suppressed in 1811, and Anna Katharina had to leave the convent along with the others. She was taken in as a housekeeper at the home of Abbé Lambert, a priest who had fled France and lived in Dülmen. But she soon became ill. She was unable to leave the house and was confined to bed. In agreement with Curate Lambert she had her younger sister Gertrud come to take over the housekeeping under her direction.

During this period Anna Katharina received the stigmata. She had already endured the pain of the stigmata for a long time. The fact that she bore the wounds of Christ could not remain hidden. Dr. Franz Wesener, a young doctor, went to see her, and he was so impressed by her that he became a faithful, selfless and helping friend during the following eleven years. He kept a diary about his contacts with Anna Katharina Emmerick in which he recorded a wealth of details.

A striking characteristic of the life of Anna Katharina was her love for people. Wherever she saw need she tried to help. Even in her sickbed she sewed clothes for poor children and was pleased when she could help them in this way. Although she could have found her many visitors annoying, she received all of them kindly. She embraced their concerns in her prayers and gave them encouragement and words of comfort.

Many prominent people who were important in the renewal movement of the Church at the beginning of the 19th century sought an opportunity to meet Anna Katharina, among them Clemens August Droste zu Vischering, Bernhard Overberg, Friedrich Leopold von Stolberg, Johann Michael Sailer, Christian and Clemens Brentano, Luise Hensel, Melchior and Apollonia Diepenbrock.

The encounter with Clemens Brentano was particularly significant. His first visit led him to stay in Dülmen for five years. He visited Anna Katharina daily to record her visions, which he later published.

Anna Katharina grew ever weaker during the summer of 1823. As always she joined her suffering to the suffering of Jesus and offered it up for the salvation of all. She died on February 9, 1824.

Anna Katharina Emmerick was buried in the cemetery in Dülmen. A large number of people attended the funeral. Because of a rumor that her corpse had been stolen the grave was reopened twice in the weeks following the burial. The coffin and the corpse were found to be intact.

Clemens Brentano wrote the following about Anna Katharina Emmerick: “She stands like a cross by the wayside.” Anna Katharina Emmerick shows us the center of our Christian faith, the mystery of the cross.

The life of Anna Katharina Emmerick is marked by her profound closeness to Christ. She loved to pray before the famous Coesfeld Cross, and she walked the path of the long Way of the Cross frequently. So great was her personal participation in the sufferings of our Lord that it is not an exaggeration to say that she lived, suffered and died with Christ. An external sign of this, which is at the same time, however, more than just a sign, are the wounds of Christ which she bore.

Anna Katharina Emmerick was a great admirer of Mary. The feast of the Nativity of Mary was also Anna Katharina’s birthday. A verse from a prayer to Mary highlights a further aspect of Anna Katharina’s life for us. The prayer states, “O God, let us serve the work of salvation following the example of the faith and the love of Mary.”To serve the work of salvation – that is what Anna Katharina wanted to do.

In Colossians the apostle Paul speaks of two ways to serve the gospel, to serve salvation. One consists in the active proclamation in word and deed. But what if that is no longer possible? Paul, who obviously finds himself in such a situation, writes: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church” (Col 1:24).

Anna Katharina Emmerick served salvation in both ways. Her words, which have reached innumerable people in many languages from her modest room in Dülmen through the writings of Clemens Brentano, are an outstanding proclamation of the Gospel in service to salvation right up to the present day. At the same time, however, Anna Katharina Emmerick understood her suffering as a service to salvation. Dr. Wesener, her doctor, recounts her petition in his diary: “I have always requested for myself as a special gift from God that I suffer for those who are on the wrong path due to error or weakness, and that, if possible, I make reparation for them.” It has been reported that Anna Katharina Emmerick gave many of her visitors religious assistance and consolation. Her words had this power because she brought her life and suffering into the service of salvation.

In serving the work of salvation through faith and love, Anna Katharina Emmerick can be a model for us.

Dr. Wesener passed on this remark of Anna Katharina Emmerick: “I have always considered service to my neighbor to be the greatest virtue. In my earliest childhood I already requested of God that he give me the strength to serve my fellow human beings and to be useful. And now I know that he has granted my request.” How could she who was confined to her sickroom and her bed for years serve her neighbor?

In a letter to Count Stolberg, Clemens August Droste zu Vischering, the vicar‑general at that time, called Anna Katharina Emmerick a special friend of God. In the words of Hans Urs von Balthasar we can say, “She brought her friendship with God to bear in solidarity with human beings.”

To bring friendship with God to bear in solidarity with human beings – does this not shed light on an important concern in the life of the Church today? The Christian faith no longer includes everyone. In our world the Christian community represents people before God. We must bring our friendship with God to bear, let it be the decisive factor in solidarity with human beings.

Anna Katharina Emmerick is united to us in the community of believers. This community does not come to an end with death. We believe in the lasting communion with all whom God has led to perfection. We are united with them beyond death and they participate in our lives. We can invoke them and ask for their intercession. We ask Anna Katharina Emmerick, the newly named Blessed, to bring her friendship with God to bear in solidarity with us and with all human beings.

3. An excerpt from a homily by Pope John Paul II

(On the occasion of the beatification of Anne Catherine Emmerich, Sunday 3 October 2004.)

Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerick told of “the sorrowful passion of our Lord Jesus Christ” and lived it in her body. The fact that the daughter of poor peasants who sought tenaciously to be close to God became the well-known “Mystic of the Land of Münster” was a work of divine grace. Her material poverty contrasted with her rich interior life. We are equally impressed by the new Blessed’s patience in putting up with physical weakness and her strong character, as well as her unshakable faith.

She found this strength in the Most Holy Eucharist. Her example opened the hearts of poor and rich alike, of simple and cultured persons, whom she instructed in loving dedication to Jesus Christ.

Still today, she passes on to all the saving message: Through the wounds of Christ we have been saved (cf. I Pt 2:24).