Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich () (September 8, 1774 — February 9, 1824) was a Roman Catholic Augustinian nun, stigmatic, mystic, visionary and ecstatic. She was born in Flamschen, a farming community at Coesfeld, in the Diocese of Münster, Westphalia, Germany and died in Dülmen, aged 49. She was beatified on October 3, 2004 by Pope John Paul II.
Her parents were very poor. At twelve she was bound out to a farmer, and later was a seamstress for several years. 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 waited on them as a servant for several years.
In 1802, aged 28, she entered the Augustinian convent at Agnetenberg, Dülmen. Her sisters came to believe that she had received supernatural favors, mostly as a result of multiple ecstasies she appeared to experience. When Jérôme Bonaparte, King of Westphalia suppressed the convent in 1812 she found refuge in a widow's house. There, the sick and poor came to her for help, and according to contemporaries she supernaturally knew what their diseases were, and prescribed cures.
In 1813 she was confined to bed, and stigmata were reported on her body. Her life and the claims regarding her miraculous signs were examined by an episcopal commission. The vicar-general, the Overberg, and three physicians conducted the investigation. They were reportedly convinced of her sanctity and the genuineness of the stigmata.
At the end of 1818 Emmerich stated that God granted her prayer to be relieved of the stigmata, and the wounds in her hands and feet closed, but the others remained, and on Good Friday all were reopen.
In 1819 Emmerich was investigated again. She was forcibly removed to a large room in another house and kept under strict surveillance day and night for three weeks, away from all her friends except her confessor.
Anne Catherine Emmerich said that as a child she had had visions, in which she talked with Jesus, had seen the souls in Purgatory, for whom she prayed, and also the core of Holy Trinity in the form of three concentric interpenetrating full spheres - the biggest but less lit sphere represented the Father core, the medium sphere the Son core, and the smallest and most lit sphere the Holy Spirit core. Each sphere of omnipresent God is extended toward infinity beyond God's core placed in Heaven.
Clemens Brentano and the publication of the visions
At the time of her second examination in 1819, the famous poet Clemens Brentano was induced to visit her; to his great amazement she recognized him, and he claimed she told him he had been pointed out to her as the man who was to enable her to fulfill God's command, namely, to write down for the good of innumerable souls the revelations made to her. Brentano became one of Emmerich's many supporters at the time, believing her to be a "chosen Bride of Christ".
From 1819 until her death in 1824 Brentano recorded her visions, filling forty volumes with detailed scenes and passages from the New Testament and the life of the Virgin Mary. The accounts contain vivid details and graphic scenes which follow each another in rapid succession. According to his own account, Brentano took down briefly in writing the main points, and, as she spoke the Westphalian dialect, he immediately rewrote them in standard German. He would read aloud what he wrote to her, and made changes until she gave him complete approval.
After 1824, Brentano edited his records for publication and in 1833 he published his first volume, The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to the Meditations of Anne Catherine Emmerich. Brentano then prepared The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary From the Visions of Anna Catherine Emmerich for publication, but he died in 1842. The book was published posthumously in 1852 in Munich.
Catholic priest Father Karl Schmoger edited Brentano's manuscripts and from 1858 to 1880 published the three volumes of The Life of Our Lord. In 1881 a large illustrated edition followed, Schmoger also penned a biography of Anne Catherine Emmerich in two volumes, which has been republished in English language editions.
These texts do contain several remarkable passages. Neither Brentano nor Emmerich had ever been to Ephesus, and indeed the city had not yet been excavated; but visions contained in The Life of The Blessed Virgin Mary were used during the discovery of the House of the Virgin Mary, Saint Mary's supposed home before her Assumption, located on a hill near Ephesus. The Holy See has taken no official position on the authenticity of the location yet, but in 1896 Pope Leo XIII visited it and in 1951 Pope Pius XII initially declared the house a Holy Place. Pope John XXIII later made the declaration permanent. Pope Paul VI in 1967, Pope John Paul II in 1979 and Pope Benedict XVI in 2006 visited the house and treated it as a shrine.
While the Vatican does not take a stance on the factuality of the content of Emmerich's writings, it does recommend them as "an outstanding proclamation of the gospel in service to salvation
Anne Catherine Emmerich died on 9 February 1824 in Dülmen and was buried in the graveyard outside the town. In 1975, after her beatification proceedings were reopened, her bones were moved to the crypt of nearby Church of the Holy Cross.
A first process of beatification began in 1892, but was delayed several times, primarily because of concerns about historical and theological errors contained in the books published by Clemens Brentano. The process was suspended in 1928, but reopened in 1973 and finally closed in 2004. On October 3, 2004 Anne Catherine Emmerich was beatified by Pope John Paul II. As in all such cases, the question of her visions was set aside, and her cause adjudicated solely on the basis of her own personal sanctity and heroic virtue.
Currently, Anne Catherine Emmerich's visions receive particular veneration from Traditionalist Catholics. Some of these, concerned about the present state of the Catholic Church, argue that they describe the future of the Catholic Church lapsing into syncreticism and indifferentism (a "grey church into which all denominations and religions go, a true community of the unholy") and the Holy See subverted by active Freemasons in the hierarchy and hostile political forces, culminating in the destruction of St. Peter's Basilica. They argue that the visions prescribe the Rosary and Eucharistic Adoration as remedies. Other Catholics state they find these attributions questionable.
In 2003 actor Mel Gibson, himself a traditionalist Catholic, brought Anne Catherine Emmerich's vision to prominence again as he used the Dolorous Passion as an additional source for his movie The Passion of the Christ.
Emmerich, Anna Catherine: The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Charlotte, NC: Tan Books, 2009. ISBN 9780895552105
Emmerich, Anna Catherine: The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary: From the Visions of Anna Catherine Emmerich: Charlotte, NC: Tan Books, 2009. ISBN 9780895550484
Emmerich, Anna Catherine: Life of Jesus Christ and Biblical Revelations. Charlotte, NC: TAN Books, 2008. ISBN 9780895557919
Emmerich, Anna Catherine: The Bitter Passion and the Life of Mary: From the Visions of Anna Catherine Emmerich: As Recorded in the Journals of Clemens Brentano. Fresno, California: Academy Library Guild, 1954.
Literature
Karl Schmoger: Life of Anna Katherina Emmerich. Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publications, 1974. ISBN 089555061X (set); 0895550598 (volume 1); 0895550601 (volume 2)
Paula Frederickson (ed.): On the Passion of the Christ. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2006.
Kathleen Corley and Robert Webb (ed.): Jesus and Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. The Film, the Gospel and the Claims of History. London: Continuum, 2004. ISBN 0-8264-7781-X
Thomas Wegener: Life of Sister Anna Katherina Emmerich: New York: Benziger Brothers: 1898.
