Anne Catherine Emmerich

Emmerich was born into a family of impoverished farmers and had nine brothers and sisters. The family's surname was derived from an ancestral town. From an early age, she helped with the house and farm work. Her schooling was rather brief, but all those who knew her noticed that she felt drawn to prayer from an early age. She applied for admission to various convents, but she was rejected because she could not afford a dowry. Eventually, the Order of Saint Clare in Münster agreed to accept her, provided she would learn to play the musical organ. She went to the organist Söntgen in Coesfeld to study music and learn to play the organ, but the poverty of the Söntgen family prompted her to sacrifice her small savings in an effort to help them. Later, one of the Söntgen daughters entered the convent with her. ==Religious life==

In 1802, Emmerich (aged 28) and her friend Klara Söntgen were finally permitted to join the Augustinian nuns at the convent of Agnetenberg in Dülmen. The following year, Emmerich took her religious vows. In the convent, she became known for her strict observance of the order's rule; but, from the beginning to 1811, she was often quite ill and suffered great pain. At times, her zeal and strict adherence to the convent's rules disturbed some of the more tepid sisters, who were also puzzled by her weak health and religious ecstasies. When the King of Westphalia, Jérôme Bonaparte suppressed the convent in 1812, all the nuns were forced to leave. She sought and found refuge in the house of a widow. ==Imposition of the Stigmata==

In early 1813, marks of the stigmata were reported on Emmerich's body. The parish priest called in two doctors to examine her. When word of the phenomenon spread three months later, he notified the vicar general. With the news causing considerable talk in the town, the ecclesiastical authorities conducted a lengthy investigation. Many doctors wished to examine the case, and although efforts were made to discourage the curious, there were also visitors whose rank or status gained them entry. During this time, the poet and romanticist Clemens Brentano first visited Emmerich. At the end of 1818, the periodic bleeding of Emmerich's hands and feet had stopped, and the wounds had closed. While many in the community viewed the stigmata as real, others claimed that Emmerich was an impostor and that she conspired with others to perpetrate her fraud. In August 1819, the civil authorities intervened and moved Emmerich to a different house, where she was kept under observation for three weeks. The members of the commission could find no evidence of fraud, yet her stigmata continued. The commission members thus became divided in their opinions. The cross on her breastbone had the unusual shape of a "Y", similar to a cross in the local church of Coesfeld. The English priest Herbert Thurston surmised that "the subjective impressions of the stigmatic exercise a preponderating influence upon the manifestations which appear exteriorly" and suggested that this phenomena is described in the works of the Augustinian Catholic priest, John of Ruusbroec. However, this supposition is purely conjectural. ==Purported apparitions==

following the descriptions of Emmerich. The lines define different spectrums of light, unknown to color. As a young child, Emmerich claimed to have visions in which she talked with Jesus and saw the Souls in Purgatory. She further described the essence of the Holy Trinity in the form of three concentric, interpenetrating full spheres. The largest but dimmest of the spheres represented the Father core, the medium sphere the Son core, and the smallest and brightest sphere the Holy Spirit core. Each sphere of omnipresent God is extended toward infinity beyond God's core placed in heaven. Brentano's writings also suggest that during an illness in Emmerich's childhood, she was visited by the Child Jesus, who told her of plants she should ingest in order to heal, including Morning Glory flower juice, which is known to contain ergine. A number of figures who were influential in the renewal movement of the Church early in the 19th century came to visit Emmerich, among them Clemens August von Droste zu Vischering, the future Archbishop of Cologne; Johann Michael Sailer, the Bishop of Ratisbon, since 1803 the sole surviving Elector Spiritual of the Holy Roman Empire; Bernhard Overberg and authors Luise Hensel and Friedrich Stolberg. Other critics have been less sympathetic, characterizing his books as the "conscious elaborations of an overwrought romantic poet". Some argue that these writings indicate racist beliefs and contain a "clear antisemitic strain throughout." For example, Noah's son Ham is portrayed as the progenitor of "the black, idolatrous, stupid nations" of the world. Also, in the "Dolorous Passion", it is implied that "Jews[...] strangled Christian children and used their blood for all sorts of suspicious and diabolical practices". Claims of forgery , Germany. When the case for Emmerich's beatification was submitted to the Vatican in 1892, a number of experts in Germany began to compare and analyze Brentano's original notes from his personal library with the books he had written. By 1928, the experts had come to the conclusion that only a small portion of Brentano's books could be safely attributed to Emmerich. According to Gumpel, the writings attributed to Emmerich were "absolutely discarded" by the Vatican as part of her beatification process. Jose Saraiva Martins, who at the time of the beatification of Emmerich was the prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints declared the writings attributed to her the "artistic fantasy of Brentano" and stated that they played no role in her beatification. ==Death and burial==

Emmerich began to grow weaker during the summer of 1823. She died on 9 February 1824 in Dülmen and was buried in the graveyard outside the town, with a large number of people attending her funeral. Her grave was reopened twice in the weeks following the funeral, due to a false rumor that her body had been desecrated and stolen, but the coffin and the body were found to be intact. In February 1975, Emmerich's mortal remains were permanently moved to the Church of the Holy Cross in Dülmen. Due to the cult of piety established after her death, most especially amongst Traditionalist Catholics, slips of paper with thanksgiving or personal intentions are collected at her tombstone and burned annually on Easter Sunday. ==The House of the Virgin Mary==

, now a chapel in Ephesus, Turkey 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, the Blessed Virgin's supposed home before her Assumption, located on a hill near Ephesus, as described in the book ''Mary's House''. Emmerich described Mary's house: In 1881, a French Catholic priest, Julien Gouyet, used Emmerich's book to search for the house in Ephesus and found it based on the descriptions. He was not taken seriously at first, but Sister Marie de Mandat-Grancey persisted until two other priests followed the same path and confirmed the finding. ==Pontifical approbations==

Pope Leo XIII visited the shrine in 1896. Pope Pius X granted a plenary indulgence to the pilgrimage to the shrine in 1914 and sent his blessing to "the valiant searchers for the tomb of the Most Blessed Virgin." Pope Pius XII initially declared the house a "Holy Place" (1951). As former Apostolic Nuncio to Turkey, Cardinal Angelo Roncalli visited the shrine (1935), and later as Pope John XXIII made the Pian declaration permanent. Pope Paul VI (1967), Pope John Paul II (1979) and Pope Benedict XVI (2006) visited the house and current shrine. ==Beatification==

Pope John Paul II on 3 October 2004 declared the following: The process of Emmerich's beatification was started in 1892 by the Bishop of Münster, and her cause was officially opened by the Vatican on 12 June 1899. The process of evaluating the spiritual writings began on 22 April 1901. In 1973, the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints allowed the case for her beatification to be re-opened, provided it only focused on the issue of her life, without any reference to the possibly doctored material produced by Clemens Brentano. On 3 October 2004, Anne Catherine Emmerich was beatified by Pope John Paul II. However, the books produced by Brentano were set aside, and her cause adjudicated solely on the basis of her own personal sanctity and virtue. Peter Gumpel, who was involved in the analysis of the matter at the Vatican, told Catholic News Service: ==In film==

In 2003, Hollywood actor and director Mel Gibson used Brentano's book The Dolorous Passion as a key source for his 2004 film The Passion of the Christ. Gibson stated that Scripture and "accepted visions" were the only sources he drew on, and a careful reading of Brentano's book shows the film's high level of dependence on it. ==Bibliography==