Anne Catherine Emmerich, CRV (also Anna Katharina Emmerick; 8 September 1774 – 9 February 1824) was a Catholic
Augustinian canoness of the Congregation of Windesheim. During her lifetime, she was a mystic, Marian visionary and stigmatist.
Emmerich was born in Flamschen, an impoverished farming community at Coesfeld, in the Diocese of Münster, Westphalia, Germany, and died in Dülmen (aged 49), where she had lived, bedridden, as a nun. Emmerich purportedly experienced visions of the life and Passion of Jesus Christ, revealed to her by the Blessed Virgin Mary during religious ecstasy.
During her bedridden years, a number of well-known contemporaries visited her. The poet Clemens Maria Brentano interviewed her at length and wrote several pages, based on his notes of her description of the visions. The authenticity of Brentano's writings has been questioned, and critics have characterized the books as "conscious elaborations by a poet". Writing in L'Osservatore Romano, Jose Saraiva Martins declared the writings attributed to her the "artistic fantasy of Brentano".
Pope John Paul II beatified Emmerich on 3 October 2004, highlighting her notable virtues and deep Catholic piety. The purported “House of the Virgin Mary” in Ephesus is piously associated with her name.
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. At twelve, she started to work at a large farm in the vicinity for three years and later learned to be a seamstress and worked as such for several years.
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.
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.
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.
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. The former vicar—general of the Archdiocese, Clemens von Droste stated that Emmerich "a special friend of God" in a letter he wrote to Stolberg.
According to Clemens Maria Brentano
At the time of Emmerich's second examination in 1819, Brentano visited her. He claimed that she told him he was sent to help her fulfill God's command, to express in writing the revelations she had received. Brentano became one of Emmerich's many supporters, believing her to be a "chosen Bride of Christ".