BLESSED ANNE CATHERINE EMMERICH
GERMANY, 1774-1824
Sustained For More Than 10 Years Solely By The Eucharist
Anne Catherine Emmerich
was forced to abandon
the monastery in which
she lived because it was
being appropriated by the
government. In that period,
her health declined and
the mystical experiences
increased: she received the
stigmata and had numerous
visions. One of these allowed
the finding of the house
of Our Lady in Ephesus.
In fact, according to antique
traditions, it seems that
Mary settled, together with
John the Apostle, in this city.
The miraculous aspect of
the life of Anne Catherine is
that for years she fed only
on the Eucharist.
nne Catherine Emmerich was born in
Germany on September 8, 1774 into a
family of farmers and began to work very
early. Later on, a religious vocation matured and
she asked to be admitted in several monasteries,
but she was always rejected because she was very
poor and had no dowry. Only when she was
twenty-eight years old she was accepted in the
monastery of Agnetenberg, where she joined the
monastic life with fervor, always ready to take the
most difficult tasks. One night while she was
praying, Jesus appeared and offered her a crown of
roses and a crown of thorns. She chose the crown
of thorns and Jesus put the crown on her head.
Suddenly, around her forehead appeared the first
stigmata. Later on, after another apparition of
Jesus, the wounds also appeared in the hands, feet
and side. In 1811, the monastery of Agnetenberg,
was suppressed. Anne Catherine found hospitality,
as a housekeeper for a priest; but soon she became
ill and was bedridden.
Dr. Wesner, a young doctor,
visited her and remained very impressed by the
stigmata. During the eleven years that followed,
he became her friend and faithful assistant,
having also a diary in which he would transcribe
her visions. Meanwhile the nun had practically
stopped eating: a little bit of water and the
Consecrated Host were enough to keep her alive
for years. She was very devoted to, and wrote
many pages about, the Holy Eucharist: “My
desire for the Holy Eucharist was so vehement
and irresistible that, at night, I would often leave
my cell to enter the Church... Often I would
genuflect and prostrate towards the Blessed
Sacrament with extended arms, and sometimes I
would enter into ecstasy”. Anne Catherine always
joined her suffering with that of Jesus, and offered
it for the redemption of men. The most famous
biographer of Anne Catherine was the German
writer, Clemens von Brentano, who wrote all her
visions. Brentano compiled thousands of pages
about the Blessed, many of which must still be
published. In one of his most famous passages he
wrote: “Anne Catherine stands like a cross at the
side of the street, to indicate the right direction to
the faithful. That which she says is brief but
simple, full of depth, warmth and life. I understood
everything. Always happy, affectionate, dignified,
marvelous; always ill, agonizing, but at the same
time delicate and fresh, chaste, tried, lucid. To be
seated at her side meant to occupy the most
beautiful place in the world”.
A
© 2006, Istituto San Clemente I Papa e Martire / Real Presence Eucharistic Education and Adoration Association
House where Our Lady lived
in Ephesus, found thanks to
the visions of Anne Catherine
House where Catherine was born
Portrait of
Anne Catherine Emmerich
Portrait of
Clemens Brentano
Drawing by Clemens Brentano