The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. - documenta ...

The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.Anne Catherine Emmerichthe heavenly Jerusalem surrounded by adoring saints, and in the midst of these saints I see a personwho is not a saint—a nun. Blood flows from her head, her side, her hands, and her feet, and thesaints are above the bleeding parts.’39On the 9th February 1821 she fell into an ecstasy at the time of the funeral of a very holy priest.Blood flowed from her forehead, and the cross on her breast bled also. Some one asked her, ‘Whatis the matter with you?’ She smiled, and spoke like one awakening from a dream: ‘We were by theside of the body. I have been accustomed lately to hear sacred music, and the De Profundis madea great impression upon me.’ She died upon the same day three years later. In 1821, a few weeksbefore Easter, she told us that it had been said to her during her prayer, ‘Take notice, you will sufferon the real anniversary of the Passion, and not on the day marked this year in the EcclesiasticalCalendar.’ 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 whatthe blows of a whip would have inflicted. At twelve o’clock in the day, she stretched herself outin the form of a cross, and her arms were so extended as to be perfectly dislocated. A few minutesbefore two o’clock, drops of blood flowed from her feet and hands. On Good Friday, the 20th ofApril, she was simply in a state of quiet contemplation. This remarkable exception to the generalrule seemed to be an effect of the providence of God, for, at the hour when her wounds usuallybled, a number of curious and ill-natured individuals came to see her with the intention of causingher fresh annoyances, by publishing what they saw; but they thus were made unintentionally tocontribute to her peace, by saying that her wounds had ceased to bleed.On the 19th of February 1822 she was again warned that she would suffer on the last Friday ofMarch, and not on Good Friday.40On Friday the 15th, and again on Friday the 29th, the cross on her bosom and the wound of herside bled. Before the 29th, she more than once felt as though a stream of fire were flowing rapidlyfrom 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, andremained in it until Friday evening. Her chest, head, and side bled; all the veins of her hands wereswollen, and there was a painful spot in the centre of them, which felt damp, although blood didnot flow from it. No blood flowed from the stigmas excepting upon the 3d of March, the day ofthe finding of the Holy Cross. She had also a vision of the discovery of the true cross by St. Helena,and imagined herself to be lying in the excavation near the cross. Much blood came in the morningfrom her head and side, and in the afternoon from her hands and feet, and it seemed to her as thoughshe were being made the test of whether the cross was really the Cross of Jesus Christ, and that herblood was testifying to its identity.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 intensepain. Amid these awful sufferings, although ravished in spirit, she was obliged to speak and giveanswers concerning all her little household affairs, as if she had been perfectly strong and well, andshe never let fall a complaint, although nearly dying. This was the last time that her blood gavetestimony to the reality of her union with the sufferings of him who has delivered himself up whollyand entirely for our salvation. Most of the phenomena of the ecstatic life which are shown us in21