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

The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.Anne Catherine Emmerichthe lives and writings of Saints Bridget, Gertrude, Mechtilde, Hildegarde, Catherine of Sienna,Catherine of Genoa, Catherine of Bologna, Colomba da Rieti, Lidwina of Schiedam, CatherineVanini, Teresa of Jesus, Anne of St. Bartholomew, Magdalen of Pazzi, Mary Villana, Mary Buonomi,Marina d’Escobar, Crescentia de Kaufbeuern, and many other nuns of contemplative orders, arealso to be found in the history of the interior life of Anne Catherine Emmerich. The same path wasmarked out for her by God. Did she, like these holy women, attain the end? God alone knows. Ourpart is only to pray that such may have been the case, and we are allowed to hope it. Those amongour readers who are not acquainted with the ecstatic life from the writings of those who have livedit, will find information on this subject in the Introduction of Goërres to the writings of HenrySuso, published at Ratisbonne in 1829.4142Since many pious Christians, in order to render their life one perpetual act of adoration, endeavourto see in their daily employments a symbolical representation of some manner of honouring God,and offer it to him in union with the merits of Christ, it cannot appear extra. ordinary that thoseholy souls who pass from an active life to one of suffering and contemplation, should sometimessee their spiritual labours under the form of those earthly occupations which formerly filled theirdays. Then their acts were prayers; now their prayers are acts; but the form remains the same. Itwas thus that Anne Catherine, in her ecstatic life, beheld the series of her prayers for the Churchunder the forms of parables bearing reference to agriculture, gardening, weaving, sowing, or thecare of sheep. All these different occupations were arranged, according to their signification, in thedifferent periods of the common as well as the ecclesiastical year, and were pursued under thepatronage and with the assistance of the saints of each day, the special graces of the correspondingfeasts of the Church being also applied to them. The signification of this circle of symbols hadreference to all the active part of her interior life. One example will help to explain our meaning.When Anne Catherine, while yet a child, was employed in weeding, she besought God to root upthe cockle from the field of the Church. If her hands were stung by the nettles, or if she was obligedto do afresh the work of idlers, she offered to God her pain and her fatigue, and besought him, inthe name of Jesus Christ, that the pastor of souls might not become weary, and that none of themmight cease to labour zealously and diligently. Thus her manual labour became a prayer.I will now give a corresponding example of her life of contemplation and ecstasy. She had been illseveral times, and in a state of almost continual ecstasy, during which she often moaned, and movedher hands like a person employed in weeding. She complained one morning that her hands andarms smarted and itched, and on examination they were found to be covered with blisters, like whatwould have been produced by the stinging of nettles. She then begged several persons of heracquaintance to join their prayers to hers for a certain intention. The next day her hands wereinflamed and painful, as they would have been after hard work; and when asked the cause, shereplied: ‘Ah! I have had so many nettles to root up in the vineyard, because those whose duty itwas to do it only pulled off the stems, and I was obliged to draw the roots with much difficulty outof a stony soil.’ The person who had asked her the question began to blame these careless workmen,but he felt much confused when she replied: ‘You were one of them,—those who only pull off thestems of the nettles, and leave the roots in the earth, are persons who pray carelessly.’ It wasafterwards discovered that she had been praying for several dioceses which were shown to herunder the figure of vineyards laid waste, and in which labour was needed. The real inflammation22