The Life of Mary as Seen by the Mystics

by Raphael Brown

  In 1911–1912 a new critical Spanish edition of The Mystical City of God based on the author’s original manuscripts was published with the approval of the Bishop of Tarazona, whose diocese includes Agreda.

  In 1910 the Very Rev. Ubaldus de Pandolfi compiled an excellent life of Mary of Agreda in English, which was published by the Poor Clares of Evansville, Indiana. And in 1914 the Rev. George J. Blatter brought out his complete four-volume English translation of The Mystical City of God, with the imprimatur of the Rt. Rev. H.J. Alerding, Bishop of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

  It is also a significant fact, especially in view of the early Dominican opposition to this work for its Scotistic leanings, that the foremost modern Spanish Dominican “champion of the true traditional doctrine in mystical theology,” the saintly Rev. Juan G. Arintero (1860–1928), who was “an authority in the discernment of spirits,” did not hesitate to quote freely from The Mystical City of God in his masterpiece, The Mystical Evolution in the Development and Vitality of the Church.37

  The Rev. S.J. Draugelis of New York City has written a series of sacred dramas on the life of the Blessed Virgin which are based entirely on the work of Mary of Agreda. “Madonna of Nazareth,” the first of the series to be printed, was published in 1949 by the Marian Fathers in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. A favorable review of this work which appeared in the Sunday edition of the Osservatore Romano referred to the “noble task” undertaken by the author and to the “important influence” of Mary of Agreda “not only on the strictly religious but also in the political and moral fields of 17th century Spain.”38 On November 10, 1949, His Eminence P. Cardinal Fumasoni-Biondi wrote to Father Draugelis:

  I hope and pray that Almighty God will bless this undertaking and that He will grant you great success not only in increasing devotion to the Immaculate Virgin, but also in making Her better and more widely known in a world that has so much need of Her.39

  And last, but not least in importance, is the following impressive statement in the new Italian Catholic encyclopedia, Enciclopedia Cattòlica, edited by the foremost ecclesiastical scholars in Italy and published in the Vatican City in 1949:

  Considered objectively, although historical, geographical, and chronological errors are not lacking in The Mystical City of God, from which it follows that the work does not contain only ‘revelation,’ its high ascetical and mystical value must be recognized.40

  Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich

  Born on September 8, 1774, in a family of poor Westphalian peasants, Anne Catherine entered the Augustinian convent in Dülmen in 1802. When the convent was closed in 1812, due to the Napoleonic Wars, she moved to a private home, in which she resided until her death on February 2, 1824.

  From childhood she experienced many extraordinary mystical graces. Before becoming a nun she endured the pains of the crown of thorns, and in 1808 those of the other wounds of Christ. In 1812 the stigmata became visible.

  When Clemens von Brentano (1778–1842), a prominent German romantic poet, visited her in 1818, soon after his return to the Catholic Church, she recognized him as the secretary who was destined to be the editor of her revelations. He remained with her throughout the last five years of her life, taking extensive notes of her visions of the life of Christ, whose public ministry she witnessed day by day in 1821–1824.

  In editing his notes, Brentano appears to have occasionally included some excerpts from other sources in order to bridge minor gaps in the narrative. As a result, the Emmerich-Brentano writings are not being considered as evidence in her Process for Beatification. They have nevertheless merited the recommendations of numerous learned prelates and theologians like Father Poulain, Dom Guéranger, and Cardinals Gibbons and Ehrle, and they have been a source of profound spiritual benefit to many persons, including such distinguished writers as J.K. Huysmans, Father Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J., Léon Bloy, Jacques and Raïssa Maritain, and Paul Claudel, as the following quotations will demonstrate:

  J.J. Goerres: “I know of no revelations richer, more profound, more wonderful, or more thrilling in their nature than those of Sister Emmerich.”41 The Catholic Encyclopedia: “The rapid and silent spread of her works through Germany, France, Italy, and elsewhere speaks well for their merit. Strangely enough they produced no controversy.”42 Dom Prosper Guéranger, O.S.B.

  In the publication of this work (The Life of Jesus Christ) we must recognize a disposition of Divine Providence, who has deigned to console Catholic Germany in the midst of the most dreadful blasphemies that have been and still are uttered against the holy Gospels, by thus placing before our eyes the facts of the Gospel narratives. Indeed Catherine Emmerich has her mission! God does not lavish the extraordinary gifts which have been revealed in her. Not in vain has He placed her in the heart of Germany just before the outbreak of the most frightful infidelity. . . . I shall allow no favorable opportunity to pass without paying Anne Catherine Emmerich the tribute she deserves. Her revelations have found no reader who has perused them with greater diligence and appreciation than I, and I have ever been most eager to communicate my impressions concerning them to all my acquaintances.43

  Most Rev. August Maria Toebbe, Bishop of Covington, Ky. (1882):

  The writings of the Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich breathe so deeply a spirit of faith and so heartfelt a love for God that the devout perusal of them must afford the faithful a rich treasure of blessings and edification.44

  Most Rev. Wm. H. Gross, C.Ss.R., Archbishop of Oregon (1888):

  It is a masterpiece of its kind. . . . We heartily approve its translation, and sincerely hope that a copy of it will soon be found in every Catholic family.45

  Most Rev. William H. Elder, Archbishop of Cincinnati (1892):

  The Life of Our Lord, according to the revelations of Catherine Emmerich, I have found extremely interesting and edifying. . . . If received according to the explanations given and if read in the spirit of piety, it is wonderfully adapted to increase in our heart the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by giving us vivid pictures of what He did and said during His mortal life.”46

  His Eminence J. Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore:

  [F]rom our own deep conviction of the great advantage to be derived from the pious perusal of the work . . . we do not hesitate in its approval to add our signature. . . .47

  Father Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J.:

  One day in the Long Retreat (which ended on Christmas Day) they were reading in the refectory Sister Emmerich’s account of the Agony in the Garden and I suddenly began to cry and sob and could not stop. I put it down for this reason, that if I had been asked a minute beforehand I should have said that nothing of the sort was going to happen and even when it did I stood in a manner wondering at myself. . . .48

  Léon Bloy and the Maritains:

  At the very beginning [of the latter’s conversion], Léon Bloy made us read Schmöger’s three thick volumes on the life and visions of Anne Catherine Emmerich . . . one of the greatest mystics of the nineteenth century . . . the religious beauty of the visions and spiritual illuminations . . . is so great that there must have been at least one mystic involved—either Catherine or Brentano. No mere poet could have given a picture of such depth, coherence and theological value, of the inner life of a co-sufferer in Christ’s Passion. . . .

  The Revelations of Anne Catherine Emmerich gave us a picture of Catholicism that was crowded and vivid, moving and yet familiar. They taught us countless things—we, who knew nothing of Catholic history, dogmas, theology, liturgy, mysticism.”49

  Paul Claudel:

  The books which proved very helpful during that period [of his conversion] were . . . Pascal . . . Bossuet . . . Dante . . . not to forget the marvelous private revelations of Catherine Emmerich.50

  J. K. Huysmans:

  [T]he tonic, the stimulant in weakness, the strychnine for failure of faith, the goad which drives you in tears to the feet of Christ, the Dolorous Passion of Sister Emmerich. . . .51

  Émile Baumann
:

  We find that Catherine Emmerich’s originality is most valuable in her visions, thanks to the ability which she had of revealing their essential elements. Theologically hers are inferior to those of St. Teresa and of many others. . . .

  The three books of her revelations nevertheless constitute . . . one of the most beautiful supernatural poems that can be described as inspired.52

  Rev. Paul de Jaegher, S.J.:

  But as Brentano himself pointed out in the first edition of The Dolorous Passion, Anne never claimed historical accuracy for her visions. They are just powerfully realistic pictures, whose vividness and imaginative force have helped many a soul to appreciate the Passion with more intensity and love.53

  Georges Goyau:

  Henceforth, too, the veneration of the humanity of Christ was to play an increasingly important role in religious fervour. The visions of Catherine Emmerich deserve to be taken as a landmark in the development of this worship.

  All the detail which they add to the dramatic story of Christ is an enrichment, not indeed of the deposit of faith itself . . . but of Christian piety. They do not impose themselves on belief, still less on erudition; but the light they cast, the emotions they arouse, bear up the wings of meditation. . . .

  Clement Brentano, by making himself, at the bedside of the stigmatized woman, the assiduous chronicler of all that Catherine saw and said, thereby brought a fresh source of sustenance to the devout curiosity of believing souls. Before the eyes of that Germany in which certain schools were beginning to regard the story of Christ as a kind of myth, he developed scenes of pathos, scenes picturesque in their tragedy, in which the face of Christ became animated by a new life, more troubled, more poignant, one might almost say more in the raw, than the one which the sobriety of the Gospel narrative shows us.

  And thanks to Brentano, she who, through her stigmata, let herself become “in conformity with Christ,” was to lead coming Christian generations, if not to know Christ better, at least to feel for Him better, in a compassion in which faith and love mingle and kneel together. . . .54

  His Eminence Franz Cardinal Ehrle, S.J. (in 1934):

  One cannot deny the Divine touch in them.55

  The new Italian Catholic encyclopedia: Her revelations

  exercised a widespread influence on the piety of the Catholic faithful, particularly in the devotion to the Passion of Jesus, and not only in Germany.56

  Summary

  In concluding this study of our sources, we submit the following profoundly wise and enlightening comments of Dom Prosper Guéranger, O.S.B., and the Rev. Auguste Poulain, S.J., on the value of the revelations of both Mary of Agreda and Anne Catherine Emmerich, which, as will be explained in the next section, have the largest share in this compilation.

  Dom Guéranger:

  While we acknowledged Mary of Agreda’s superiority in point of ideality, we accorded to Sister Emmerich a preeminence with regard to the richness and exactness of facts. Both bear upon them the marks of supernatural visions, and the contradictions between them that we notice here and there should not prejudice one against the communications as a whole.57

  If I have drawn a parallel between Mary of Agreda and Catherine Emmerich, it was not done with the intention of undervaluing the German ecstatica. I look upon both the one and the other as true prophetesses; and if I think that Catherine Emmerich is to be accused of some errors in regard to facts, I find no difficulty in making the same charge against Mary of Agreda. Private revelations like theirs are always mixed with imperfections. God permits this, in order that they may not be confounded with the inspired (canonical) Books. . . . I think the proper rule in judging such private revelations is that we be satisfied here and there to stumble upon certain innocent mistakes. . . . We may say that Catherine Emmerich supplies Mary of Agreda’s deficiencies. The former received the aesthetic, the latter the doctrinal mission. When both are united, we possess the most magnificent contemplations upon the mysteries of the Incarnation of God.58

  Father Poulain:

  It may also be that the revelation can be regarded as Divine in its broad outlines, but doubtful in minor details. Concerning the revelations of Mary of Agreda and Anna Catherine Emmerich, for example, contradictory opinions have been expressed: some believe unhesitatingly everything they contain, and are annoyed when anyone does not share their confidence; others give the revelations no credence whatsoever (generally on a priori grounds); finally there are many who are sympathetic, but do not know what to reply when asked what degree of credibility is to be attributed to the writings of these two ecstatics. The truth seems to be between the two extreme opinions. . . . In particular instances these visionaries have been mistaken. . . . If there be question of the general statement of facts given in these works, we can admit with probability that many of them are true. For these two visionaries led lives that were regarded as very holy. Competent authorities have judged their ecstasies divine. It is therefore prudent to admit that they received a special assistance from God, preserving them not absolutely, but in the main, from error.59

  This Compilation

  In accordance with the enlightened caution of those distinguished theologians and with the sound principles of mystical theology governing private revelations, the method of selection adopted in compiling this book has been to examine all available critical analyses of the writings which constitute its sources and to exclude any statements which might appear to be either unacceptable or implausible or unsuitable for a narrative designed only for popular edification.

  The specific editions used are indicated in the Bibliography, which also includes references to standard works on the lives and writings of the four mystics.

  It should be clearly understood that, except for a few scriptural quotations, every statement in The Life of Mary as Seen by the Mystics has been borrowed directly from one of its four sources. The compiler has merely combined, condensed, and adapted into a unified style the materials which he found therein. Occasionally elements from the two or three principal sources have even been brought together in one sentence or phrase, as one or the other supplied a relevant detail.

  With regard to the relative contribution of each of the sources, in general Venerable Mother Mary of Agreda and Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich have provided approximately two thirds of the total text. Of those two, the former contributed most of the material concerning the interior life of the Blessed Virgin, while the latter was usually responsible for exterior actions. St. Bridget of Sweden supplied valuable light on the major events, whereas St. Elizabeth of Schoenau’s contribution was limited to the years in the Temple and (in part) to the Annunciation.

  The compiler wishes to acknowledge his gratitude to the many priests, religious, and lay persons who have prayed for the spiritual success of this work, and particularly to the Reverend Oblates of Mary Immaculate, editors of The Annals of Our Lady of the Cape, the official magazine of the National Canadian Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary at Cap de la Madeleine, P.Q., in which it appeared as a series of articles in 1946–1949.

  In conclusion he urges his readers to adopt the prudent and wise counsel of the learned Bollandist Hippolyte Delehaye, S.J., who (referring only to the Emmerich-Brentano writings) advised: “Let them read [this book] as a religious novel, but not as a fifth Gospel.”60

  If any of them should be laboring under the dangerous illusion that visions and revelations are to be desired or that they constitute an essential rather than a secondary element in Christian contemplation and perfection, let them study attentively the several treatises on Catholic spirituality which are listed in the general section (I) of the Bibliography. From The Life of Mary as Seen by the Mystics we may learn to be true Christian mystics, not seekers of “phenomena” but cultivators of the interior life of contemplative union with God through the practice of the virtues and the humble love of Christ and His Cross.

  The principal lesson for us in this life of Mary is that she is above all a model of the interior
life, and that only insofar as we imitate her recollection and prayer and charity of heart will we be pleasing to God and capable of serving Him, for only thus will we be united to Him and do His will. Thus too we will become like Mary, and so Christ will be born and grow in our souls. By our progressive self-purification through penitential loving sacrifices, by the grace of God we will be able to give Him to others.

  The Life of Mary as Seen by the Mystics is hereby offered with filial love, as a bouquet of “Little Flowers,” to Mary Immaculate, Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of All Graces. May she deign to give it her blessing so that it may help its readers to live—as she did—in ever-closer union with her divine Son, the Saviour of mankind.

  THE COMPILER

  Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, 1950

  OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST

  is reported to have said to

  St. Bridget of Sweden:

  Know that it is not for your own sake alone that I speak to you, but also for the salvation of all Christians. . . . Know too that when it pleases Me, men shall come who will take up the words of ‘The Heavenly Revelations’ with joy and consolation.