page_title: Anne Catherine Emmerich
section_title: Clemens Brentano's visits
hierarchical_section_title: Anne Catherine Emmerich / Visions and inspirations / Clemens Brentano's visits
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Dülmen, Hl.-Kreuz-Kirche, Gedenkstätte Sel. Anna Katharina Emmerick, rekonstruiertes Sterbezimmer mit originaler Einrichtung
context_page_description: Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich was a Roman Catholic Augustinian Canoness Regular of Windesheim, mystic, Marian visionary, ecstatic and stigmatist.
  She was born in Flamschen, a farming community at Coesfeld, in the Diocese of Münster, Westphalia, Germany, and died at age 49 in Dülmen, where she had been a nun, and later become bedridden. Emmerich experienced visions on the life and passion of Jesus Christ, reputed to be revealed to her by the Blessed Virgin Mary under religious ecstasy.
  During her bedridden years, a number of well-known figures were inspired to visit her. The poet Clemens Brentano interviewed her at length and wrote two books based on his notes of her visions. The authenticity of Brentano's writings has been questioned and critics have characterized the books as "conscious elaborations by a poet" and a "well-intentioned fraud" by Brentano.
  Emmerich was beatified on 3 October 2004, by Pope John Paul II. However, the Vatican focused on her own personal piety rather than the religious writings associated to her by Clemens Brentano.
context_section_description: At the time of Emmerich's second examination in 1819, Brentano visited her and she immediately recognized him. He claimed that she told him he was sent to help her fulfill God's command, to express in writing the revelations made to her. Brentano became one of Emmerich's many supporters at the time, believing her to be a "chosen Bride of Christ". Professor Andrew Weeks claims that Brentano's own personal complexes were a factor in substituting Emmerich as a maternal figure in his own life.
  From 1819 until Emmerich's death in 1824, Brentano filled many notebooks with accounts of her visions involving scenes from the New Testament and the life of the Virgin Mary. Because Emmerich only spoke the Westphalian dialect, Brentano could not transcribe her words directly, and often could not even take notes in her presence, so he would quickly write in standard German when he returned to his own apartment a set of notes based on what he remembered of the conversations he had with Emmerich. Brentano edited the notes later, years after the death of Emmerich.
  About ten years after Emmerich had recounted her visions, Brentano completed editing his records for publication. In 1833, he published his first volume, The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to the Meditations of Anne Catherine Emmerich. Brentano then prepared The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary from the Visions of Anna Catherine Emmerich for publication, but he died in 1842. The book was published posthumously in 1852 in Munich.
  Catholic priest Father Karl Schmoger  edited Brentano's manuscripts and from 1858 to 1880 published the three volumes of The Life of Our Lord. In 1881, a large illustrated edition followed. Schmoger also penned a biography of Anne Catherine Emmerich in two volumes that has been republished in English language editions.
  The Vatican does not endorse the authenticity of the books written by Brentano. However, it views their general message as "an outstanding proclamation of the gospel in service to salvation". Other critics have been less sympathetic and have characterized the books Brentano produced from his notes as "conscious elaborations of an overwrought romantic poet".
  Brentano wrote that Emmerich said she believed that Noah's son Ham was the progenitor of "the black, idolatrous, stupid nations" of the world. The "Dolorous Passion" is claimed to reveal a "clear antisemitic strain throughout", with Brentano writing that Emmerich believed that "Jews ... strangled Christian children and used their blood for all sorts of suspicious and diabolical practices"
caption: The reconstruction of Emmerich's room with the original furniture, at the Holy Cross church in Dülmen, Germany
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