Читать книгу The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. From the Meditations of the Saint and Prophet Anne Catherine Emmerich онлайн

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On the 22d of July 1813, Overberg came to see her, with Count de Stolberg and his family. They remained two days with her, and Stolberg, in a letter which has been several times printed, bore witness to the reality of the phenomena observed in Anne Catherine, and gave expression to his intense veneration for her. He remained her friend as long as he lived, and the members of his family never ceased recommending themselves to her prayers. On the 29th of September 1813, Overberg took the daughter of the Princess Galitzin (who died in 1806) to visit her, and they saw with their own eyes blood flow copiously from her stigmas. This distinguished lady repeated her visit, and, after becoming Princess of Salm, never varied in her sentiments, but, together with her family, remained in constant communion of prayer with Anne Catherine. Many other persons in all ranks of life were, in like manner, consoled and edified by visiting her bed of suffering. On the 23d of October 1813, she was carried to another lodging, the window of which looked out upon a garden. The condition of the saintly nun became day by day more painful. Her stigmas were a source of indescribable suffering to her, down to the moment of her death. Instead of allowing her thoughts to dwell upon those graces to the interior presence of which they bore such miraculous outward testimony, she learned from them lessons of humility, by considering them as a heavy cross laid upon her for her sins. Her suffering body itself was to preach Jesus crucified. It was difficult indeed to be an enigma to all persons, an object of suspicion to the greatest number, and of respect mingled with fear to some few, without yielding to sentiments of impatience, irritability, or pride. Willingly would she have lived in entire seclusion from the world, but obedience soon compelled her to allow herself to be examined and to have judgment passed upon her by a vast number of curious persons. Suffering, as she was, the most excruciating pains, she was not even allowed to be her own mistress, but was regarded as something which every one fancied he had a right to look at and to pass judgment upon,—often with no good results to any one, but greatly to the prejudice of her soul and body, because she was thus deprived of so much rest and recollection of spirit. There seemed to be no bounds to what was expected of her, and one fat man, who had some difficulty in ascending her narrow winding staircase, was heard to complain that a person like Anne Catherine, who ought to be exposed on the public road, where every one could see her, should remain in a lodging so difficult to reach. In former ages, persons in her state underwent in private the examination of the spiritual authorities, and carried out their painful vocation beneath the protecting shadow of hallowed walls; but our suffering heroine had been cast forth from the cloister into the world at a time when pride, coldness of heart, and incredulity were all the vogue; marked with the stigmas of the Passion of Christ, she was forced to wear her bloody robe in public, under the eyes of men who scarce believed in the Wounds of Christ, far less in those which were but their images.