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 evening of the day when she was buried, a rich man went, not to Pilate, but to the curé of the place. He asked for the body of Anne Catherine, not to place it in a new sepulchre, but to buy it at a high price for a Dutch doctor. The proposal was rejected as it deserved, but it appears that the report spread in the little town that the body had been taken away, and it is said that the people went in great numbers to the cemetery to ascertain whether the grave had been robbed.’

To these details we will add the following extract from an account printed in December 1824, in the Journal of Catholic Literature of Kerz. This account was written by a person with whom we are unacquainted, but who appears to have been well informed: ‘About six or seven weeks after the death of Anne Catherine Emmerich, a report having got about that her body had been stolen away, the grave and coffin were opened in secret, by order of the authorities, in the presence of seven witnesses. They found with surprise not unmixed with joy that corruption had not yet begun its work on the body of the pious maiden. Her features and countenance were smiling like those of a person who is dreaming sweetly. She looked as though she had but just been placed in the coffin, nor did her body exhale any corpse-like smell. It is good to keep the secret of the king, says Jesus the son of Sirach; but it is also good to reveal to the world the greatness of the mercy of God.’