The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ

The Dolorous Passion of Our
Lord Jesus Christ

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus
Christ, by Anna Catherine Emmerich
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Title: The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ
Author: Anna Catherine Emmerich
Release Date: January 30, 2004 [eBook #10866]
Language: English
Character set encoding: US-ASCII
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
DOLOROUS PASSION OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST***
The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ
From the Meditations of Anne Catherine Emmerich
Copyright Notice: This ebook was prepared from the 20th edition of
this book, which was published in 1904 by Benziger Brothers in New
York. The copyright for that edition is expired and the text is in the
public domain. This ebook is not copyrighted and is also in the public
domain.
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH TRANSLATION. BY THE ABBE DE
CAZALES.
The writer of this Preface was travelling in Germany, when he chanced
to meet with a book, entitled, The History of the Passion of our Lord
Jesus Christ, from the Meditations of Anne Catherine Emmerich, which
appeared to him both interesting and edifying. Its style was
unpretending, its ideas simple, its tone unassuming, its sentiments

unexaggerated, and its every sentence expressive of the most complete
and entire submission to the Church. Yet, at the same time, it would
have been difficult anywhere to meet with a more touching and lifelike
paraphrase of the Gospel narrative. He thought that a book possessing
such qualities deserved to be known on this side the Rhine, and that
there could be no reason why it should not be valued for its own sake,
independent of the somewhat singular source whence it emanated.
Still, the translator has by no means disguised to himself that this work
is written, in the first place, for Christians; that is to say, for men who
have the right to be very diffident in giving credence to particulars
concerning facts which are articles of faith; and although he is aware
that St. Bonaventure and many others, in their paraphrases of the
Gospel history, have mixed up traditional details with those given in
the sacred text, even these examples have not wholly reassured him. St.
Bonaventure professed only to give a paraphrase, whereas these
revelations appear to be something more. It is certain that the holy
maiden herself gave them no higher title than that of dreams, and that
the transcriber of her narratives treats as blasphemous the idea of
regarding them in any degree as equivalent to a fifth Gospel; still it is
evident that the confessors who exhorted Sister Emmerich to relate
what she saw, the celebrated poet who passed four years near her couch,
eagerly transcribing all he heard her say, and the German Bishops, who
encouraged the publication of his book, considered it as something
more than a paraphrase. Some explanations are needful on this head.
The writings of many Saints introduce us into a new, and, if I may be
allowed the expression, a miraculous world. In all ages there have been
revelations about the past, the present, the future, and even concerning
things absolutely inaccessible to the human intellect. In the present day
men are inclined to regard these revelations as simple hallucinations, or
as caused by a sickly condition of body.
The Church, according to the testimony of her most approved writers,
recognises three descriptions of ecstasy; of which the first is simply
natural, and entirely brought about by certain physical tendencies and a
highly imaginative mind; the second divine or angelic, arising from
intercourse held with the supernatural world; and the third produced by
infernal agency. (See, on this head, the work of Cardinal Bona, De
Discretione Spirituum.) Lest we should here write a book instead of a

preface, we will not enter into any development of this doctrine, which
appears to us highly philosophical, and without which no satisfactory
explanation can be given on the subject of the soul of man and its
various states.
The Church directs certain means to be employed to ascertain by what
spirit these ecstasies are produced, according to the maxim of St. John:
'Try the spirits, if they be of God.' (1 Jn 4:1). When circumstances or
events claiming to be supernatural have been properly examined
according to certain rules, the Church has in all ages made a selection
from them.
Many persons who have been habitually in a state of ecstasy have been
canonised, and their books approved. But this approbation has seldom
amounted to more than a declaration that these