The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ | Page 3

literary pretensions whatever.
Neither the uneducated maiden whose visions are here relate, nor the
excellent Christian writer who had published them in so entire a spirit
of literary disinterestedness, ever had the remotest idea of such a thing.
And yet there are not, in our opinion, many highly worked-up
compositions calculated to produce an effect in any degree comparable
to that which will be brought about by the perusal of this unpretending
little work. It is our hope that it will make a strong impression even
upon worldlings, and that in many hearts it will prepare the way for
better ideas,--perhaps even for a lasting change of life.
In the next place, we are not sorry to call public attention in some
degree to all that class of phenomena which preceded the foundation of
the Church, which has since been perpetuated uninterruptedly, and
which too many Christians are disposed to reject altogether, either
through ignorance and want of reflection, or purely through human
respect. This is a field which has hitherto been but little explored
historically, psychologically, and physiologically; and it would be well
if reflecting minds were to bestow upon it a careful and attentive
investigation. To our Christian readers we must remark that this work
has received the approval of ecclesiastical authorities. It has been
prepared for the press under the superintendence of the two late
Bishops of Ratisbonne, Sailer and Wittman. These names are but little
known in France; but in Germany they are identical with learning, piety,
ardent charity, and a life wholly devoted to the maintenance and
propagation of the Catholic faith. Many French priests have given their
opinion that the translation of a book of this character could not but
tend to nourish piety, without, however, countenancing that weakness
of spirit which is disposed to lend more importance in some respects to
private than to general revelations, and consequently to substitute

matters which we are simply permitted to believe, in the place of those
which are of faith.
We feel convinced that no one will take offence at certain details given
on the subject of the outrages which were suffered by our divine Lord
during the course of his passion. Our readers will remember the words
of the psalmist: 'I am a worm and no man; the reproach of men, and the
outcast of the people;' (Ps 22:6) and those of the Apostle: 'Tempted in
all things like as we are, without sin.' (Heb 4:15). Did we stand in need
of a precedent, we should request our readers to remember how plainly
and crudely Bossuet describes the same scenes in the most eloquent of
his four sermons on the Passion of our Lord. On the other hand, there
have been so many grand platonic or rhetorical sentences in the books
published of late years, concerning that abstract entity; on which the
writers have been pleased to bestow the Christian title of the Word, or
Logos, that it may be eminently useful to show the Man-God, the Word
made flesh, in all the reality of his life on earth, of his humiliation, and
of his sufferings. It must be evident that the cause of truth, and still
more that of edification, will not be the losers.
INTRODUCTION
The following meditations will probably rank high among many similar
works which the contemplative love of Jesus has produced; but it is our
duty here plainly to affirm that they have no pretensions whatever to be
regarded as history.1 They are but intended to take one of the lowest
places among those numerous representations of the Passion which
have been given us by pious writers and artists, and to be considered at
the very utmost as the Lenten meditations of a devout nun, related in all
simplicity, and written down in the plainest and most literal language,
from her own dictation. To these meditations, she herself never
attached more than a mere human value, and never related them except
through obedience, and upon the repeated commands of the directors of
her conscience.
The writer of the following pages was introduced to this holy religious
by Count Leopold de Stolberg. (The Count de Stolberg is one of the
most eminent converts whom the Catholic Church has made from
Protestantism. He died in 1819.) Dean Bernard Overberg, her director
extraordinary, and Bishop Michael Sailer, who had often been her
counsellor and consoler, urged her to relate to us in detail all that she

experienced; and the latter, who survived her, took the deepest interest
in the arrangement and publication of the notes taken down from her
dictation. (The Bishop of Ratisbonne, one of the most celebrated
defenders of the faith in Germany.) These illustrious and holy men,
now dead, and whose memory is blessed, were in continual communion
of prayer with Anne