The writer of these pages became acquainted with her state first through reading a copy of that letter of Stolberg, to which we have already alluded, and afterwards through conversation with a friend who had passed several weeks with her. In September 1818 he was invited by Bishop Sailer to meet him at the Count de Stolberg's, in Westphalia; and he went in the first place to Sondermuhlen to see the count, who introduced him to Overberg, from whom he received a letter addressed to Anne Catherine's doctor. He paid her his first visit on the 17th of September 1818; and she allowed him to pass several hours by her side each day, until the arrival of Sailer. From the very beginning, she gave him her confidence to a remarkable extent, and this in the most touching and ingenuous manner. No doubt she was conscious that by relating without reserve the history of all the trials, joys, and sorrows of her whole life, she was bestowing a most precious spiritual alms upon him. She treated him with the most generous hospitality, and had no hesitation in doing so, because he did not oppress her and alarm her humility by excessive admiration. She laid open her interior to him in the same charitable spirit as a pious solitary would in the morning offer the flowers and fruit which had grown in his garden during the night to some way-worn traveller, who, having lost his road in the desert of the world, finds him sitting near his hermitage. Wholly devoted to her God, she spoke in this open manner as a child would have done, unsuspectingly, with no feelings of mistrust, and with no selfish end in view. May God reward her!
Her friend daily wrote down all the observations that he made concerning her, and all that she told him about her life, whether interior or exterior. Her words were characterised alternately by the most childlike simplicity and the most astonishing depth of thought, and they foreshadowed, as it were, the vast and sublime spectacle which later was unfolded, when it became evident that the past, the present, and the future, together with all that pertained to the sanctification, profanation, and judgment of souls, formed before and within her an allegorical and historical drama, for which the different events of the ecclesiastical year furnished subjects, and which it divided into scenes, so closely linked together were all the prayers and sufferings which she offered in sacrifice for the Church militant.
On the 22nd of October 1818 Sailer came to see her, and having remarked that she was lodging at the back of a public house, and that men were playing at nine-pins under her window, said in the playful yet thoughtful manner which was peculiar to him: 'See, see; all things are as they should be—the invalid nun, the spouse of our Lord, is lodging in a publichouse above the ground where men are playing at nine-pins, like the soul of man in his body.' His interview with Anne Catherine was most affecting; it was indeed beautiful to behold these two souls, who were both on fire with the love of Jesus, and conducted by grace through such different paths, meet thus at the foot of the Cross, the visible stamp of which was borne by one of them. On Friday, the 23rd of October, Sailer remained alone with her during nearly the whole of the day; he saw blood flow from her head, her hands, and her feet, and he was able to bestow upon her great consolation in her interior trials. He most earnestly recommended her to tell everything without reserve to the writer of these pages, and he came to an understanding upon the subject with her ordinary director. He heard her confession, gave her the Holy Communion on Saturday, the 24th, and then continued his journey to the Count de Stolberg's. On his return, at the beginning of November, he again passed a day with her. He remained her friend until death, prayed constantly for her, and asked her prayers whenever he found himself in trying of difficult positions. The writer of these pages remained until January. He returned in May 1819, and continued to watch Anne Catherine almost uninterruptedly until her death.
The saintly maiden continually besought the Almighty to remove the exterior stigmas, on account of the trouble and fatigue which they occasioned, and her prayer was granted at the end of seven years. Towards the conclusion of the year 1819, the blood first flowed less frequently from her wounds, and then ceased altogether. On the 25th of December, scabs fell from her feet and hands, and there only remained white scars, which became red on certain days, but the pain she suffered was undiminished in the slightest degree. The mark of the cross, and the wound on her right side, were often to be seen as before, but not at any stated times. On certain days she always had the most painful sensations around her head, as though a crown of thorns were being pressed upon it. On these occasions she could not lean her head against anything, nor even rest it on her hand, but had to remain for long hours, sometimes even for whole nights, sitting up in her bed, supported by cushions, whilst her pallid face, and the irrepressible groans of pain which escaped her, made her like an awful living representation of suffering. After she had been in this state, blood invariably flowed more or less copiously from around her head. Sometimes her head-dress only was soaked with it, but sometimes the blood would flow down her face and neck. On Good Friday, April 19th, 1819, all her wounds re-opened and bled, and closed again on the following days. A most rigorous inquiry into her state was made by some doctors and naturalists. For that end she was placed alone in a strange house, where she remained from the 7th to the 29th of August; but this examination appears to have produced no particular effects in any way. She was brought back to her own dwelling on the 29th of August, and from that time until she died she was left in peace, save that she was occasionally annoyed by private disputes and public insults. On this subject Overberg wrote her the following words: 'What have you had to suffer personally of which you can complain? I am addressing a soul desirous of nothing so much as to become more and more like to her divine Spouse. Have you not been treated far more gently than was your adorable Spouse? Should it not be a subject of rejoicing to you, according to the spirit, to have been assisted to resemble him more closely, and thus to be more pleasing in his eyes? You had suffered much with Jesus, but hitherto insults had been for the most part spared you. With the crown of thorns you had not worn the purple mantle and the robe of scorn, much less had you yet heard, Away with him! Crucify him! Crucify him! I cannot doubt but that these sentiments are yours. Praise be to Jesus Christ.'
On Good Friday, the 30th of March 1820, blood flowed from her head, feet, hands, chest, and side. It happened that when she fainted, one of the persons who were with her, knowing that the application of relics relieved her, placed near her feet a piece of linen in which some were wrapped, and the blood which came from her wounds reached this piece of linen after a time. In the evening, when this same piece of linen with the relics was being placed on her chest and shoulders, in which she was suffering much, she suddenly exclaimed, while in a state of ecstasy: 'It is most wonderful, but I see my Heavenly spouse lying in the tomb in the earthly Jerusalem; and I also see him living in the heavenly Jerusalem surrounded by adoring saints, and in the midst of these saints I see a person who is not a saint—a nun. Blood flows from her head, her side, her hands, and her feet, and the saints are above the bleeding parts.'
On the 9th February 1821 she fell into an ecstasy at the time of the funeral of a very holy priest. Blood flowed from her forehead, and the cross on her breast bled also. Someone asked her, 'What is the matter with you?' She smiled, and spoke like one awakening from a dream: 'We were by the side of the body. I have been accustomed lately to hear sacred music, and the De Profundis made a great impression upon me.' She died upon the same day three years later. In 1821, a few weeks before Easter, she told us that it had been said to her during her prayer: 'Take notice, you will suffer on the real anniversary of the Passion, and not on the day marked this year in the Ecclesiastical Calendar.' On Friday, the 30th of March, at ten o'clock in the morning, she sank down senseless. Her face and bosom were bathed in blood, and her body appeared covered with bruises like what the blows of a whip would have inflicted. At twelve o'clock in the day, she stretched herself out in the form of a cross, and her arms were so extended as to be perfectly dislocated. A few minutes before two o'clock, drops of blood flowed from her feet and hands. On Good Friday, the 20th of April, she was simply in a state of quiet contemplation. This remarkable exception to the general rule seemed to be an effect of the providence of God, for, at the hour when her wounds usually bled, a number of curious and ill-natured individuals came to see her with the intention of causing her fresh annoyances, by publishing what they saw; but they thus were made unintentionally to contribute to her peace, by saying that her wounds had ceased to bleed.
On the 19th of February 1822 she was again warned that she would suffer on the last Friday of March, and not on Good Friday.
On