TERESA NEUMANN > >Teresa Neumann was born on Good Friday, April 8, 1898 in Konnersreuth, in >northeastern Bavaria. She was the first child in a family of ten children. >Her parents owned a small farm, but they were not exactly well off. >Teresa's >father supplemented the income by working as a tailor. Teresa's parents >were >devout Roman Catholics, as were the rest of the inhabitants of tiny >Konnersreuth. > >Although Teresa received a strong Catholic education, there was never >anything remarkable to set her apart from the rest of her peers. She was >quiet, well behaved, but enjoyed games and good joke now and then. She had >a >great love of nature in all its forms, and especially enjoyed the >companionship of the animals on the farm. She was robust in health and >became a great help to her parents in raising her younger brothers and >sisters. This became especially necessary when her father was conscripted >to >fight in World War I. > >She also did most of the farm work. Teresa found nothing too difficult, and >enjoyed the heavy work farming entailed. But when a fire broke out in a >neighbor's barn, Teresa spent two solid hours standing on a stool and >lifting pails of water to a person higher up in the stable who was fighting >the fire. She collapsed from exhaustion and fell to the floor. As a result >she suffered partial paralysis and severe leg cramps from the fall. Even >the >most skillful doctors were unable to relieve her infirmities. > >But Teresa was not a quitter. She was so determined to recover from the >affliction that she forced herself to do as much as she could with her >disability. She fell repeatedly while she was at it, until one day she fell >down the basement stairs. From this resulted a period of fainting spells >and >blindness. Confined to bed, she developed bedsores so deep her bones were >exposed. Feeling herself a burden to her family whom she could no longer >support, she offered herself to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus to suffer in >true submission to Him for the conversion of sinners. She spent years in >this condition. > >Although Teresa Neumann had been named after St.Teresa of Avila, she was >personally devoted to St. Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower, who had >died the same year Teresa was born. On the day of Therese of Lisieux's >beatification, on Sunday, April 29, 1923, at the exact moment the Pope >beatified the French nun in Rome, Teresa Neumann completely received her >eyesight back. When Blessed Therese of Lisieux was officially canonized a >Saint on May 17, 1925, the Saint carried on a dialogue with Teresa Neumann. >St. Therese asked her if she wanted to be completely cured. Teresa Neumann >replied she only wanted what God wanted, whether that was to be sick or to >be well. St. Therese told her not to be afraid, because she would suffer >greatly in the future, but that she would help her from Heaven. > >When the conversation finished, Teresa rose from her bed completely cured, >after six and a half years of paralysis and bedsores. Doctors attested to >the instantaneousness of the cure, particularly of the deep bedsores which >they saw vanish in seconds before their very eyes. > >On the First Friday of Lent, March 5, 1926, Teresa had a weak spell which >confined her to bed. She then experienced a vision of Jesus with three of >His Apostles on Mt. Olivet. After the vision, she noticed she was bleeding >from her side, from a wound just above her heart. She hid the wound from >her >family, and washed her nightgown and bedclothes in secret so they wouldn't >see the blood. > >However, the next Friday, March 12, Teresa went into ecstasy again, only >this time one of her sisters was present in the room when it occurred. >While >Teresa was in ecstasy, the wound reopened and bled again. During this >vision, Teresa saw Jesus being scourged at the pillar, after the command of >Pontius Pilate. The same thing repeated on the third Friday of Lent, March >19, during which vision Teresa saw the Crown of Thorns cruelly fastened to >Jesus's Head by the soldiers On the fourth Friday, March 26, in addition to >the wound in her side, Teresa received the first of the nail Wounds, in her >left hand. Her hand and her side bled so profusely she and her sister could >no longer keep it a secret from their parents. > > > >During the vision on this day, Teresa saw Our Lord's tremendous suffering >in >dragging His Cross on His Shoulder all the way to Calvary where He would be >crucified. At midnight on Holy Thursday, 1926, Teresa went into ecstasy and >mystically underwent the entire Passion of Jesus Christ beginning with His >Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane until 3pm on Good Friday, when Our Savior >died on the Cross. At the moment when Jesus sweat blood in the Garden (St. >Luke 22:43-44), blood oozed from the pores in Teresa's scalp. When He was >scourged at the pillar (St. John 19:1), welts and oozing sores appeared all >over Teresa's body. When He was nailed to the Cross, holes burst open in >both her hands and her feet and bled profusely. Her head was running with >streams of blood from the Crown of Thorns. > >The parish priest of Konnersreuth had been summoned, and he recognized what >was taking place immediately. But no one knew if Teresa was going to >survive >the Divine ordeal, so he was preparing to give her the Last Rites when, at >3 >o'clock, on Good Friday, at the moment Jesus expired on the Cross, Teresa >fell back lifeless onto the bed. Teresa gradually returned to normal in >about an hour. The wounds of the Stigmata had congealed, and was washed and >dressed in fresh clothes. Although the Passion ecstasy was over, Teresa was >in constant pain from the nail and side wounds. > >This amazing drama was to be repeated on almost every Friday for the rest >of >Teresa Neumann's life. She entered into a lifelong participation in the >Sufferings of the Savior for the conversion of sinners and to make >reparation for the sins of mankind. Her Passion episodes were witnessed by >hundreds of people, from the scientific circles to the Hierarchy of the >Roman Catholic Church, by Hindu & Buddhist monks, as well as by alay >Catholics, non-Catholics, and professed atheists. She came to be known as >the Bloody virgin, or Passion Flower, of Konnersreuth. > >From 1926 to 1962, Teresa Neumann no longer ate or drank anything, and >lived >solely off of the Body and Blood of Our Lord in Holy Communion. She was >under continuous observation, whether she was awake or sleeping, and >everything about her, every move she made, was scrutinized in attempts to >catch her sneaking food or drink, which never occurred. > >While she was in the state of ecstasy, either due to the Passion >Sufferings, >or because she was receiving a Heavenly Visitation of Our Lord, Our Lady, >or >a Saint, Teresa was oblivious to everything around her. From the moment of >Christ's Death on the Cross, Teresa's heart and respiration completely >ceased for 45 minutes afterward. Doctors were unable to resuscitate her. >After 45 minutes had passed, Teresa would recover completely and rise from >the bed. > >During the Crucifixion episode, Teresa consistently bled from the nail >wounds, the Crown of Thorns, and the wound in her side (corresponding to >the >Wound Jesus received His Heart when the centurion drove his sword into It >(St. John 19:34-36)) She also bled copiously from the eyes. This latter >phenomenon occurred whenever Teresa saw Jesus harmed in a way that actually >caused Him to Bleed. If He was otherwise abused or mistreated in a >non-bloody manner, her tears for Him would be natural human water & saline >tears. Her ecstasies were captured not only in photographs, but also in >home >movies. No other stigmatist to date has been as heavily studied and >documented as Teresa Neumann. > > > >Even the Nazis were genuinely afraid of her. They had arrested a friend of >hers, Dr. Fritz Gerlich, a Jewish man who became Catholic after befriending >her, for publishing a Catholic newspaper denouncing the evils of Nazism and >the Second World War. Dr. Gerlich perished in the concentration camp at >Dachau. The Gestapo afterward went to Teresa's house to arrest her also. It >so happened she was undergoing a Passion ecstasy when they arrived at her >door. Still in ecstasy, she leapt out of bed, descended the stairs, and >flung open the front door. The Gestapo beheld her drenched in blood, which >was pouring in torrents from all of the wounds, as wells as from her eyes. >The Nazi soldiers fled in panic, and Teresa was never bothered again. > >In 1940, when the Nazis were staunch in their power, Teresa foretold the >defeat of Hitler and his diabolical regime. After the War ended, thousands >of American G.I. troops visited Teresa every week, until her death in 1962. >The total number of American soldiers who visited her has been estimated to >be half a million. > >After receiving Miraculous Communion from Christ Himself at 10:30 am on >September 18, 1962, during which the Host appeared on her tongue to what >witnesses described as 'out of thin air', Teresa Neumann laid back in her >bed for the final time and peacefully passed away. Just then the parish >priest entered the room to give her final Communion and the Last Rites, but >saw he was too late. He nonetheless performed the Last Rites portion, >although he was personally convinced she was already with Our Lord in >Heaven. > >In the days that followed her death, thousands thronged to her wake to view >her a final time. Despite a heat wave gripping the region at the time, the >stigmatist's body did not stiffen from rigor mortis, there was no odor of >death or corruption, and her lips remained fresh and moist. Before the >coffin was closed, doctors examined her internal organs with special >skin-piercing instruments, and found no signs of decay or death, the blood >and tissues remaining normal as if she was still alive. (It is not known if >Teresa's body is still incorrupt to this day, as the order for exhumation >of >her remains as part of the beatification process has not yet been given.) > >Over 10,000 people attended the funeral of Teresa Neumann, including >Bishops, high Roman Catholic dignitaries, and statesmen. Her house became a >shrine where her intercession, and that of St. Therese Lisieux was sought >for every need. Priests, Bishops, and Cardinals repeatedly demonstrated >their belief in the genuiuneness of her extraordinary life by offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass on the little altar in her bedroom. The investigation process into the life of Teresa Neumann in view of eventual canonization was begun in 1971, with Bishop Rudolf Graber of Regensburg (who was in charge of the parish of Konnersreuth) opening the case.
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