The Guardian Angel: Miracle of the Miraculous Crucifix of 1280

Germany is our focus tonight, Miraculous events in a country in trouble with a rogue hierarchy in the Catholic Church.  God bless, GregoryMary

In 1284, in the small city of Kranenburg in the district of Kleve, there was a Eucharistic miracle known under the name of “Miracle of the Miraculous Crucifix.” A sacred Host was thrown near a tree by a shepherd who was not able to swallow the Holy Eucharist because of an illness. Later, the tree was cut in half and a perfectly carved crucifix fell to the ground. On the place where the crucifix was found, a church was built. That church is still there to this day and numerous pilgrims come to visit it. 

Many documents describe this miracle that took place in 1280. A shepherd of Kranenburg after taking Holy Communion, was not able to swallow the Sacred Host and threw the Holy Eucharist against a tree in his garden. He was plagued with remorse over the incident and he decided to tell his parish priest. The priest hastened to the place of the evil deed to try to recover the Host, but the search proved fruitless. 

A few years later, the shepherd decided to cut the tree down and he split it in two pieces. Right after it was cut down, a perfectly carved crucifix fell out of the tree. The report of the crucifix that “had grown from a sacred Host” spread rapidly from town to town. 

The Bishops of Cologne and the Count of Kiev took a direct interest in the miracles, and pilgrims began to come in large numbers. In 1408, the citizens of Kranenburg began the construction of a church in honor of the miracle. The church was completed in 1444 and it represents one of the most significant examples of the Gothic architectural style in the area of the lower Rhine River. Popes and Bishops have always promoted the cult of the Miraculous Crucifix, granting privileges and indulgences, the last of which were granted in the year 2000.  

A couple of German girls surrounded by miracles

Ann Catherine Emmerich was forced to abandon the monastery in which she lived because it was being appropriated by the government. In that period, her health declined and the mystical experiences increased: she received the stigmata and had numerous visions. One of these allowed the finding of the house of Our Lady in Ephesus. In fact, according to antique traditions, it seems that Mary settled, together with John the Apostle, in this city.

The miraculous aspect of the life of Anne Catherine is that for years she fed only on the Eucharist. nne Catherine Emmerich was born in Germany on September 8, 1774 into a family of farmers and began to work very early. Later on, a religious vocation matured and she asked to be admitted in several monasteries, but she was always rejected because she was very poor and had no dowry. Only when she was twenty-eight years old she was accepted in the monastery of Agnetenberg, where she joined the monastic life with fervor, always ready to take the most difficult tasks. One night while she was praying,

Jesus appeared and offered her a crown of roses and a crown of thorns. She chose the crown of thorns and Jesus put the crown on her head. Suddenly, around her forehead appeared the first stigmata. Later on, after another apparition of Jesus, the wounds also appeared in the hands, feet and side. In 1811, the monastery of Agnetenberg, was suppressed. Anne Catherine found hospitality, as a housekeeper for a priest; but soon she became ill and was bedridden. Dr. Wesner, a young doctor, visited her and remained very impressed by the stigmata.

During the eleven years that followed, he became her friend and faithful assistant, having also a diary in which he would transcribe her visions. Meanwhile the nun had practically stopped eating: a little bit of water and the Consecrated Host were enough to keep her alive for years. She was very devoted to, and wrote many pages about, the Holy Eucharist: “My desire for the Holy Eucharist was so vehement and irresistible that, at night, I would often leave my cell to enter the Church...

Often I would genuflect and prostrate towards the Blessed Sacrament with extended arms, and sometimes I would enter into ecstasy”. Anne Catherine always joined her suffering with that of Jesus, and offered it for the redemption of men. The most famous biographer of Anne Catherine was the German writer, Clemens von Brentano, who wrote all her visions.

Brentano compiled thousands of pages about the Blessed, many of which must still be published. In one of his most famous passages he wrote: “Anne Catherine stands like a cross at the side of the street, to indicate the right direction to the faithful. That which she says is brief but simple, full of depth, warmth and life. I understood everything. Always happy, affectionate, dignified, marvelous; always ill, agonizing, but at the same time delicate and fresh, chaste, tried, lucid. To be seated at her side meant to occupy the most beautiful place in the world”. 

Teresa Neumann’s life changed radically after her miraculous recovery from paralysis and total blindness at the age of 25. About a year later, she received the stigmata and began fasting, which lasted 36 years until her death. Her only nourishment was the Holy Eucharist and for this reason the Nazi authorities, during World War II, withdrew her food rationing card and gave her a double rationing of soap to wash her towels and clothing, because every Friday she would be drenched in Blood while she was in ecstasy, experiencing the Passion of Christ.

Hitler was very fearful of Teresa. eresa Neumann was born in Konnersreuth Germany, on April 8th, 1898 from an extremely poor Catholic family. Her greatest ambition was to become a missionary in Africa but that was not possible as she was a victim of an accident at the age of 20 when a horrible fire broke out in a nearby plant and Teresa went to help and in the process of passing buckets of water to stop the flames, she got a horrible lesion in her spinal cord that caused a paralysis in both her legs and complete blindness.

Teresa then passed her days in prayer, but one day her miraculous recovery occurred in the presence of Father Naber who wrote: “Teresa described a vision of a great light and an extraordinary, sweet voice that was asking her if she wished to be healed. Teresa gave the most surprising answer when she replied that to her it would not make any difference whether she would be healed, stay the way she was or even die, as long as it was the will of God.

The mysterious voice told her that ‘that very day she would receive a small joy; the healing of her infirmities, but that she would still have a lot of suffering to endure in her future.’” For a little while, Teresa lived in fairly good health, but in 1926 her most important mystical experiences started and lasted until the day she died. She received the stigmata, and she began a complete fasting, with the Eucharist as her only nourishment. Father Naber, who administered Communion to Teresa every day, wrote: “In her, God’s promised word is accomplished: ‘My Flesh is real food and my Blood is a true drink’”.

Teresa offered the Lord her physical suffering - due to the loss of blood caused by the stigmata - that started every Thursday during the day when Jesus’ Passion started, until Sunday, His Resurrection. This suffering was offered, through her intercession, for sinners that asked for help. Every time she would be called to a person’s death bed, she would be witness to that soul’s judgment, as it is usual to happen right after death. Ecclesiastical authorities performed many examinations in regard to Teresa’s continuous fasting.

Carl Strater, S.J., directed by the Bishop of Ratisbonne, studied and examined the life of the stigmatized Teresa and confirmed: “The significance of Teresa Neumann’s fasting is to show the people of the world the value of the Holy Eucharist, to make the world understand that Christ is actually present in the bread of the Eucharist and that through the Holy Eucharist, physical life can actually be preserved.”