Fasting by Randi Fredricks

Author:Randi Fredricks [Fredricks,, Randi Ph.D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781481723794
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Published: 2012-12-20T05:00:00+00:00

Religious Mystics

Religious mystics were men and women who believed in the existence of realities beyond normal human comprehension. Mystics were usually followers of religious or spiritual traditions and were known to have had dedicated ascetic practices (Underhill, 2009).

Most religions have texts that describe fundamental mystical experiences. One example is the Catholic mystics, who followed the models of Jesus’ asceticism and disciplined their bodies through activities ranging from sleep deprivation and brief fasting to more extreme forms, such as self-flagellation and fasting to the point of starvation.

There are numerous mystics who became saints or achieved saintlike status by remaining alive despite fasting for what appeared to be impossible lengths of time. Portuguese anthropologist João de Pina-Cabral (1986) called these women “non-eaters” (p. 227). Religious mystics had a variety of exceptional human experiences brought about by fasting, including visions, feelings of ecstasy, and physical transformations such as stigmata. The following are brief biographies of some of the best known female Christian mystics.

Anne Catherine Emmerich

Anne Catherine Emmerich, mystic, stigmatist, and visionary, was born in Westphalia, Germany in 1774 to a poor Catholic peasant family (The Vatican, 2012). From an early age, she helped with the house and farm work and was employed for a time as a seamstress (Schmoger, 2004). She applied for admission to various convents, but was rejected because she lacked a substantial dowry.

In 1802, at the age of 28, Emmerich became an Augustinian nun and began showing signs of stigmata (The Vatican, 2012). From then until her death, she bore the wounds of stigmata known as the Crown of Thorns, which are wounds on the forehead. From 1812, she bore the full stigmata of Our Lord, including a cross over her heart and the wound from the lance in her side (Schmoger, 2004). In addition to stigmata, Emmerich had numerous visions beginning when she was a small child. She claimed that she spoke with Jesus, had seen the souls in Purgatory, and witnessed the Holy Trinity (Emmerich, 2004/1923). These phenomena brought Emmerich fame and investigation by scientists and the Catholic Church (Powell, 1996; The Vatican, 2012).

Emmerich routinely fasted for the last three days of Holy Week (the last week of Lent and the week before Easter), fasting until dinner on Easter Sunday (Schmoger, 2004). During the last 12 years of her life, she subsisted entirely on the Holy Eucharist and drank only water.

Emmerich was beatified in 2004 by Pope John Paul II (The Vatican, 2012). However, the beatification was not completed because it was discovered that literature attributed to her was reputably fabricated by Clemens Brentanom, a poet who had interviewed her.

Therese Neumann

Therese Neumann was a Catholic mystic and a stigmatist (Vogl, 1987) who claimed to have paranormal visions (Steiner, 1976). She was born in 1898 in the village of Konnersreuth in Bavaria, Germany, where she lived all of her life. She was born into a large family with little income.

In March of 1918, Neumann was partially paralyzed after falling off a stool in her uncle’s barn (Vogl, 1987). She

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.