The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ  

"It was without its equivalent in literature. A few pages of Anne Emmerich upon the Passion, though comparatively attenuated, approached this ideal of supernatural realism and of veridic and exsurrected life. Perhaps, too, certain effusions of Ruysbroeck, seeming to spurt forth in twin jets of black and white flame, were worthy of comparison with the divine befoulment of Grünewald. Hardly, either. Grünewald's masterpiece remained unique. It was at the same time infinite and of earth earthy."--Là-bas (1891) by Joris-Karl Huysmans

"In 1818, weary of his somewhat restless and unsettled life, Clemens Brentano returned to the practice of the Catholic faith and withdrew to the monastery of Dülmen, where he lived for some years in strict seclusion. He took on there the position of secretary to the Catholic visionary nun, the Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, of whom it was said that, during the last 12 years of her life, she could eat no food except Holy Communion, nor take any drink except water, subsisting entirely on the Holy Eucharist. It was claimed that from 1802 until her death, she bore the wounds of the Crown of Thorns, and from 1812, the full stigmata, including a cross over her heart and the wound from the lance. Clemens Brentano made her acquaintance, was converted to the strong faith, and remained at the foot of the stigmatist's bed copying her dictation without embellishment from 1818-1824. When she died, he prepared an index of the visions and revelations from her journal, The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. One of these visions made known by Brentano later led to the discovery of the House of the Virgin Mary in Ephesus by Abbé Julien Gouyet, a French priest, in 1881." --Sholem Stein