The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ

The Mystical Visions of the Last Hours of Jesus Christ

This is an account of the events leading up to the Crucifixion of Christ by a 19th century German stigmatic and visionary, Anne Catherine Emmerich.

This once-obscure book recently achieved a much higher profile because it was used as an inspiration for the screenplay of Mel Gibson's controversial movie, The Passion of the Christ.

A riveting account of this pivotal event, the story is told with great attention to small details, many not mentioned in the Gospels. This is not a novelization; it is a recounting of Emmerich's ecstatic visions, which were accompanied by painful and mysterious physical torments. Emmerich was practically illiterate and this book was dictated by her, which makes the fact that the narrative is so internally coherent all the more compelling.

Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich was a Roman Catholic Augustinian Canoness Regular of Windesheim, mystic, Marian visionary, ecstatic and stigmatist.

She was born in Flamschen, a farming community at Coesfeld, in the Diocese of Munster, Westphalia, Germany, and died at age 49 in Dulmen, where she had been a nun, and later became bedridden. Emmerich is notable for her visions on the life and passion of Jesus Christ, reputed to be revealed to her by the Blessed Virgin Mary under religious ecstasy.

During her bedridden years, a number of well-known figures were inspired to visit her. The poet Clemens Brentano interviewed her at length and wrote two books based on his notes of her visions. The authenticity of Brentano's writings has been questioned and critics have characterized the books as "conscious elaborations by a poet" and a "well-intentioned fraud" by Brentano.

Emmerich was beatified on 3 October 2004, by Pope John Paul II. However, the Vatican focused on her own personal piety rather than the religious writings associated to her by Clemens Brentano. Her documents of postulation towards canonization is handled by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter.