Therese Neumann: Faithful Flock To See Good Friday Phenomena

1950

ANNUAL TREK SINCE 1926

Faithful Flock To See Good Friday Phenomena

KONNERSREUTH, Germany, April 8 (AP) -- Thousands of faithful flocked here Friday to see a sleeping German woman, with blood apparently oozing from her eyes and palms as it has every Good Friday since 1926.

Americans and Germans filed for hours past the bed of 52-year-old Therese Neumann.

In her trances she experiences the agonies of Christ on the cross, according to the story told.

Miss Neumann has gone without food or water for many years.

The local priest, Rev. Josef Naber, said, "Of course there cannot be the slightest question about it. I have been here in this town for 40 years and have known Therese Neumann since she was a school girl. She neither eats, nor drinks. It has been confirmed by a doctor and two nurses, who once watched her day and night for two weeks. At the end of that period she had lost no weight. It is a very extraordinary thing. Who can explain it?"

The Vatican said they had no direct knowledge of this, but added that the Vatican does not normally make pronouncements on such phenomena. They leave it to the local hierarchy.

A similar manifestation was recorded in the life of St. Francis of Assisi. Others have been subject to these "blessed stigmata" as well.

As for Miss Neumann, between her trances she lives a fairly normal life, doing light work around her home and in nearby fields.

--Winnipeg Free Press, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, April 8, 1950, page 9, rewritten except the first two paragraphs.

Comment: This link refers to the book pictured above. Plus, here, you can read a chapter from Paramahansa Yogananda's "Autobiography of a Yogi," in which he describes a visit made to Therese Neumann in the 1930s.