The revelations of Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich offer a unique insight into the Old Testament and the origins of the Christian faith.
Newsroom (31/01/2026 10:45, Gaudium Press) The publishing house Voz de Papel has just completed an exceptional trilogy with the publication of ‘Los misterios de la Vieja Alianza’ (The Mysteries of the Old Covenant), a work based on the visions of Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich—who was born in 1774 and died in 1824—a German mystic whose revelations continue to inspire believers and scholars around the world.
This book completes a series that began with The Bitter Passion of Christ and continued with The Hidden Life of the Virgin Mary, three volumes that offer a unique look at the mysteries of the Christian faith from the time of Creation to Redemption.
Beatified by St. John Paul II in 2004, Anne Catherine Emmerich is a figure who continues to amaze with her visions and the precision with which she narrated the biblical events she witnessed mystically and spiritually.
A Glimpse of Heaven
From an early age, Anne Catherine showed an unusual spiritual sensitivity. Her father realized he had a special child when, holding her on his lap, he asked her to tell him something and she ended up explaining a passage from the Old Testament in great detail.
At school, her visions also caused a stir.
In a class on the Resurrection, she shared with her classmates what she had seen with her own eyes of the soul, arousing mockery and amazement. A few months later, the teacher decided to send her home: ‘I couldn’t teach her anything,’ he confessed.
At the age of 28, she entered the Augustinian convent of Agnetemberg in Dülmen Westphalia, Germany, after working as a servant and seamstress. It was there that the five wounds of Christ’s Passion began to appear on her body, the famous stigmata, a phenomenon that led to a rigorous investigation and even her imprisonment. However, the natural origin of these wounds could never be determined.
Clement Brentano, the pilgrim chosen by God
In 1817, a German aristocrat, Christian Brentano, heard about a stigmatized nun in Westphalia and decided to visit her. Impressed by what he saw, he encouraged his brother Clement Brentano, a renowned Romantic writer, to meet her.
Upon his arrival, Anne Catherine greeted him with these words: ‘Pilgrim (as she called him), you will live to communicate to the world the visions I have had since childhood, and neither you nor I will die until everything is written.’
The blessed woman affirmed: “So many wonderful communications from the Old and New Testaments, countless pictures from the lives of the Saints, have been given to me by God’s mercy, not only for my own teaching, for I cannot grasp much, but to share, to awaken many things that are now closed and dormant. I know that I would have been dead long ago if the Pilgrim did not have to know everything. He has to write everything down, for the prophecy says that my destiny is to announce the visions. And only when the Pilgrim has put everything in order and has everything ready will he also die.”
From then on, Brentano became her confidant and spokesperson, accompanying her until her death and collecting her revelations in extensive manuscripts which, decades later, would become the famous volumes of her visions.
A spiritual look at the Old Testament
Anne Catherine Emmerich’s visions of the Old Testament, now collected in The Mysteries of the Old Covenant, offer a mystical and symbolic account of the origins of humanity, from the fall of the Angels to the history of the Patriarchs.
According to José María Sánchez de Toca, translator of the work, “From an early age, Ana Catalina had the ability to glimpse a reality that escapes the rest of us humans; she saw the Old and New Testaments day and night and had an instant understanding of the nature of things and the mysteries of creation. For her, there were not two realities, one natural and one supernatural, one visible and one invisible; because for her, both were visible.”
The text of this new book from the publisher La Voz de Papel opens with the fall of the Angels, continues with the creation of the earth, the formation of Adam and Eve, Original Sin and the promise of redemption. It then describes in detail the life of Adam’s descendants, Noah’s flood, the Tower of Babel, the first Egyptian peoples, and goes on to the Patriarchs Melchizedek, Job, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Between heaven and earth
The way in which the Blessed describes her visions is surprising for its precision and honesty. Sánchez de Toca says: “Ana Catalina is a very reliable witness who always makes it clear whether she sees, hears, understands or whether it is an inner understanding; whether it has been made known or understood to her and, if so, who makes it known to her; whether a vision is or is as if, whether something seems to her or whether she really sees it; whether she is seeing in ecstasy or whether she sees while awake. The most frequent word in these visions is “I saw”.
This narrative clarity makes her writings a gateway between the visible and the invisible, where the natural and supernatural worlds intertwine as two inseparable aspects of the same reality created by God.
Surprising confirmations
Over time, many of Blessed Emmerich’s visions have found historical or archaeological confirmation. Sánchez de Toca himself recalls: “What Anne Catherine says is plausible and sounds true. In fact, many visions were confirmed shortly after her death, when Botta made public his excavations in Nineveh. The visions of Mary’s life made it possible, at the end of the 19th century, to find near Ephesus the ruins of the little house where the Virgin lived, just as and where Anne Catherine had described it.”
These discoveries not only strengthened the faith of believers, but also the spiritual credibility of Blessed Anne Catherine, considered one of the most luminous mystics in the history of the Church.
A testimony
The Mysteries of the Old Covenant invite the reader to contemplate sacred history in a new light, through the eyes of a woman who saw ‘the essential unity of creation, where the visible and the invisible are presented as inseparable and complementary aspects,’ according to the translator.
Thus, the complete trilogy of The Voice of Paper (Voz de Papel) —The Bitter Passion of Christ, The Hidden Life of the Virgin Mary, and The Mysteries of the Old Covenant— constitutes a spiritual treasure that unites biblical history with mystical experience, allowing us to understand the faith with the depth of the heart and the gaze of the saints.
Compiled by Sandra Chisholm with files from Religión en Libertad
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