Light on Light: Illuminations of the Gospel of Jesus Christ from the Mystical Visions of the Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich

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Summary: Book Review--Light on Light
Review: "Light on Light" fulfills the promise of its title by using the visions of an extraordinary mystic, a stigmatic nun who lived in Germany around 1800, to illuminate many aspects of the gospels and enable us to see for the first time scenes from the life of Christ which the Evangelists did not record at all in their brief accounts.
The Church has not passed judgment on the authenticity of these visions, but it has placed its stamp of approval on the sanctity of her life, by approving her cause for beatification including a miraculous healing brought about through her posthumous intervention. Her vocation was to save the living, and the dead in purgatory, by the same sort of redemptive suffering which Christ Himself undertook on the Cross. Like Him, she bore wounds in her hands, feet and side, and an invisible crown of thorns, all of which bled profusely at times.
While suffering in a sick bed in rented lodgings, after her convent was closed, at times she was taken in spirit wherever her labors were needed by the Church, while at other times she was left to view the events of Salvation's history as they unrolled before her inward eye. What she saw was so detailed that the edition of only part of her visions, published under the title, "The Life of Jesus Christ and Biblical Revelations," runs to four volumes and 2,000 pages. That would appear to be the only explanation why they have languished unknown to most Catholics in this country, for they are truly a spiritual treasure trove. By selecting key visions and commenting upon them, Mr. Baruch has done a service in acquainting us with them and showing that they conform to the gospels and to Magisterial teachings set forth in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Papal encyclicals, Apostolic Letters, and similar orthodox pronouncements.
The book embodies both chronological and thematic approaches to the material. The former runs from the teaching of Jesus in the Temple as a 12-year-old, to the beginning of His public ministry upon the death of St. Joseph--even before His baptism--through baptism and His desert experience, to the great miracle of the Wedding at Canaa. At that point, the author deals topically with visions on all the major events and themes of His day-to-day ministry, from His healings and resurrections (yes there were more than the three recorded in the gospels!) to His pardoning of sinners, and from his calling and commissioning of the Apostles, to His teachings on marriage and divorce, on the exploitation of the poor, and on the power of the word "Amen!"
Mr. Baruch switches back to a chronological mode for the culminating events of Jesus' life on earth, beginning with His teachings in the Temple (when the voice of God was heard once again), and His triumphant entry into Jerusalem as Messiah. The event we refer to as "the Last Supper" is broken down into three separate phases: the traditional Seder meal, the foot washing ceremony, and the institution of the Holy Eucharist-which Sister Emmerich saw taking place as a separate ceremony and not as part of the Passover meal. Her description of these events, which Baruch quotes in key parts, is convincing and it is heartening to note that the way the bread and wine is consecrated today is truly the same as it was then.
The last 100 pages are devoted to Christ's Passion, Death and Resurrection. Anyone reading those chapters will understand why Mel Gibson felt compelled to make a movie of the Passion after reading Sister Emmerich's visions. None of us has ever seen a person crucified, and even the movies we have seen showing such scenes-think of Spartacus-have not dwelled sufficiently on the horrors of that form of death to really have penetrated this reviewer, at least, on an emotional level. These visions do capture the ultimate barbarity which man is capable of, capping the agonies which Jesus went through in the Garden of Olives when He took our sins upon Himself, with cruel tortures right from the moment of His arrest, through scouring, to the racking of His body with ropes so that the nails would go through the too-widely spaced nail holes in the Cross.
Fortunately for us, Sister Emmerich's visions didn't stop with the Passion, and Baruch's summary goes right through Christ's descent into Hell, His Resurrection, appearances to His followers, His Ascension, Pentecost, the early days of Christianity, and finally the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The latter is, of course an event not found in the gospels, and it is a bonus for the reader to see in Sister Emmerich's visions a possible explanation of the earliest basis for believing in Mary's assumption into heaven in body as well as soul.
A final word might be added for those concerned about hostile reviews of the Gibson movie in which the charge of anti-Semitism was raised against the movie and its sources: there is absolutely nothing anti-Semitic in the visions set forth in this book or in the commentary thereon. To the contrary, Light on Light should be helpful in the difficult dialogue between Christians and Jews, because it takes pains to point out to Christians why truly pious Jews who were unable to see that Jesus was the Messiah-such as Saul of Tarsus-could reasonably been antagonized by what Jesus said and did to the point of condemning Him in the Sanhedrin and seeking His death. Similarly, Baruch repeatedly cites the Church's teachings exonerating the Jewish people from the charge of deicide-and relates Sister Emmerich's vision of Jesus, on His knees in the Garden of Olives, contemplating His Crucifixion as being necessary to satisfy the demands of His Father with regard to justice for the sins of all mankind, including Christians of our own age.