Margareta Ebner

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Not to be confused with Christina Ebner.
Saint Peter's Square, Vatican City by Pope John Paul II
Feast20 June
AttributesDominican habit

Margareta Ebner (1291 – 20 June 1351) was a

Louis the Bavarian, in which she and her convent faithfully backed Louis.[2]

Ebner's beatification cause began in the 1600s well after her death though stalled for a time until 1910 when the initial process was concluded; Pope John Paul II beatified Ebner in 1979 after confirming her longstanding "cultus" – or popular devotion to her – rather than recognizing a miracle as would be the norm.[3]

Life

Margareta Ebner was born circa 1291 in

Dominican Nuns near Dillingen and made her profession around 1306.[4]

From 1312 to 1325 she suffered a grave illness and in her later Revelations described how she had "no control over herself" and often would laugh or weep on a constant level with sometimes little reprieve. This illness was the stimulus for her conversion to a deeper spiritual life of devotion to

Jesus Christ who graced her with messages.[4] Ebner became prone to further bouts of illness for the remainder of her life. But she could exercise her desire for penance and mortification via abstinence from wine and fruit as well as bathing which were considered some of the greatest pleasures of life in that time.[1][3]

In the 1320s, the perennial feud between pope and Holy Roman Emperor ramped up again. John XXII excommunicated Louis the Bavarian and placed the empire under an interdict; Louis appointed his own pope. The convent's members were forced to disperse for safety during

secular priest Heinrich von Nördlingen assumed her spiritual direction in 1332.[1]

But her confessor was often absent due to his personal allegiance to the pope. The correspondence that passed between them is the first collection of this kind in the

Swabian dialect.[1]

This

theologian and preacher Johannes Tauler as well as Christina Ebner (no relation). Tauler was considered the leader of the spiritual movement dubbed the Friends of God. Through her connection with him she has become identified as part of this movement.[3] From her letters and journal it is learned that she never abandoned her compassion for the Emperor Louis whose soul she learned in a vision had been saved.[citation needed
]

Ebner died on 20 June 1351. Her remains are now interred in her old convent in a chapel that had been constructed in 1755.[4]

Beatification

Ebner's tomb in her old convent.

The beatification cause opened in

Congregation for the Causes of Saints and their consultants approved the cause on 9 May 1978. The C.C.S. alone then approved the cause on 7 November 1978.[citation needed
]

Ebner was beatified on 24 February 1979 after Pope John Paul II confirmed her longstanding and local "cultus" – or popular devotion" – which meant that no miracle would be required for her to be beatified as is the norm.[6][7]

Spiritual works

Ebner's experiences are mainly recorded in the Revelations (or "Offenbarungen") which she composed in 1344–48 with the encouragement of her spiritual advisor Heinrich; it was in this that she recounted the spiritual graces she had received between 1312 and 1348. There are about seven manuscripts which have survived.[1]

There also remain 56 letters that Heinrich had written to Ebner which survive in a single late manuscript though one of her letters to him still survives.[citation needed]

The Revelations preserved in Ebner's own hand became widely known in the 18th century thanks to a selection of her manuscript letters and memoirs compiled by Eustachius Eichenhut. His work is one of the earliest printed expositions of the mystic's doctrines and work.[8]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g "Blessed Margareta Ebner". 13 November 2016. Retrieved 22 April 2017.
  2. OCLC 27267028
    .
  3. ^ a b c d e "Blessed Margareta Ebner". Santi e Beati. Retrieved 22 April 2017.
  4. ^ a b c Rabenstein, K. I. (2003). "Ebner, Margaretha, Bl.". New Catholic Encyclopedia. Gale. Retrieved 22 April 2017 – via Encyclopedia.com.
  5. ^ Index ac status causarum beatificationis servorum dei et canonizationis beatorum (in Latin). Typis polyglottis vaticanis. January 1953. p. 142.
  6. ISBN 9780814647455
    .
  7. ^ "Bl. Margareta Ebner". Catholic.net. Retrieved 2018-06-11.
  8. ^ Ebner, Margaretha (1717). Eisenhut, Eustachius (ed.). Kurtzer Begriff deß Wunderlichen Lebens, Heroischen Tugenden, Himmlischer Gnaden und Einflüsse, Auch Vil-werthen Tods der seeligen Jungfrauen Margarethä Ebnerin, Deß berühmten Jungfrauen Closters Maria-Medingen, Prediger-Ordens Professin. Aus deme Von Ihro'selbst beschribenen Leben herausgezogen Allen andächtigen Christen zum Trost, Auferbauung und Nachfolg in Druck gegeben. Durch F. Eustachium Eysenhuet, Prediger Ordens Priestern (in German). Augsburg.

Further reading

  • Philipp Strauch, Margaretha Ebner und Heinrich von Nördlingen: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der deutschen Mystik (Freiburg/Tübingen: Mohr 1882)
  • Leonard P Hindsley, Margaret Ebner: Major Works, (New York: Paulist Press, 1993)
  • Bernard McGinn, The Flowering of Mysticism, (1998), pp308–314.

External links

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