Anna Schäffer

Anna Schäffer was born on 18 February 1882 in Mindelstetten, a village in Bavaria in the German Empire, into a poor working-class family. Her father, a carpenter, died in 1896, leaving her mother to raise the children in straitened circumstances. Anna left school in her early teens and worked as a maidservant in local households and later in Regensburg in order to help support her family. From a young age she desired to enter religious life as a missionary sister and set aside what she could from her wages toward the dowry then required for admission to a convent. Her early piety was characterized by devotion to the Passion of Christ and to frequent reception of the sacraments.

On 4 February 1901, while employed at a laundry in Stammham near Ingolstadt, she attempted to reattach a stovepipe above a vat of boiling lye, slipped, and fell into the scalding liquid. She suffered severe burns, particularly to her legs. Prolonged hospital treatment did not bring lasting healing; the wounds remained open and extremely painful. She returned to Mindelstetten permanently disabled and was thereafter confined to bed for the remaining twenty-five years of her life. Further operations and treatments afforded little relief. The accident destroyed her hope of becoming a missionary.

During her long illness Anna came to understand her suffering as a participation in the Passion of Christ and as a form of apostolate in place of the missionary work she could not perform. She spent her days in prayer and, when possible, in receiving Holy Communion. Around 1910 she reported receiving the stigmata, which she tried to conceal. She also spoke of visions of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the saints. Local people and later visitors from a wider area came to her bedside seeking prayer and advice; she wrote many letters of spiritual encouragement. She became a member of the Third Order of Saint Francis. Witnesses described her as patient and even cheerful despite constant pain, poverty, and isolation.

Anna Schäffer died in Mindelstetten on 5 October 1925 after receiving the last rites. She was buried in the village cemetery; her remains were later transferred to the parish church. Popular devotion grew in the decades after her death. The Catholic Church beatified her on 7 March 1999 under Pope John Paul II and canonized her on 21 October 2012 under Pope Benedict XVI. Her feast day is 5 October. She is invoked especially by people with disabilities, by those who have suffered accidents at work, and by the chronically ill.