Margareta Ebner

Margareta Ebner (1291 – 20 June 1351) was a German professed religious from the Dominican Nuns. Beginning in 1311, Ebner experienced a series of spiritual visions in which Jesus Christ gave her messages which she recorded in letters and a journal at the behest of her spiritual director. Much of Ebner's religious life took place amidst a period of bitter feuding between Pope John XXII and Holy Roman Emperor Louis the Bavarian, in which she and her convent faithfully backed Louis.

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.

Life Margareta Ebner was born circa 1291 in Donauwörth to aristocratics; she received a thorough education in her home.

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 God. Historians assigned to the cause also approved it on 12 June 1963 before the 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.

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.

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.