Oil Dedicated to St Anna Schaffer

Description

St Anna Schaffer has also been canonised on the 21st October 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI. Her star now shines for the entire catholic church throughout the world. Before she reached her zenith in the heavens of the church, she had to come a long way. It began in her home village of Mindelstetten, where she was born on the 18th February 1882, around 20 km northeast of Ingolstadt. She grew up in a simple working family, the third of six children. From her primary school days onwards she brought home very good marks.

That is where the accident happened which upset the plan for her entire life. It was the 4th February 1901, the day for the laundry. Together with another employee Anna was dealing with the washing, which was boiled within a kettle. The stovepipe had come loose, Anna climbed onto the rim of the kettle in order to deal with the damage. She slipped and fell into the kettle holding the boiling suds and scalded both legs up to the knees. She was brought to the district’s hospital near Kösching.

With the accident a life of intense suffering began for Anna. The initial pains of her burns never left her again. The legs did not heal. Open holes remained which festered permanently. Even though her general practitioner regularly cared for her, he was not able to change anything about her state of health. Not even two sojourns – several months each – in the university clinic of Erlangen brought any results. The therapies applied there were so very painful, that on reflection Anna was filled with horror. The joints of her feet, which had stiffened due to long periods of immobility, were more than once forcefully broken and forcibly bent to make increase mobility. Again without any success.