Sr. Anna Ali's Effusion of Tears of Blood

Sr. Anna Ali started her night vigil of prayers at 10.00 pm every day. From
midnight of Wednesday and the whole Thursday she shed tears of
blood. This phenomenon of effusion of tears started on the Feast of
Corpus Christi 1988 after she had seen an apparition of Jesus in tears
of blood. Our Lord said to Sr. Anna, “My daughter, speak when you
are amid tears. Pray and make others pray, sacrifice, atone. In this
way God’s anger will be appeased.”

In his examination of the cause of “Tears of Blood and Bloody
Sweat”, Jordan Auman O.P. states that the effusion of blood from
the pores of the skin especially on the face and forehead or a bloody
effusion from the eyes after the manner of tears may have a medical
explanation. In medical terms bloody sweat is called hematidros.
.But according to Dr. Gino, this phenomenon is different from that of
“tears of blood.”

There are all sorts of theories as to the cause of this bloody sweat.
However, Fr. Auman (Auman 1980) believes that it must be admitted
that the bloody sweat can be caused by natural or supernatural powers.
Fr. Auman does not ascribe, in general, either natural or supernatural
causes to the phenomenon of bloody sweat. His cautious position is
proper. A good judgement can only be made after a thorough study
of each case. The phenomenon could also have a diabolical origin.
What can the devil not do to the human body! One should be aware
of this as one examines the issue of tears of blood.

Most thinkers, may argue that such a phenomenon in
some ways seems closely connected with other states of mind; in
other words, it may have a dubious psychological and physiological
origin.

In the book Religion and Medicine: The Moral Control of Nervous
Disorder (Worcester et al. 1908), it is stated that mystical phenomenon
of the sort are simply due to auto-suggestion. By auto-suggestion
here is meant “a ‘hint’ offered by the self to the self”. Out of this
arises a mental state of heightened suggestibility. Thus by this view,
the transcendental visions of Swedenbourg, “his angels and demons,
heavens and hells” are but elaborate and profound auto-suggestions.

According to Dr. Samuel McComb (Worcester et al. 1908), the
stigmatization of St. Francis of Assisi, St. Catherine of Sienna and
Louise Lateau are clearly cases resulting from self-suggestion; a
phenomenon inexplicable to psysiology.

Dr. McComb’s explanation of the cause of mystical phenomena
was fashionable in his time. Sigmund Freud at this time too brought
psycho-analysis into his analysis of religion. Incidentally there are
psycho-analysts who still hold the views of Dr. McComb today but
their theory apart from being dogmatic is fallacious for they pick a
few cases wherein mental states affect bodily states to propound the
theory that mystical phenomena are results of self-suggestion.

In his book ‘Uses and Abuses of Psychology’, H.J. Eysenck (1955,
pp.236-237) has similarly pointed out that Freud was guilty of
over-generalization in his psycho-analysis for “he thought to have
divined universal truth from an extremely unrepresentative sample
of human beings... Malinowsky has shown with a wealth of detailed
illustrations that Freudian theories are very strongly culture-bound
and have to undergo considerable modification if they are to be
applied in any way to other groups and before findings are extended
beyond the group on which they were originally established there
must be acceptable proof that such extension is warranted.”

Dr. McComb’s theory must be at least false in many cases of religious
experience for it cannot, for example, explain how the mysterious
figure Sr. Anna saw several times in the night was able to transmit
into the memory of this young girl of limited education the content
of this book.

According to Sr. Anna Ali, “the Lord simply dictates the messages to
me and then walks away leaving me to write down what I heard
from Him.” Swedenborg’s visions of eternal dimensions might have
been due to auto-suggestion but Sr. Anna’s visions of the Blessed
Hosts and Jesus and the photographs which are evidences of these
apparitions render the theory of auto-suggestion if not wholly false
at least antiquated and incapable of explaining varieties of religious
experience.

Sr. Anna Ali shed tears of blood from the midnight of every Wednesday
and during the whole of Thursday. Psychologically one might be
quick to conclude that the effect of her visions of Jesus in bloody
tears was so profound in her imaginative faculty that it is now the
cause of her own effusion of tears of blood – a psychological theory
of suggestibility can easily be evoked here to dismiss a genuine
cause of Sr. Anna’s case.

But the regularity with which her tears of blood occurred since the 

solemn Feast of Corpus Christi in 1988 until death for every
midnight on Wednesday to the end of Thursday  puts a question 

mark on the theory of suggestion. Here we must ask a psychological 

question (thanks to Padre Pio’s humour about his stigmata): If a 

person looks at the horn of a bull and is overly emotional and taken 

aghast that a living animal would carry what seems like woods 

on its head, would the resultant psychological state produce bull 

horns on the man’s head? Why would suggestibility not work in 

this respect? Why can’t a person grow horns on his head by the 

sheer process of strong imagination?

We can imagine a woman depressed on account of the death of her
dear son but it is not possible that the woman will be sad every week
at the exact time the child died and for the same duration of time
she was first sad. It is this weekly character of Sr. Anna’s effusion
of blood of tears for some years now that removes the phenomenon
from the sphere of psychology. Furthermore it is not possible for a
person to lose that quantity of blood every week and still remain
healthy. This can only happen by a special arrangement of Divine
Providence.

When Dr. Gino De Blasi, the medical doctor of Sr. Anna, was asked to
give a report on Sr. Anna’s effusion of bloody tears he decided
instead to write a testimony of another phenomenon which he and
many other persons had observed in Sr. Anna’s room particularly
between Wednesdays to Thursdays. This phenomenon is that of
“a very intense fragrance, very fresh”. The sweet perfume often
pervaded her room and the apartment where she lived.

Jude O. Mbukanna O.P.

London

15th January 1992