Anna dropped out of school and worked as a maid from the age of fourteen, hoping eventually to be able to enter a religious order.

[2][3] On February 4, 1901, while working at a laundry, Schäffer slipped and fell while reattaching a stovepipe and boiled her legs in the washing machine.

Ah, I forget my earthly suffering and the longing of my poor soul draws me every moment to adore my God and Savior hidden in the Blessed Sacrament!

Her beatific attitude made her a beloved figure in town and people would often visit her to hear her comforting words of faith.

[6] From 1910 mystical phenomena developed around her, including what could be described as stigmata, which she did her best to conceal from the public,[7] and occasional waking visions which made her ecstatic.

On the morning of October 5, she received her final Holy Communion, and suddenly spoke: "Jesus, I live for you!"

[10] During her beatification, 7 March 1999, Pope John Paul II said: "If we look to Blessed Anna Schäffer, we read in her life a living commentary on what Saint Paul wrote to the Romans: 'Hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us' (Rom.

"[6] In 2012, her notebook, entitled Thoughts and memories of my life of illness and my longing for the eternal homeland, was translated into English.