A Dominican at Medingen in Swabia, she spent some twenty years ill, often unable to speak or to move her hands. She had taken up the practice of keeping silence from Thursday evening to Sunday, and through Advent and Lent, and she noted down what that silence did to her. She wrote her Revelations at the urging of a travelling priest, Heinrich von Nördlingen, who wrote her letters.
In their own words
My beloved truth, Jesus Christ, knows it well: silence, and being alone, my soul and my heart love them.
Revelations, in Margaretha Ebner und Heinrich von Nördlingen, ed. Philipp Strauch, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1882, pp. 44-45; Middle High German « daz waiz min genämiu warhait wol, Jhesus Cristus, daz swigen und ain sin min sel und hertz minnet », translated by the Manna team
Silence suited me so well that I was set in a peace of its own when I kept still.
Revelations, in Margaretha Ebner und Heinrich von Nördlingen, ed. Philipp Strauch, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1882, pp. 18-19; Middle High German « nun zam mir swigen als wol, daz ich in sundern frid geseczt wart wan ich swiget », translated by the Manna team
Often, at night, I could not sleep for sheer joy, because of the prayer I meant to make in the morning.
Revelations, in Margaretha Ebner und Heinrich von Nördlingen, ed. Philipp Strauch, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1882, pp. 8-9; Middle High German « ich maht dicke des nahtes niht schlauffen vor rehter fräud uf daz gebet, daz ich den morgen wolt tuon », translated by the Manna team