Christina was born in 1242 to a peasant family in the village of Stommeln near Cologne. From early childhood she experienced mystical-ecstatic phenomena — visions of Christ, conversations with the Blessed Virgin, and spiritual disciplines that set her apart from her village neighbours.
At the age of 13, in 1255, she undertook the Beguine vocation, travelling to Cologne to join the Beguine community there. After difficulty adjusting to the communal Beguine life, she returned to her native Stommeln and undertook the vocation of the solitary lay-Beguine, living in her parents' house and later in a simple lay-Beguine hermit-arrangement in the Stommeln village.
Christina experienced extraordinarily intense mystical-ecstatic phenomena throughout her adult life: visions of Christ's Passion, stigmata, Eucharistic-mystical experiences, demonic-tempting apparitions (including the famous 'diabolic assaults' documented in her Vita), and levitations.
Her literary-institutional legacy is produced by the personal correspondence and multi-year visits of the Swedish Dominican Peter of Dacia (c. 1235–1289) — the Swedish Dominican scholar who studied at the Cologne Dominican studium under St. Albert the Great and who became spiritually captivated by Christina.
Peter of Dacia undertook multiple pastoral-spiritual visits to Christina at Stommeln from 1267 to Peter's death in 1289 — documenting Christina's mystical-ecstatic experiences in the Latin Vita Christinae Stumbelensis (Life of Christina of Stommeln), one of the principal Latin Rhineland women's-mystical hagiographical texts of the late 13th century.
Christina died at Stommeln on November 6, 1312. Her relics were translated to the Church of St. Nicholas at Jülich in 1342 by Duke William V of Jülich, where they remain in continuous Catholic veneration.