Victim Souls

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Little_One0307

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Hiya CAF,

I am looking for information on victim souls. Which saints were victim souls? What is the Magisterium’s Teaching regarding victim souls? Any books about victim souls? Just anything having to do with them.

My internet serach did not turn up any results, so I am depending on you guys of CAF.

Thanks in advance.

God bless.
 
Any of the saints who had the stigmata would be considered victim souls. If you go to the New Advent site ( www.newadvent.org ) and do a search on stigmata you’ll get some names. The online encyclopedia is too old however to include St. Padre Pio.
 
Little_One0307 said:
Hiya CAF,

What is the Magisterium’s Teaching regarding victim souls? .
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I don’t know of any doctrine that specifically uses the terms “victim souls”, but the Church’s teachings on the Communion of Saints, Indulgences and vicarious suffering would encompass such persons.

Colossians 1:24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,
 
I believe that Saint Faustina agreed with Jesus to be a “victim soul.”
 
St. Gemma was one victim soul:
“I am happy in every way that Jesus wills, and if Jesus wants the sacrifice of my life, I give it to Him at once. If He wants anything else, I am ready. One thing alone is enough for me; to be his victim, in order to atone for my innumerable sins, and if possible, for those of the whole world.”

Or Marie Rose Ferron, and American mystic/stigmatist:
“She had hardly said these words when she was rapt into ecstasy, and she began to talk [with Jesus] saying: ‘Oh, it is Your Blood that gushes out from my veins?..As for me, I am a mere nothing….nothing….Oh my Jesus!’

There’s a book about her by her spiritual director that might be worth tracking down due to its closeness to its subject:
She Wears a Crown of Thorns: Marie Rose Ferron (1902-1936), known as “Little Rose” the stigmatized ecstatic of Woonsocket, R.I
S.T.L. Rev. O. A. Boyer

Servant of God, Sister Consolata Betrone, was also a 20th-c stigmatist, who had a book made from her writings put together by her spiritual director:
JESUS APPEALS TO THE WORLD: The Unceasing Act of Love Revealed to the Capuchin Nun, Sister Mary Consolata
M.C. Father Lorenzo Sales

For a general overview based on the writings of three modern victim souls and their personal revelations from Jesus about victim soul-ness and how he acts towards people in general:
Words of Love: Revelations of Our Lord to Three Victim Souls in the 20th Century
Bartholomew Gottemoller
about Sr. Josefa Menendez, Sr. Mary of the Trinity, and Sr. Consolata Betrone and has very good reviews on Amazon. Since it’s published by TAN, it’s probably easier to get ahold of than some of the other small-pubbed ones above.
 
There’s a good web site that has several victim souls, both known and unknown: Mystics of the Church.

www.mysticsofthechurch.com

Regarding the post above me, there is the book on the visions of Sister Josefa Menendez, ‘The Way of Divine Love’. TAN has that book available for purchase. It’s been one of their all-time best sellers.

There’s also a neat website on Sister Josefa from France (though the web address comes from Belgium): www.oeuvre-du-sacre-coeur.be/. Some of the entries are in English, though not all. There is a photo section showing her, her parents and her two sisters (both of whom became religious-the one who became a Carmelite was the novice mistress of Sister Lucia of Fatima when she entered in 1948!). There is also a photo of her grave in Poitiers, France-it’s the most visited of all the graves in that cemetery! So she is not at all forgotten!
 
Little_One0307 said:
Hiya CAF,

I am looking for information on victim souls. Which saints were victim souls? What is the Magisterium’s Teaching regarding victim souls? Any books about victim souls? Just anything having to do with them.

My internet serach did not turn up any results, so I am depending on you guys of CAF.

Thanks in advance.

God bless.
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I am sharing the saint that came to my mind most quickly. I read her biography, written by her spiritual director, twice already, and am very inspired by her steadfastness in prayer. She is definitely a victim soul, and offered up her sufferings to save souls. She is St. Gemma Galgani.

stgemmagalgani.com/
 
Thanks guys,

I am going to check this out. I think Hans vons Baltshassar [misspelled his name] wrote a book on victim souls, I cannot find it, if anyone knows of it, please post it.

Please keep posting to this thread if you find anything.

Thanks and God bless.
 
Little_One0307 said:
I am going to check this out. I think Hans vons Baltshassar [misspelled his name] wrote a book on victim souls, I cannot find it, if anyone knows of it, please post it.
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My best guess is you’re thinking of:
First Glance at Adrienne Von Speyr
Hans Urs von Balthasar
Ignatius Press, 249 p.
978-0898700039

“A personal introduction to Adrienne von Speyr, a contemporary Swiss convert, mystic, wife, medical doctor, author and co-foundress of a secular institute. Fr. von Balthasar, her spiritual director for 27 years, includes an appraisal of her contributions to theology and spirituality, a complete bibliography, her prayers, and passages from her more than sixty books.”

Von Balthasar was her spiritual director and confidant.
 
Little_One0307 said:
Hiya CAF,

I am looking for information on victim souls. Which saints were victim souls? What is the Magisterium’s Teaching regarding victim souls? Any books about victim souls? Just anything having to do with them.

My internet serach did not turn up any results, so I am depending on you guys of CAF.

Thanks in advance.

God bless.
Click to expand...
this might be what you are looking for…Mary Crushes the Serpent…

mysticsofthechurch.com/2010/09/mary-crushes-serpent-virgin-marys-role.html
 
“Miserentissimus Redemptor” is an encyclical by Pope Pius XI, about reparation to the Sacred Heart and reparation/victim spirituality. You might find it helpful. That’s about it for magisterial stuff.

This academic article has some interesting stuff about the history of victim soul spirituality. Obviously there’s always been people around who offered up their suffering, but the actual “victim soul” thing is relatively recent. (I can’t find any references to that expression before 1623, but I may not be trying the right European languages.) It really seems to have taken off after WWI, and now has faded and then come back in popularity again.
 
One of the major early exponents of this idea seems to have been a Jesuit guy named Francois Guillore,who uses the expression at least in one of his 1675 books.

His book Self-Renunciation was translated into English in 1877. It’s chock full of victim stuff.
 
Thanks guys,

There’s a lot of reading material here. If you guys have anything else or come across anything else, feel free to post.

Thanks so much.

God bless you.
 
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