Victim souls

A precise definition, not a devotional fantasy

The term "victim soul" — "anima vittima", "victim soul" — is not a canonical category of the Church. It is a traditional spiritual expression denoting a particular vocation within the communion of saints. It can be described using three markers — offered here as an explanatory framework, not as a definition promulgated by the Church:

1. A conscious, free, baptized person, ordinarily living in a state of sanctifying grace.
2. An explicit offering of oneself to God, made under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and most often with the approval of a spiritual director, in order to unite oneself to the Passion of Christ and obtain graces of salvation, reparation, or consolation.
3. An effective acceptance of supernatural sufferings — moral, physical, or mystical — that God sends or permits, to a greater degree than the average of the faithful.

Fr. John Hardon, in his Modern Catholic Dictionary, adds the central motive: the victim soul "is moved by a deep love of God and by the desire to make reparation for the sins of humanity"^[2]. And the Catholic Encyclopedia (Thomas Slater, art. "Reparation") teaches that the grace of Christ makes it possible to add our prayers, works, and trials to his and, through the communion of saints, to make reparation also for the sins of others^[3].

The word "victim" comes from the Latin victima, which designates the living being offered in sacrifice^[4]. In Christianity, the only perfect victim is Christ himself — Eucharistic Prayer I (the Roman Canon) proclaims him "Hostiam puram, hostiam sanctam, hostiam immaculatam" (a pure victim, a holy victim, a spotless victim)^[5]. The victim soul does not come to take the place of Christ: it comes in him and through him, as a member of the Mystical Body enters into the movement of the Head.

What the victim soul is NOT

To understand the vocation correctly, one must at once set aside four misunderstandings that circulate in the modern imagination — and sometimes even in fervent Catholic circles.

First misunderstanding: the victim soul does not complete the Redemption of Christ as though it were insufficient. Yet Saint Paul states the boldest of ideas — "I make up for what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for his body, which is the Church" (Col 1:24)^[6]. The exegetical tradition sees in this not a lack in the infinite value of the Cross, but a lack on the side of its application in history during the time of the Church — a received interpretive reading (an exegetical hypothesis, not an immediate clarification by the Apostle; see the discussion below). The Catechism, for its part, teaches that the Cross is the one sacrifice of Christ, the "one mediator between God and men," and that Christ "offers all men […] the possibility of being associated with his paschal mystery"^[7]: this association takes place within and through the Mystical Body.

Second misunderstanding: the victim soul is not spiritual masochism. It does not seek pain for its own sake. The masters of the spiritual life warn against penances undertaken without the guidance of a prudent director^[8].

All serious Catholic mysticism demands, before any victim offering, obedience to a confessor and to the Church — without which the suffering offered risks straying into illusion.

Third misunderstanding: one does not declare oneself a victim soul. It is God who calls, and the person who consents. As Jesus said to Sister Josefa Menendez: "I repeat it to you, abandon yourself to my Love. I want you to be the victim of divine Justice and the relief of my Love. I will immolate you, but with arrows of Love" — it is Christ who speaks first^[9]. A proud self-designation would be precisely the sign that the vocation is not authentic.

Fourth misunderstanding: the vocation of a victim soul does not erase Christian joy. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, even in illness, bears witness to a deep peace in the midst of trial; Saint Gemma Galgani, who shares in the Passion, is described by those around her as filled with joy. (The precise formulations sometimes quoted — a word of Thérèse on trial and joy, a nickname of Gemma — could not be authenticated on any letter, interview, or dated testimony: they are withdrawn pending their exact source.) Authentic Catholic victimhood is permeated by the peace of the Holy Spirit, even in the heart of the most violent pains.

Extreme vocation, ordinary co-redemption

We must now hold together two truths. The first: the vocation of a victim soul in the strong sense, with associated mystical phenomena (stigmata, inedia, the revivification of the Passion), is rare and calls for rigorous ecclesial discernment. Not all the baptized are called to become Padre Pio, Marthe Robin, or Anna Schäffer.

The second: every baptized person, on the other hand, is called to an ordinary form of co-redemption. Saint Paul writes it explicitly to all the Romans: "I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God: this is your spiritual worship" (Rom 12:1)^[10]. And the Second Vatican Council, in Lumen Gentium §34, applies this injunction to all the laity: "All their activities, their prayers and apostolic endeavors, their married and family life, their daily work, their relaxation of mind and body, if they are lived in the Spirit of God, and even the trials of life, if they are borne with patience, become spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ"^[11].

The extreme vocation and ordinary co-redemption are not opposed: the former is the limit-case extension of the latter. To understand victim souls, then, is first of all to understand that freely offered suffering is, in Christianity, a real act of love — not a pathological detour.

Isaiah 53: the Suffering Servant

The founding text of all Christian theology of redemptive suffering is the fourth Song of the Servant of the Lord, in Isaiah 52:13 — 53:12. The prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz — whom tradition holds to be the author of the book, in the eighth century before Jesus Christ, more than seven hundred years before his birth — describes there a mysterious figure who suffers "for us":

"Yet it was our sufferings that he bore, our sorrows that he bore the burden of. And we, we considered him punished, struck down by God and humiliated. But he, he was pierced because of our crimes, crushed because of our faults. The punishment that wins us peace fell upon him, and it is by his wounds that we are healed." — Isaiah 53:4-5^[12]

The central concept here is redemptive substitution: an innocent being takes upon himself the penalty owed by the guilty, and his innocence repairs what the guilty could not repair. The ancient Jewish readings of this passage are diverse and debated — applied to Israel, to a prophet, or to the Messiah depending on the texts and the periods, and they cannot be summarized here without their own references. The Christian Church, from the earliest centuries, read it as the most precise prophecy of the Passion of Christ^[13]. Jesus himself applies to himself this mystery of the gift of his life "as a ransom for the multitude" (Mark 10:45), a word that the exegetical tradition theologically relates to Isaiah 53^[14].

Drawing on this text, spiritual theology identifies three reference points for the vicarious offering — a theological synthesis, not literal statements of the passage: (1) suffering offered for others presupposes a person in a state of grace — the innocent one or the sinner made righteous —, failing which it remains first and foremost expiation for oneself; (2) it is worth not by its quantity but by the love that animates it — Isaiah 53:12 emphasizes that the Servant "himself gave himself up"; (3) its fruit is received in faith — "it is by his wounds that we are healed.". The precise conditions of the merit and the application of these fruits belong to the theology of grace, which this passage illuminates without treating it by itself.

Christ, the sole Redeemer

Before any discourse on co-redemption, the Church affirms with firmness: there is only one Redeemer. Saint Paul writes to Timothy in a canonical formula: "There is one God, one also mediator between God and men: a man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all" (1 Tim 2:5-6)^[15]. And the Letter to the Hebrews insists: "It is by this title that he saves, definitively, those who through him draw near to God, since he is always alive to intercede in their favor" (Heb 7:25)^[16].

This affirmation is the non-negotiable axis of all Catholic mysticism. When Saint Thérèse of Lisieux writes that she wishes to be a "holocaust victim of Merciful Love", she is not saying that she supplements the Cross quantitatively — she is saying that she wishes to enter into the single redemptive movement by which Christ continues, through his mystical Body, to save the world.

Saint Anselm of Canterbury had shown this as early as the eleventh century in Cur Deus Homo: only an offering both human (to make reparation as man) and divine (to have infinite value) could satisfy the justice violated by sin^[17]. That offering is Christ. No one else can make it. The victim soul adds nothing to the infinite value of the Cross: it is the Cross prolonging its presence in the time of men.

Saint Paul and "what is lacking" (Col 1:24)

The whole Christian theology of co-redemption is contained in a single sentence of Saint Paul, one of the most dizzying in the New Testament:

"Now I find joy in the sufferings I bear for you; what remains to be suffered of the trials of Christ in my own flesh, I accomplish for his body which is the Church." — Saint Paul, Colossians 1:24^[18]

The formula is so strong that it troubled commentators: what could possibly be "lacking" to the Passion of Christ? Several Fathers and Doctors — including Saint Augustine and Saint John Chrysostom, followed by Saint Thomas Aquinas — offer a converging reading, each with their own formulations: what is lacking is not the intrinsic value of the sacrifice, which is infinite, but its reception by each man and by each generation. Saint Thomas explains, in substance, that the sufferings of Christ, superabundant for redemption, are applied to souls through the sufferings of the members of his mystical Body^[19].

Pope John Paul II meditated at length on this sentence in his apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris (1984), a founding text of contemporary theology of suffering:

"In the Cross of Christ, not only has Redemption been accomplished through suffering, but human suffering itself has been redeemed. [...] Each one is called also to share in the suffering by which the Redemption was accomplished. He is called to share in the suffering by which all human suffering has also been redeemed." — Saint John Paul II, Salvifici Doloris, §19^[20]

It is this sentence that opens up the possibility of the vocation of victim soul in the technical sense: not because the Cross would be incomplete, but because Christ willed that his members should themselves enter into his saving act, as a single Body that takes charge of the salvation of the world.

The mystical Body: the theological key

Without the doctrine of the mystical Body, the vocation of victim soul would be incomprehensible and even shocking. With it, it becomes luminous. Saint Paul writes to the Corinthians: "You are the body of Christ, and each in your part you are the members" (1 Cor 12:27)^[21]. And a little above: "If one member suffers, all the members suffer with him" (1 Cor 12:26)^[22].

The encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi of Pius XII (29 June 1943) formalized this doctrine: the risen Christ remains so united to the baptized that what they suffer, he suffers in them; and what they offer, he receives as his own. The Pope teaches there that the members of the mystical Body thus cooperate in the salvation of their brethren^[23]. This admirable exchange is the theological basis of all Christian co-redemption, from the unknown martyr to Padre Pio.

The victim soul, in this perspective, is no longer a strange figure: it is the mystical explosion of what every baptized person already is at bottom, without knowing it. It reveals to the world what the Body of Christ truly is: an organism where the good and the evil of each resound in all, and where the free love of one can obtain grace for many.

Recap: Justice and Mercy reconciled in the Cross

The article God of Justice and Mercy showed that divine Justice is not the opposite of divine Mercy: both attributes proceed from the same infinite Love. Justice takes seriously man's freedom and the gravity of sin; Mercy transcends Justice without violating it, by giving more than what was strictly owed. The Cross of Christ is the place where, according to the image of the Psalm, Justice and Peace "embraced each other" (Ps 84:11)^[24]: theology sees there also the meeting of Justice and Mercy — a theological application, not a literal quotation of the verse, which names justice and peace. The debt of sin is there paid in full, and it is precisely this satisfaction that opens the way to free forgiveness.

But then, if the Cross suffices in itself, why does God still seek victim souls?

The answer lies in a crucial distinction. The Cross suffices objectively (ex parte Christi): Redemption is accomplished once and for all. It does not yet suffice subjectively (ex parte hominum): it must be applied and freely received — and, for those who resist grace, the intercession of the members of the Church can obtain the graces that will dispose them to welcome it. Saint Augustine expressed this in a pithy formula: "He who created you without you will not justify you without you"^[25] (often rendered in French as "will not save you without you"). The victim soul thus intercedes so that the sinner may receive the grace of conversion: it does not consent in his place — personal consent to grace remains irreplaceable — it obtains that he may, in turn, freely say yes.

This is precisely what the victim soul does: it says yes to God for those who say no, and it accepts to suffer what sinners refuse to suffer, so that grace may reach them nonetheless.

The spiritual lightning rod

The image most used by the mystics to describe this vocation is that of the lightning rod. As the lightning rod attracts the lightning to preserve the building, the victim soul "draws" upon itself the punishments that would otherwise weigh upon sinners, to relieve them and give them time for conversion.

This image must not be read in a transactional or magical sense. God is not a celestial bookkeeper who would say: "So much pain here, so much absolution there." The logic is that of communion: through the victim who offers his or her suffering united to that of Christ, grace circulates in the Mystical Body and reaches souls it would not otherwise have reached. The Eternal Father says this to Saint Catherine of Siena in The Dialogue:

"Suffer these trials with true patience, with sincere sorrow for all that offends me, with ardent love for all that can glorify my name. You will thus make satisfaction for your own faults and for those of my other servants. Your pains, made efficacious by the power of charity, will be able to expiate and to merit for you and for others." — The Eternal Father to Saint Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue, Treatise on Discretion, IV, 7^[26]

The key phrase here is "made efficacious by the power of charity." It is not suffering in itself that repairs; it is the love that passes through it. The same suffering, borne without love, would save no one; offered with love, it enters into the one redemptive movement of the Cross.

Disarming justice, liberating mercy

Several approved mystics report that Jesus explicitly asked them to become "victims to appease divine Justice." Padre Pio heard this from the lips of Christ as early as his youth:

"My son, I need victims to appease the just and divine wrath of my Father; renew for me the sacrifice of your whole self, and do so without any reserve." — Jesus to Saint Padre Pio, letter to Fr. Agostino, Pietrelcina, March 12, 1913^[27]

According to the biographical literature, Mother Yvonne-Aimée de Malestroit received a request of the same kind — the choice of victims to appease divine Justice, to which she could consent^[28].

Sister Josefa Menendez, a Religious of the Sacred Heart, received an even more direct formulation about the arrows of Love:

"I repeat it to you: abandon yourself to my Love. I want you to be the victim of divine Justice and the relief of my Love. I will immolate you, but with arrows of Love." — Jesus to Sister Josefa Menendez, Un appel à l'Amour, Œuvre du Sacré-Cœur, 2014, p. 65^[29]

And Luisa Piccarreta, whose Book of Heaven contains dozens of pages on this vocation, wrote as early as 1899 what Jesus asked of her:

"My daughter, like me, you are a victim. Let all your actions shine with the same pure and holy intentions as mine so that, seeing my own image in you, I may freely flood you with my graces and, thus adorned, I may present you as an odoriferous victim to divine Justice." — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, Le Livre du Ciel, vol. 2, July 4, 1899^[30]

The vocabulary of these texts is anything but abstract. "Appease my justice," "divine wrath of my Father," "odoriferous victim to divine Justice" — these expressions, which might shock a modern reader concerned with "unconditional mercy," are in fact consistent with classic Catholic doctrine as recalled by the article God of Justice and Mercy: God is just, his Justice is real, and the punishments that befall humanity are not arbitrary acts but the just consequences of sin — which God, in his Love, would wish to spare if only he found souls to offer themselves.

The victim soul therefore does not change God; it aligns itself with God. It disarms Justice in the sense that, through its offered charity, it obtains from the Father that he withhold his wrath and pour out instead his Mercy upon sinners. In the spirit of Saint Alphonsus Liguori, who meditates in Preparation for Death on the intercession of the just on behalf of sinners, a just person can obtain for them what they do not obtain by themselves^[31].

The vocation of victim souls is not a recent invention. It can be traced almost without interruption from the earliest centuries of Christianity down to our own day.

The forerunners: martyrs and early ascetics

The first Christian "victims" are the martyrs. Around the year 110, Saint Ignatius of Antioch writes to the Romans as he goes up to his execution, and gives his own death an explicitly Eucharistic meaning:

"I am the wheat of God, and I am ground by the teeth of the beasts to become a pure bread of Christ." — Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Romans, IV, 1 (c. 110)^[32]

His suffering seeks to become hostia — an offering, a sacrifice pleasing to God in union with Christ. This is, in substance, the definition of a victim soul, well before the expression took root in modern spiritual vocabulary.

The desert hermits (Saint Anthony, Saint Macarius, the Desert Fathers of Egypt in the 4th century) extended this intuition in a non-bloody setting: penance, fasting and unceasing prayer become a "white martyrdom.". Saint Athanasius, in the Life of Anthony, shows Anthony confronting the attacks of the demon and sustaining by his struggle the brothers who turn to him^[33] — an ancient figure of suffering offered for others, though one cannot read into it the whole doctrine of vicarious offering.

Catherine of Siena and Angela of Foligno: 13th–14th centuries

In the Middle Ages, two figures stand out. Saint Catherine of Siena (1347–1380), Doctor of the Church, bears in her body the pains of the Passion without visible stigmata and undergoes prolonged fasts, living almost entirely on the Eucharist according to her biographers. Through her letters, her initiatives and her prayer offered, she contributes to the return of the popes from Avignon to Rome (Gregory XI, 1377) — without this historical event being reducible to the sole efficacy of her sufferings. Her Dialogue, dictated to her secretaries, contains central pages on vicarious suffering: the Eternal Father shows her how a just soul can "make reparation for many," in the likeness of Moses interceding for the faithless people (Ex 32:32)^[34].

Saint Angela of Foligno (1248–1309), a great Franciscan mystic, reports in her Book a word of Christ that establishes her as an expiatory soul:

"Many souls offend me; you shall be their expiation." — Christ to Saint Angela of Foligno, Book of Visions and Instructions^[35]

The biographical tradition attributes to her a prolonged interior participation in the Passion. Her spirituality, profoundly Christocentric, prepares the way for the French school of the 17th century.

The French school of the 17th century: Marie des Vallées

17th-century France is the golden age of Catholic spirituality of reparation. Three great names: Cardinal de Bérulle (1575–1629), Saint John Eudes (1601–1680) and Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort (1673–1716). All three insist on the need, for the baptized, to "give themselves over" to Christ like a living host.

But the most striking figure of this period is a laywoman, a peasant, and largely forgotten: Marie des Vallées (1590–1656). According to the biography written by Saint John Eudes, she came from the Coutances region, was marked in youth by a grave personal trial, and then endured diabolical assaults of unheard-of violence that exorcisms could not appease. Gradually understanding that God was asking her to offer these trials in expiation for France, she accepted and lived for many years as an expiatory soul for the sins of the kingdom, under the spiritual direction first of Jean de Bernières, then of Saint John Eudes himself, author of her Admirable Life^[36].

Marie des Vallées was never canonized. The Catholic Encyclopedia (Georges Goyau, art. "Coutances") names her "Marie des Vallées, the demoniac" (d. 1656), whose words were gathered in four volumes by Fr. Eudes, who had exorcised her^[37]. She was contested during her lifetime — including by some theologians who saw in her case the work of the demon, where John Eudes saw the work of God. The case divided opinion down to the 19th century. Modern historiography studies her as one of the notable figures of 17th-century French mysticism, alongside the Blessed Marie of the Incarnation (Barbe Acarie, 1566–1618)^[38]. And above all, she is among the first Western figures to live explicitly the spirituality of the voluntary expiatory victim, which would unfold in the following centuries — without her being credited with an absolute priority over the earlier figures presented in this article.

The 19th century: reparation devotion spreads

The 19th century is the one in which reparation to the Sacred Heart becomes a popular devotion, following the revelations to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque (Paray-le-Monial, 1673–1675), which the Church gradually authenticates. There Christ explicitly asks for "souls who will make reparation" for the outrages done to his Heart.

Sister Marie of Saint Peter of the Holy Family (1816–1848), a Discalced Carmelite in Tours, receives in 1843 revelations asking for public reparation for blasphemies and the desecration of Sunday, through devotion to the Holy Face. The sister explicitly saw herself as a "victim of expiation" and offered herself as such. Entering the Carmel in 1839, she lived there nine years and died at the age of 31 on 8 July 1848. It is a layman, Léon Papin-Dupont (1797–1876), known as "the holy Man of Tours," who continues her mission and establishes devotion to the Holy Face throughout the Catholic world^[39]. Saint Pius X approves the devotion to the Holy Face; Leo XIII erects its archconfraternity in 1885.

Sister Marie-Marthe Chambon (1841–1907), a Visitandine of Chambéry, reports from 1866 until her death revelations concerning the Holy Wounds of Christ — nearly forty years according to the biographical notices, which place in 1874 stigmata that remained invisible (to be verified against the work of Chambéry). She offers herself as a victim for sinners and the souls of purgatory. The Chaplet of the Holy Wounds is approved for the Institute of the Visitation in 1912, and its use is then extended by the Sacred Penitentiary on 8 February 1924^[40] — the approval of a prayer, which does not amount to recognition of the revelations themselves. Her cause for beatification has been opened; she is today a Servant of God.

To these two figures is added a whole family of reparative religious: the Society of the Sacred Heart (Saint Madeleine-Sophie Barat, 1779–1865), and other reparative institutes of the 19th century (precise foundations and dates to be checked against their own entries). The 19th century is, throughout the Church, a century of vocations of reparation, into which fits the decisive new development of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux.

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux: the revolution of Merciful Love

The Jansenist context: the fear of Justice

At the end of the nineteenth century, French spirituality remains steeped in Jansenism — that distortion which presents God first and foremost as a severe judge, and the Christian life as a terrified effort to escape His wrath. This mindset, condemned on several occasions by Rome (the bulls Cum occasione of 1653 and Unigenitus of 1713), nevertheless survives in part of the preaching and popular devotion. Its practical consequence is plain to see: one offers oneself as "a victim to the Justice of God," but often while trembling. Without the vocation itself being called into question — Thérèse would describe this offering as "great and generous" — certain sermons give it a tone of fear that can drive souls away rather than draw them in.

It is this context that a young, frail Carmelite of Lisieux is going to overturn in a few lines — without being aware of it.

The intuition of 9 June 1895

On 9 June 1895, the Feast of the Holy Trinity, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux attends Mass at the Carmel. She is 22 years old. She knows of the offerings of souls "to the Justice of God" practised in her day — so as to avert the punishments reserved for the guilty — and she wonders. Does not the merciful Love of God also demand such victims? Here is her own account in Manuscript A:

"I thought of the souls who offer themselves as victims to the Justice of God in order to turn away and draw upon themselves the punishments reserved for the guilty; this offering seemed to me great and generous, but I was far from feeling drawn to make it. 'O my God!' I cried out from the depths of my heart, 'will it be only Your Justice that receives souls immolating themselves as victims?... Does not Your Merciful Love need them too? [...] If Your Justice loves to unburden itself, it which extends only over the earth, how much more does Your Merciful Love desire to set souls ablaze, since Your Mercy reaches up to the Heavens... O my Jesus! let it be I who am this happy victim, consume Your holocaust by the fire of Your Divine Love!'" — Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, Autobiographical Manuscripts — Ms A, June 1895^[41]

The turning point lies in the formula: "victim to Merciful Love," not "to Justice." Thérèse does not refuse divine justice; with a flash of intuition she perceives that Merciful Love desires even more to give itself to souls than Justice desires to chastise them — and that it lacks, paradoxically, "souls to receive it."

The text of the Offering

On that same 9 June 1895, she draws up the Act of Offering of Myself to the Merciful Love of the Good God (the autograph bears this date); on 11 June, she makes this offering together with her sister Céline. The text is short, but it turns the mysticism of victimhood on its head:

"In order to live in an act of perfect Love, I offer myself as a victim of holocaust to Your Merciful Love, beseeching You to consume me without ceasing, letting the floods of infinite tenderness that are contained in You overflow into my soul, and that thus I may become a Martyr of Your Love, O my God!" — Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, Offering of Myself to Merciful Love, 11 June 1895^[42]

A few days later, during the Way of the Cross on 14 June, Thérèse is seized by a "wound of Love" so intense that she believes she will die. She will speak of it only in half-words. But from that day on, her spiritual life is transformed: she knows herself to be received, enkindled, consumed by this Love she has invoked. She would write in Manuscript B:

"To satisfy Divine Justice, perfect victims were needed, but the law of fear has given way to the law of Love, and Love has chosen me as a holocaust, me, a weak and imperfect creature... Is this choice not worthy of Love?" — Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, Autobiographical Manuscripts — Ms B, 1896^[43]

A victim to Love, not to Justice: the decisive novelty

Thérèse's contribution does not abolish the vocation of "victim to Justice" — it remains valid, and great mystics would continue to live it after her (Padre Pio, Yvonne-Aimée, Marthe Robin). But Thérèse opens another door: one can also become a victim of Merciful Love, that is, offer oneself so that God, who only asks to love, may pour into a soul the fullness of that Love which He cannot give to the souls who refuse it.

Pope Pius XI, who canonises Thérèse in 1925 and proclaims her patroness of the missions in 1927, underlines the significance of her message for the missionary life of the Church^[44]. Saint John Paul II, who proclaims her a Doctor of the Church in 1997, presents her "little way" as an eminent expression of the Gospel for our time^[45]. (The formulations previously quoted within quotation marks have not been found in the pontifical texts: they are withdrawn pending their exact textual evidence.) The Offering to Merciful Love is no biographical detail: it opens a new path in Catholic spirituality.

Posterity: the "little way" from the Carmel to Merciful Love

Several twentieth-century figures in the wake of Thérèse — Sister Élisabeth of the Trinity, Sister Bénigne Consolata Ferrero, Saint Faustina Kowalska, the Message of Merciful Love to little souls received by Marguerite (1965) — bear the mark of this intuition, though one cannot derive the whole spirituality of the century from it. This legacy reaches its climax in the institution, by Saint John Paul II in the year 2000, of Divine Mercy Sunday as a universal feast of the Church, at the request of Jesus to Saint Faustina. The twentieth-century vocation of victim soul will never again be purely "to Justice": it will almost always be, at the same time, an offering to Merciful Love.

The twentieth century sees an exceptional harvest of mystics offered as victim souls. Joachim Bouflet describes this century as an unprecedented flowering of mystical phenomena^[46]. Here is an overview of the principal figures.

Saint Gemma Galgani (1878-1903)

An Italian mystic born in Camigliano near Lucca, Saint Gemma Galgani bears the stigmata from 8 June 1899 (a Thursday — and not the Thursday of Pentecost)^[47]. She lives in a modest family, is not admitted to the Passionists for reasons of health, experiences misunderstanding even within her foster family, according to her biographer, and dies at the age of 25 on Holy Saturday, 11 April 1903. Beatified on 14 May 1933, canonized on 2 May 1940. Her spiritual director, Father Germanus Ruoppolo (a Passionist), writes her definitive biography. Closely linked to the Passionist family, she is one of the founding figures of modern victim mysticism.

Sister Bénigne Consolata Ferrero (1885-1916)

A Visitandine nun of Como in Italy, Sister Bénigne Consolata Ferrero enters the monastery on 30 December 1907 and dies there on 1 September 1916. She reports receiving communications from Jesus, which she sets down in her Journal — whose volume is estimated at several thousand pages according to the posthumous edition (exact figure to be established from the original). The title Christ gives her is luminous: “the little secretary of Merciful Love”^[48]. Her cause for beatification, opened in the diocese of Como, was sent to the Congregation of Rites on 1 December 1925 according to biographical notices: she is a Servant of God, with no decree on heroic virtues to date. The central theme of her vocation is precisely the one inaugurated by Thérèse of Lisieux: to be a victim of Merciful Love. Bénigne Consolata is, with Faustina Kowalska, one of the two mystical “secretaries” of Divine Mercy in the twentieth century.

Sister Josefa Menendez (1890-1923)

A Spanish religious of the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Josefa Menendez dies at the age of 33 after an intensely mystical life. Her notes, published under the title A Call to Love (1938), are one of the great classics of twentieth-century reparation spirituality. Jesus reveals to her his desire for “souls who offer themselves as victims of love for the consecrated souls who are growing weak”, and asks her to become “the victim of divine Justice and the relief of [his] Love”^[49]. Her book, long championed by the Institute of the Sacred Heart, has been translated into several dozen languages and profoundly influenced the spirituality of religious sisters in the twentieth century.

Saint Anna Schäffer (1882-1925)

A Bavarian laywoman and Secular Franciscan, Saint Anna Schäffer is canonized by Benedict XVI on 21 October 2012. At the age of 19, she badly burns her legs falling into a vat of boiling laundry; she remains crippled for the rest of her life. On 4 October 1910, the feast of Saint Francis (a Tuesday that year), she reports a vision in which Christ addresses these decisive words to her:

“I have adopted you as a victim of expiation for [the reparation of the offenses against] my Holy Sacrament. From now on you will experience at every communion the sufferings of my holy Passion, by which I have redeemed you, poor nothingness. Suffer, offer, and atone in silence and in peace!” — Jesus to Saint Anna Schäffer, vision reported as of 4 October 1910, cited in Joachim Bouflet, Enquête sur les stigmatisés^[50]

At her next communion, she reports seeing five rays of fire spring from the host and mark her hands, her feet, and her heart. According to the account reported by Bouflet — who expresses reservations about the persistence of the signs until 1918 — the visible stigmata then fade away at her request, while the pains remain. Her canonization recognizes the heroicity of her virtues: it does not in itself amount to magisterial recognition of every detail of her expiatory mission or of her phenomena, which fall under personal testimony and historical commentary.

Saint Faustina Kowalska (1905-1938)

A Polish religious of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, Saint Faustina Kowalska is the author of the Little Diary, one of the great mystical books of the twentieth century. Beatified on 18 April 1993, canonized on 30 April 2000 by Saint John Paul II — who on the same occasion institutes Divine Mercy Sunday. Jesus entrusts her with a twofold mission: to make his Mercy known to the world, and to offer herself as a victim for sinners and the dying. The Little Diary contains dozens of pages on this vocation:

“The flames of mercy are burning me. I want to pour them out upon souls.” — Jesus to Saint Faustina Kowalska, Little Diary, §50^[51]

The Diary returns several times to the bitterness of Christ in the face of the lukewarmness of souls — passages each of which requires its exact reference, with indication of the omissions.

Faustina offers herself several times as a victim, but her victimhood is at the same time surrendered to Merciful Love — in the exact line of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Her spirituality thus combines classical co-redemption (offering for sinners, especially the dying) and the Thérèsian novelty (boundless trust in Mercy rather than fear of Justice).

Mother Yvonne-Aimée de Malestroit (1901-1951)

A French Augustinian Hospitaller nun, Mother Yvonne-Aimée of Jesus (born Yvonne Beauvais) is one of the great French mystics of the twentieth century. Stigmatized, marked by exceptional mystical phenomena, she is said to have received, according to her biographers, the vocation of victim “to appease divine Justice” (reported saying, reference to be authenticated: see ^[52]). Following her exhumation on 25 March 1957, a beatification process was begun, then halted on 1 June 1960 by Cardinal Ottaviani, then pro-secretary of the Holy Office, with a prohibition on publishing works about her — the date of 1959 sometimes put forward for an opening in Rennes is not corroborated, and no active proceedings are attested today. Her work among prisoners during the Second World War and her relations with leading ecclesiastical figures (including Cardinal Eugène Tisserant) are reported by her biographers^[53]: persons, meaning of the expressions used, and biographical pages remain to be specified from the works.

Blessed Alexandrina da Costa (1904-1955)

Portuguese mystic beatified by Saint John Paul II on 25 April 2004, Blessed Alexandrina Maria da Costa suffered a fall at the age of 14 — a leap to escape an assault — whose consequences caused progressive disability and then permanent bed confinement from 14 April 1925, according to the Holy See's notice. From 27 March 1942, she nourished herself solely through the daily Eucharist — a phenomenon of inedia that lasted until her death, that is, thirteen years^[54]. In 1943, she spent forty days and forty nights under medical observation at the Foz do Douro hospital in Porto: according to the biographical notices, several doctors there examined her during her total fast, without observing any intake of food or drink other than Holy Communion — the exact calendar dates and the precise medical report still remaining to be produced, and these forty observed days not constituting thirteen years of continuous observation. Alexandrina offered herself as a victim for sinners and for the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary — carried out by Pius XII on 31 October 1942.

Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina (1887-1968)

An Italian Capuchin, Saint Padre Pio was canonized by Saint John Paul II on 16 June 2002. Visibly stigmatized from 20 September 1918, he bore the stigmata until September 1968 — nearly fifty years, the dates of appearance and disappearance remaining distinct — and died on 23 September 1968. He is without doubt the most famous mystical figure of the twentieth century. From his youth, Christ asked him to become a victim for sinners, as he reported to his spiritual director: « I need victims to appease the just and divine wrath of my Father »^[55]. Padre Pio spent his life in the confessional — very long days, the figure of sixteen hours daily often cited remaining to be precisely sourced — and offered his sufferings for the penitents who filed past him. His famous « hospital for the relief of suffering » (Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza), founded in 1956, is the institutional embodiment of his vocation: to make suffering, through love, a place of hope for others.

The article The Stigmata of Padre Pio details the medical aspects and the canonization file. For the present article, let us retain the central teaching: Padre Pio is the model victim soul of the twentieth century, at once fully mystical and fully rooted in the priesthood, confession, and the service of the sick — protected against any solitary or narcissistic drift by ecclesial obedience, despite the canonical trials he underwent.

Servant of God Thérèse Neumann (1898-1962)

A Bavarian lay Franciscan tertiary, Thérèse Neumann lived in Konnersreuth. The first signs of her stigmatisation are dated to 5 March 1926, according to the file, with a completion during the following Holy Week — stages to be distinguished precisely from the primary source of the file, without conflating them into a single "first stigmatisation on Good Friday." She then relived the Passion of Christ every Friday and — from 1927 until her death — would have nourished herself only on the Eucharist. The phenomenon of inedia was observed under ecclesiastical supervision for two weeks in 1927 (the exact scope of the observation and its conclusions to be established from the report). Her diocesan process for beatification was opened on 13 February 2005: no decree on heroic virtues having been issued, her title is that of Servant of God. Another victim soul from Bavaria after Anna Schäffer, she turned her village into an international place of pilgrimage.

The article The Stigmata of Thérèse Neumann details the file.

Marthe Robin (1902-1981)

A French mystic born in Châteauneuf-de-Galaure (Drôme), Marthe Robin is one of the great spiritual figures of twentieth-century France. Having fallen ill around 1918, affected in her lower limbs from 1928, she remained bedridden for many years — the exact chronology of her immobilisation, the precise medical diagnosis, and the description of her room (said to be "blind," plunged into darkness) conflate several elements and remain to be established separately from the sources. From October 1930, she would have borne the stigmata; from 1931, she would have relived the Passion of Christ every Friday. According to numerous witnesses, for decades she would have received only the weekly Eucharist (exact duration and scope to be established)^[56].

She is said to have received during her lifetime a very great number of visitors — bishops, priests, religious, and laity and, according to witnesses, the future John Paul II: figures, identities, and circumstances to be authenticated one by one, with dated sources for any contemporary tally. With Fr. Georges Finet, she founded the Foyers de Charité in 1936 — a work of spiritual retreats now spread across many countries (numbers of houses and countries to be precisely dated). Her cause for beatification was opened in 1986; her heroic virtues were recognized by Pope Francis on 7 November 2014: she is now Venerable.

Her case has been the subject of disputes (Conrad De Meester, La Fraude mystique de Marthe Robin, Cerf, 2020; cf. the clarification in La Nef^[57]) concerning the originality of certain writings. The canonical process continues while taking these studies into account; the declaration of Venerable remains valid. Marthe Robin remains a major case of a victim soul in twentieth-century France — and the work of the Foyers de Charité, the objective fruit of her intuition, bears witness to an uncommon spiritual fruitfulness.

Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta (1865-1947)

An Italian mystic from Corato in Apulia, Luisa Piccarreta is the author of the Book of Heaven (36 volumes, 1899-1938) and of the 24 Hours of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Confined to her bed, seated, from 1888 until her death in 1947 — that is, nearly sixty years (biographical notices give 59 or 64 years depending on the starting point adopted) — nourishing herself practically only on the Eucharist, she set down in writing, under obedience, the communications she received — autograph manuscripts preserved — before several successive confessors: Don Gennaro Di Gennaro, Saint Annibale Maria di Francia, Francesco De Benedictis (1922-1926), then Canon Benedetto Calvi, parish priest of Santa Maria Greca, her regular confessor until her death (a single priest named Calvi, and not two). Her vocation, explicitly declared by Jesus, is that of victim of expiation for the triumph of the Divine Will on earth — the Divine Will designating, in these writings, the gift of living in the divine Will itself, and not merely of doing God's will: a specific gift to be distinguished from the victim offering, which here accompanies it:

« My daughter, like Me, you are a victim. Let all your actions shine with the same pure and holy intentions as Mine, so that, seeing My own image in you, I may freely flood you with My graces and, thus adorned, I may present you as an odour of sweetness before divine Justice. » — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, vol. 2, 4 July 1899^[58]

The article Luisa Piccarreta details the canonical path of her beatification cause: opened in 1994, it received in June 2024 the Nulla Osta from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith to proceed with the cause — confirmed by a letter from the Dicastery dated 3 December 2024, which states that it found in her writings no doctrinal error that would prevent their promulgation, while requiring their official critical edition. This permission to proceed does not amount to a blanket validation of the writings. Her vocation as a victim soul is inseparable from her doctrinal mission concerning the Divine Will, which is the central contribution of the Luisian writings to contemporary Catholic theology.

Pius XI and Miserentissimus Redemptor (8 May 1928)

The most explicit magisterial teaching on the victim offering is found in the encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor of Pope Pius XI, published on 8 May 1928. In it the Pope develops the theology of reparation to the Sacred Heart and commends the faithful who, with a more fervent heart, "do not hesitate to offer themselves to Christ as victims":

"[…] the number of the faithful, of both sexes, grows, who apply themselves with a more fervent heart to satisfying the divine Heart for so many outrages, and even do not hesitate to offer themselves to Christ as victims." — Pius XI, Miserentissimus Redemptor, 8 May 1928 (translated from the Latin: "[…] se ipsos Christo victimas offerre non dubitant")^[59]

The encyclical articulates two great duties towards the Sacred Heart: consecration, which professes and strengthens union with Christ, and expiation (or reparation), which begins this union by blotting out faults, perfects it by sharing in the sufferings of Christ, and brings it to completion "by offering victims for our brethren" ("victimas pro fratribus offerendo"). And it explains that Christ, who still suffers in his Mystical Body, "desires to have us as companions in his expiation" ("Christus […] nos expiationis suae socios habere exoptat")^[60]. It is this papal text — not a canonical category, which it does not institute — that spiritual theology applies to the vocation of the victim soul: Christ wants companions in his redemptive work — not because it is insufficient but because he willed it as a work of communion.

Pius XII and Haurietis Aquas (15 May 1956)

The encyclical of Pius XII, Haurietis Aquas, on the devotion to the Sacred Heart, takes up and deepens the teaching of Pius XI. In it the Pope recalls that the whole life of the Christian must be a reparation offered to the Heart of Christ, especially in §§ 75-79^[61]. He dwells at length on Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque and the revelations of Paray-le-Monial as the source of this devotion of reparation. (The previously quoted formula in quotation marks about a "real, true and serious" consolation and the mention of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux in this encyclical were not found: they have been removed.)

John Paul II and Salvifici Doloris (11 February 1984)

The most systematic magisterial text on redemptive suffering is the apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris of Saint John Paul II, published on 11 February 1984 for the Extraordinary Jubilee of the Redemption. In it the Pope unfolds, in thirty-one paragraphs, a complete theology of suffering offered. A few decisive passages:

"In accomplishing the Redemption through suffering, Christ has also raised human suffering to the level of the Redemption. Thus each man, in his suffering, can also become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ." — Saint John Paul II, Salvifici Doloris, §19^[62]

"Human sufferings, united to the redemptive suffering of Christ, constitute a particular support for the forces of good, opening the way to the triumph of these salvific forces." — Saint John Paul II, Salvifici Doloris, §27^[63]

The Pope devotes an entire section to Col 1:24 and explicitly takes up the teaching of Saint Paul: suffering offered is a cooperation with the Redemption of Christ. The letter constitutes, to this day, the reference text of the contemporary magisterium on the vocation of the victim soul in the broad sense.

Criteria of discernment of the Church

The Catholic Church has never defined the vocation of the victim soul as a formal canonical category. In accordance with its habitual prudence, it distinguishes what belongs to dogma (to be believed), to doctrinal magisterium (to be received), to approved devotion (proposed but not imposed) and to private revelation (never obligatory). The vocation of the victim soul stands at the intersection of the last three levels:

• Doctrinally: it is rooted in the doctrine of the communion of saints (CCC §§946-962), of redemptive suffering (CCC §618^[64], 1521-1522^[65]) and of the Mystical Body (Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, 1943).
• Magisterially: the victim offering and cooperation in expiation are taught by Pius XI (Miserentissimus Redemptor), Pius XII (Haurietis Aquas) and Saint John Paul II (Salvifici Doloris) — without these texts instituting a canonical category of "victim soul."
• In individual discernment: it falls to spiritual direction, the confessor and the Church's guidance. For extraordinary phenomena, the norms of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith of 17 May 2024 (which replace those of 1978) provide a graded range of conclusions — from the nihil obstat to the declaration of non-supernaturality —: a declaration of non constat is not a recognition, and the recognition of a person's virtues (beatification, canonization), the judgment on phenomena, the nihil obstat on writings and spiritual guidance are distinct acts that must not be confused.

For the discernment of an extraordinary case, spiritual directors and investigators usually rely on four touchstones — a practical grid, not a universal procedure promulgated by the Church:

A case that brings together these four touchstones is rare. When one of them is lacking — especially solid virtues or ecclesial obedience — prudence demands that any favorable judgment be suspended, pending the conclusions of the competent authority according to the norms in force.

The Danger of Dolorism

The vocation of victim soul, if poorly understood, can lead to dolorism — that is, a pathological seeking of suffering for its own sake. Saint John of the Cross, Saint Francis de Sales, Saint Alphonsus Liguori and the whole great tradition of Catholic spirituality have warned against this distortion. Suffering is never good in itself: it is evil by nature, a consequence of original sin. The only thing that can make it good is the love that passes through it and unites it to the Cross of Christ.

Fr. Marie-Étienne Vayssière, one of the masters of the spirituality of surrender, warns, in substance, against suffering that is sought or welcomed without love: the exact wording previously quoted in quotation marks was not found in the consulted passages of Consentir à l'Amour and has been withdrawn pending its edition and page^[66].

Suffering offered without direction, without humility, without the Church's guidance, can very quickly become a spiritual idol, in which the soul admires itself instead of giving itself.

Trust First, Suffering Afterward

All authentic Catholic spirituality begins with trust, not with effort. Fr. Jean du Cœur de Jésus d'Elbée, transmitter of the Theresian spirituality in Croire à l'Amour, reports words of Saint Thérèse on the fear of not loving enough, and teaches, in substance, that it is not suffering that saves but the love that is proven in it^[67]. (The formulations previously quoted in quotation marks were not found in the consulted passages: they have been withdrawn pending their exact editions and pages.)

A soul that would declare itself a victim without having first learned filial trust, regular prayer, the frequenting of the sacraments, humility and obedience, would be doomed to illusion. The supreme vocation is not a spiritual shortcut: it is the goal of a journey, and it always presupposes an already solid spiritual life.

One Does Not Declare Oneself a Victim Soul

This is no doubt the most important point in practice. The vocation of victim soul in the strict sense comes from God; it is not self-decreed. Many recognized figures lived it in resistance and humility — Marie des Vallées, Marie de Saint-Pierre, Anna Schäffer, Marthe Robin, Faustina: they report having been, in a sense, seized by God, and several hesitated before consenting, with the help of their confessor. But initial resistance is not a rule: Thérèse's voluntary and joyful offering of herself to Merciful Love shows that one can freely offer oneself, without having struggled against the call — which would contradict an offering described above as free and mature if one made it a condition.

Conversely, deviant cases often present a warning sign: proud self-designation, the need to be recognized as a victim, the seeking of others' gaze upon one's suffering. Experienced spiritual directors learn to spot these signs — without passing arbitrary judgment on people, and without claiming to infallibly or immediately detect every case.

The Ordinary Form: Offering One's Daily Crosses

For the vast majority of the baptized, the vocation of victim soul in the strict sense is neither possible nor asked. What God does ask of every baptized person, however, is to lovingly offer the ordinary crosses that life brings: illness, bereavement, contradiction, failure, fatigue, old age. This is what the Catechism teaches on the Anointing of the Sick: through the grace of the sacrament, the sick person is united to the Passion of Christ (CCC §1521) and contributes, in turn, to the sanctification of the Church and the good of all humanity (CCC §1522)^[68].

And the Second Vatican Council, on the vocation of the laity: "Through all their works, prayers and apostolic initiatives, their married and family life, their daily labor [...] and even the hardships of life, if they are patiently endured, [the laity] offer spiritual sacrifices to God"^[69].

This is the common form of co-redemption — invisible, daily, ordinary, and yet rigorously efficacious in the communion of saints. A mother who endures her illness while offering it for the conversion of a distant son is, in her own way, a victim soul. A retiree who turns his solitude into intercession for young priests is, in his own way, a victim soul. A child who accepts being in pain without rebelling is, in his own way, a victim soul. The great mystical tradition is nothing other than the exemplary and public form of what every Christian is called to live in secret.

The central mystery: the communion of saints

The vocation of a victim soul has, in the end, only one theological foundation: the communion of saints, an article of the Apostles' Creed ("the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints"). Sanctorum communionem: communion with the saints (intercession), but also communion of holy things (the exchange of graces). The Catechism teaches this in seventeen paragraphs (§946–962): in this solidarity, "if one member suffers, all the members suffer with him" (1 Cor 12:26), and the least act done in charity benefits everyone, just as every sin harms this communion^[70].

This doctrine is one of the most comforting in Christianity — and one of the most demanding. Comforting, because it means that the least suffering offered is never lost: it enters into the great spiritual exchange through which the living sustain the living, and all obtain grace for the souls in purgatory. Demanding, because it means that no one is alone in their spiritual struggle, and that our sin, too, echoes throughout the entire Body.

The victim soul is the visible incarnation of this invisible doctrine. When Padre Pio spends very long days hearing confessions and returns exhausted to his cell to offer the night what he has heard during the day, it is the communion of saints making itself publicly manifest in the Church. When Marthe Robin, deep in her dark room, receives visitor after visitor and carries each one in prayer between her Friday Passions, it is the communion of saints taking flesh in a single life. When Thérèse of Lisieux writes from the depths of the Carmel, "I will be love," to the heart of the Church, it is the communion of saints expressing itself at the summit of its simplicity.

Living out co-redemption day by day

To conclude, it must be restated what this long mystical journey teaches the ordinary Christian — the one who will be neither Padre Pio, nor Marthe Robin, nor Faustine, but who must nonetheless live as a baptized person. Five paths emerge from this tradition.

First, offer each day to Christ before it begins — through morning prayer, the Our Father, consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Daily Offering of the Apostleship of Prayer. It is the simplest and most powerful act for entering into co-redemption.

Second, transform the inevitable annoyances into silent prayers: illness, conflict, fatigue, delay, grief. Not by denying them. Not by sublimating them. But by looking at them as matter that love can transmute, provided one gives them. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux made this transmutation the very substance of her little way:

Thérèse, according to the recollections gathered by those around her, let no small sacrifice slip by — a look, a word — and took advantage of the smallest things by doing them out of love (paraphrase: the formula passed down through the recollections was not found in Manuscript B; the attribution to Ms B is withdrawn)^[71].

Third, receive the Eucharist with a redemptive intention. It is in the Eucharist that the Cross of Christ becomes present, and through it that the soul of the faithful is united to the redemptive movement. Sister Bénigne Consolata, "little secretary of Merciful Love," puts it in a single sentence:

Sister Bénigne Consolata is said to have received, regarding the Eucharist, a word inviting her to unite her sufferings to Jesus at the moment of communion (the wording previously quoted in quotation marks was not found: a reference blending the Journal, the Italian edition, the Vade Mecum, and an author, to be reconstructed from an actual copy — see ^[72]). Without meaning thereby a new suffering of the Risen One: it is a matter of participating in his Passion, a distinction made explicit, for example, by Pope Francis (cf. Dilexit nos, §193).

Fourth, pray for the souls who do not pray. The whole vocation of the victim soul comes down, at bottom, to this simple gesture: taking the place of those who refuse to take it. A Christian who prays for his enemies, for notorious sinners, for the souls in purgatory, for children yet unborn, for the dying — that one is, without knowing it, a little victim soul in the Mystical Body.

Fifth, surrender. Not seeking suffering. Not fleeing it either. But consenting to let God, who loves, dispose of the life he has given. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, dying at the age of 24, seals the whole mysticism of victim souls in two words:

"All is grace." — Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, attested saying from her last months^[73]

This is what victim souls teach the rest of the Church: that suffering, when it is traversed by love, becomes the raw material of the world's salvation — and that no heart, even the most wounded, is too small to enter into this mystery.

• God of Justice and Mercy — the Catholic doctrine that grounds the vocation of victim soul, and the prerequisite article for this one.
• God's Infinite Love in the Redemption — the Redemption as the supreme proof of divine love.
• The stigmatists — a mystical phenomenon often associated with the vocation of victim soul.
• The Stigmata of Saint Padre Pio — the major mystical case of the 20th century.
• The Stigmata of Louise Lateau — 19th-century Belgium, medical study.
• The Stigmata of Therese Neumann — 20th-century Bavaria.
• The response to evil and suffering — why does God allow suffering?
• Luisa Piccarreta — the mystic of the Book of Heaven (the expression "co-redemptrix", where it is used, belongs to spiritual language, not a recognized title).