Co-redeemer, Victim Soul, Reparative Soul, Host, Victimal Gift

See also: Redemption, Salvation, Redeemer.

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Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows

Co-redemption originates from the writings of Saint Paul, notably:

I now rejoice in my joy in the sufferings I endure for you, and what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ, I complete in my body by making up for what is lacking in his flesh, which is the Church.

Or again:

I bear in my body the stigmata (stigmata) of the sufferings of Jesus..

And finally, this key phrase:

With Christ, I am crucified. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

The term "co-redeemer" is synonymous with Soul-victim, Soul-reparator, or host, according to the dictionaries. In the work of Maria Valtorta, the term co-redeemer is often used, but the context leaves no doubt about the association (and not substitution) to the sufferings of the Passion.        

All Soul victims base their vocation on the love whose source is in the Heart of God. They desire to immerse themselves in this outpouring of love by following Jesus in his Passion for Humanity. A passion understood in all senses of the word: burning love and path of suffering for others.    

It is also said that these Souls offer themselves as an «holocaust». This word comes from the sacrifices of Judaism during which animals were entirely consumed by Fire in order to atone for the sins of an individual or the entire people. By his Passion, Christ offered himself as a victim for the definitive atonement of the sins of all humanity.-          

These "co-redemptive" Souls give the gift of their human life to God, conditioning it entirely to divine will. They offer and immolate themselves, out of love, to repair their offenses and moreover those of others.

A phrase from the act of consecration of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux perfectly illuminates this statement:

In order to live in an act of perfect Love, I offer myself as a victim of holocaust to your merciful Love, begging you to consume me constantly, letting overflow in my Soul the floods of infinite tenderness contained in you and thus become Martyr of your Love, O my God!…

This phrase should be compared to that of Saint Paul cited above:

With Christ, I am crucified. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

In her Hymn to love and suffering, Maria Valtorta has this exultation:

Blessed be the suffering that makes me resemble you!        

Blessed be your cross that lifts me to heaven!    

Blessed be the love that gives wings to my pain!

Mary co-redeemer

The first co-redeemer, and the greatest, was the Virgin Mary at the foot of the Cross. Not with stigmata that she might have borne as a reflection of her Son’s Passion, but with her real participation in his redemptive suffering.

While Christ suffered so many blows, wounds, mockeries—his body painfully paid the price of sin—Mary, present at Calvary, suffered analogous pains, from the same origin: the Christ painfully shed the blood of his body; she shed the blood of the Heart, said Arnauld of Chartres.     

Jesus thus wanted his Mother to be intimately associated with all the suffering of the Passion, up to his death and to his glory after death.  

The term co-redemptrix has led to many circumlocutions, so great was the fear of equating Christ, the unique Redeemer, and his Mother. For this reason, she is called "cooperator," "collaborator," or "associate". Certainly useful language precautions, but which must not hide the reality of her participation in Redemption so well described by Maria Valtorta:

To be the Mother of the Son of God is a happy destiny; to be Mother of the Redeemer is a destiny of terrible pain, says the young Mary to Zacharias.

Maria Valtorta was a tertiary of the Servites of Mary. This order is the origin of the devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows (Maria Addolorata). On March 25, 1239, the day of the Annunciation, the Virgin Mary appeared to the founders of the Order. She asked them to wear a black habit with a large scapular in memory of the Passion of Christ and the seven sorrows of Mary. Maria Valtorta’s scapular is displayed in the showcase of her room in Viareggio.

The cohort of co-redeemers

The current of co-redeemer Souls goes back in history. Francis of Assisi is known as the first visible and recognized stigmatist. Between him and Paul, other Souls certainly offered themselves as a holocaust.

The "imitation of Christ" movement became identifiable in the 13th century, not only with the stigmata of Saint Francis of Assisi, but also with Flemish mystics such as Hadewich of Antwerp (c. 1210–1260). She advocated, in her visions, a mysticism freed from intellectualism. This spirituality was followed by that of the Blessed John of Ruusbroec (1293–1381)—whose writings influenced the golden age of Spanish mysticism (16th century) as well as the French school of spirituality (17th century)—and finally by that of Gerard of Groote (1340–1384), founder of the "Modern Devotion". This devotion advocated conversion of the Heart, prayer, and contemplation: virtues crystallized in The Imitation of Christ, a work attributed to Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471), a 15th-century German monk.

This imitation of Jesus Christ gave rise, with the golden age of Spanish mysticism, to the emergence of acts of self-offering. It also explored the ways of union with God. In a country of eight million Souls, recently freed from Muslim control, and at a time when major schisms multiplied, leading saints of prime importance flourished such as Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), founder of the Jesuits and author of the famous Spiritual Exercises.

Saint John of Avila (1499–1569), Doctor of the Church, was condemned by the Inquisition for his positions deemed unorthodox. In his work Audi, filia (Listen, my daughter), he asserted that the only merits capable of saving the sinner are those of the Passion of Christ.

Saint Teresa of Avila (1515–1582) was stigmatized and gifted with levitation. This major figure of spirituality was the first woman to be named a doctor of the Church in 1970. She wrote two main works: The Way of Perfection and The Interior Castle in which she formulated her act of self-offering. She was behind the reform of the Carmelites and founded, during her lifetime, seventeen monasteries.

In continuation of her reform of the Carmelites appeared, three centuries later, Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, herself a doctor of the Church, Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity, and Saint Edith Stein. All were co-redeemer Souls who made the victim offering of themselves to continue Christ's oblation.

Saint John of the Cross (1542–1591), doctor of the Church, wrote in four major works his doctrine aiming to reach the union of the Soul with God: The Dark Night, The Ascent of Carmel, The Living Flame of Love, The Spiritual Canticle.

In the 17th century, in France, a country emerging from 36 years of fratricidal Religious Wars, the spiritual renewal gave rise to the "French School of Spirituality". This period was called the "Great Century of Souls" by Daniel-Rops.

Jeanne de Chantal (1572–1641) was a widow at 29 years old and mother of four children. She took the veil after meeting with Francis de Sales. She taught the "martyrdom of love" which would make "those so happy as to want it" suffer. She was the grandmother of the Marquise de Sévigné, whose real name was Marie de Rabutin-Chantal.

From the Order of the Visitandines that she founded came a few years later Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647–1690). She propagated the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus who had appeared to her.

The Blessed Marie of the Incarnation (Mme Acarie, 1566–1618) was mother of a family of six children. She led a religious circle frequented notably by her cousin, Cardinal Pierre de Bérulle (1575–1629), who helped her implant reformed Carmels in France.

She received the stigmata at about the age of twenty-seven but hid them and imposed silence on her confessor until death. She centered her spirituality on contemplation of the Cross. At her death, the kingdom counted 27 Carmels.

For Pierre de Bérulle, true freedom is found in Christ. To this end, he promotes the "vow of servitude" to Christ, which was taken up, adapting it, by many mystics, especially Soul-victims.

This "vow of servitude" is complemented by the vow of servitude to Mary, which Cardinal de Bérulle tried to generalize.

Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort (1673–1716) developed this vow of servitude to Mary. He formulates it in The Love of Eternal Wisdom. This vow expresses the confident and total submission to Mary to realize, in one's life, the design of Jesus. Maria Valtorta consecrated herself according to this formula.

Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort summarized this engagement in the formula: Totus Tuus, a motto also used by John Paul II.

In the 18th century, many Churches in Europe began to embrace the world, its power, and its riches. This led to a violent rejection that fed the revolutionary storm and its persecutions.

However, in Italy, the current of Soul victims continued: among them, Saint Veronica Giuliani (1660–1727) and Saint Paul of the Cross (1694–1775).

At 34, Veronica Giuliani experienced the mystical marriage, union of her Soul to the suffering love of Christ, then received the stigmata, including the indelible mark of the crown of thorns. She then devoted herself to the spirituality of the Passion, which initially worried the Holy See.

At her confessor's request, she recorded her mystical experiences for 33 years in a journal composed, finally, of 22,000 handwritten pages: Il Tesoro Nascosto (The Hidden Treasure). A work comparable to the 15,000 pages of Maria Valtorta. Veronica Giuliani died at 67 on July 9, 1727, leaving her spiritual testament which leaves no doubt about the motivation and purpose of co-redeemers: "Love let itself be rejected! That is the reason of my languishing. Tell all: I have found Love!".

Paul of the Cross founded the Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ (or Passionists), whose vocation is to propagate the devotion to the Passion of Christ through itinerant preaching and spiritual retreats. To this effect, he writes:

It is excellent and very holy to have the passion of the Lord present in the mind and to meditate on it, for it is through this that one reaches union with God. It is in this holy school that true wisdom is learned; this is indeed where all the saints learned it [...] love is a form of union, and it appropriates the torments of the Beloved. This fire penetrates to the marrow, transforming the lover into the beloved; love mingling deeper with pain, and pain with love, forms such an intimate blend of the two that one can no longer distinguish love from pain, nor pain from love. That is why the Soul that loves rejoices in its pain and exults in its painful love.

Tomb of Maria Valtorta with the inscription "Host pleasing to God" (Hostia Deo Grata)

In the 19th century, Catholicism was of uncommon vitality, in every sense and on every level.        

On October 13, 1884, Leo XIII witnessed a dialogue between God and Satan. An increased power and time were given to Satan to test the Church. This century of Purification, or century of Satan, saw the flourishing of many Soul victims. Among these known co-redeemers are:          

Thérèse of Lisieux, Conception of Armida, Dina Bélanger, Charles de Foucauld, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Edith Stein, Josefa Menendez, Elizabeth of the Trinity, Yvonne-Aimée de Malestroit, Marthe Robin, Luisa Piccarreta, Gemma Galgani, Padre Pio, Sister Faustina, Maximilian Kolbe and of course Maria Valtorta, etc.          

The youngest was Antonietta Meo who died at six and a half years old. The oldest, Natuzza Evolo, died at 85 years old.

We are all called, according to our capabilities

We are called to unite ourselves to Christ’s sacrifice, for "outside the Cross there is no other ladder by which to climb to heaven," says Jesus to Saint Rose of Lima:

CEC § 618.     […] He calls his Disciples to "take up their cross and follow him", because "he suffered for us, he marked out the way so that we might follow in his steps." Indeed, he wants to associate to his redeeming sacrifice those who are its primary beneficiaries (--). This is fulfilled supremely in his Mother, associated more intimately than anyone else to the mystery of his redemptive suffering ().

The number of texts dictated to Maria Valtorta, which the reader will find cited below, leave no doubt about the importance of responding to this call. But God entrusts each creature with the roles it is capable of fulfilling, according to its own nature’s capacities. Indeed, God does not impose the impossible. If He calls exceptional Souls as Maria Valtorta’s was, He calls each of us to a daily life transcended by God.

Write again for the Souls that I love, says Jesus to Sister Josefa Menendez, I want them to know how greatly the desire for their perfection consumes me and how this perfection consists in doing, in intimate union with Me, their common and ordinary Actions, If they understand this well, they will divinize all their activity, and what value a day of divine life has!...

Saint John Eudes called this the "sanctification of Ordinary Actions". Jesus specifies to Maria Valtorta, in a catechesis on obedience, a founding virtue of Redemption (--) and therefore the gateway for co-redeemer Souls:

Even your small obedience in all the little things that the Lord presents to you through daily events acts in the same way as the wind on plants, grass of the meadows and gardens: from you, who are flowers, it makes Fruits, Fruits of eternal life.

It is then that man, united with Christ, truly collaborates in his redemptive Mission:

If He calls exceptional Souls as Maria Valtorta’s was, He calls each of us to a daily life transcended by God:

Write again for the Souls that I love, says Jesus to Sister Josefa Menendez, I want them to know how greatly the desire for their perfection consumes me and how this perfection consists in doing, in intimate union with Me, their common and ordinary Actions, If they understand this well, they will divinize all their activity, and what value a day of divine life has!...

It is then that man, united with Christ, truly collaborates in his redemptive Mission:

(CEC § 307) To men, God even grants the ability to participate freely in his Providence […] Often unconscious cooperators of the divine will, men can deliberately enter into the divine plan, through their Actions, their prayers, but also through their sufferings. They then become fully "collaborators of God" and of his Kingdom.

In "The Gospel as it was revealed to me"

• Prophecy on Mary’s role as co-redeemer.   
• Joseph first of the co-redeemers.      
• Being the Mother of the Son of God is a happy destiny, being Mother of the Redeemer is a destiny of terrible pain.  
• Mary erases Eve’s fourfold sin.         
• The 4 sorrows of Mary.
• The highest dignity of men: to be co-redeemer.      
• Mary co-redeemer.   
• Mary will not disappoint God’s desire. She never has. From asking for total love to total sacrifice, she gave herself and will give herself… Every man who has lived, lives, or will live causes tears to Mary.  
• If I had wanted it for myself alone, your Souls would not be saved. Reflect on how great my sacrifice is. I give you a Son so that he may be immolated for your Souls.         
• As I am for all men, so one Woman will obtain for Women, in a special way, Grace and redemption".
• Consecration of Matthias: Lord, Most High God, God and Father of your people, who accept and consecrate the Hearts and altars and immolate the victims pleasing to you, may your will descend like a Fire and consume me as a victim with Christ, as Christ and through Christ, your Son and your Messiah, my God and Master. It is to You that I commend myself. Hear my prayer.  
• There is then the need for Souls that are hosts who love and atone for all. These are the children who, innocent and ignorant, pay the bitter penalty of suffering for those who only know how to sin; these are the saints who voluntarily sacrifice themselves for all.

In other works by Maria Valtorta

The Notebooks of 1943

• Catechesis of April 23 : Suffer, Maria, and tell the righteous to suffer also to supplement the second martyrdom that the Father does not want me to accomplish. To each creature who immolates herself, Heaven grants the salvation of some Souls.         
• Catechesis of June 12, 1943 : Jesus is never fearsome. You have been entirely absorbed. The trust of he who loves me opens my Heart of God. The law of love for those who belong entirely to Jesus. If all Souls became alive, I would pronounce the word end. The victims save the world.
• Catechesis of June 14, 1943 : As long as a Soul does not accept to be admitted into the 'secret of pain' which I, Christ, have tasted to the bottom, it cannot claim to know my Doctrine thoroughly, nor have superior lights to the glimmers granted to everyone. 
• Catechesis of July 6, 1943: When time ceases to exist, then Mary will cease to suffer, for the number of the Blessed will be complete. She will have brought forth, with ineffable pains, the body that does not die, of which her Firstborn is the head. If you consider this, you will undoubtedly understand that Mary's pain was the supreme pain. You will understand that, great in her Immaculate Conception, great in her glorious Assumption, Mary was very great in the cycle of my passion, from the evening of the Last Supper to the dawn of the Resurrection. Then she was, in order and power, the second Christ.        
• Catechesis of July 18, 1943 : The time has come when Love will thunder with anger demanding the reason for such contempt. And the present times are already the first tremors of this vilified Love which, by justice and out of respect for its perfection, can no longer bear the affront. That is why I seek, like a beggar, someone who opens their Heart to our very intense Love and makes themselves a victim, accepting to be consumed to relieve Love. What I offer is a pyre, I know, I realize it. But do not flee it, you who are not yet sold to the Enemy.       
• Catechesis of August 4, 1943 : So you can be sure in your suffering that through the dying flesh, your spirit grows ever more: it nourishes itself on the death of your body as a victim of love. What a beautiful day that will be when, breaking the clay of its earthly vessel, your spirit will blossom, free and strong for the eternal joy of your Jesus, in Heaven.”
• Catechesis of September 17: Those who are in my hand like soft clay in the potter’s hand are the chosen of my Heart. My hand is on them like a caress. My caresses shape them, giving them my imprint and molding them to resemble my gentleness, my charity, my purity, and the most beautiful of all resemblances: that of my Redemption. For these are the Souls who continue my Mission of Redeemer and to whom I constantly say ‘thank you’ who constitute the blessing that most protects. And if Veronica’s veil is sacred because it bears my image, what will these Souls be who are my true image?         
• December 4: "And since I love you with a love incomprehensible to you because it is perfect, not only do I save you, placing you among my troops, but I make you my collaborators in the building of the Temple which will not be destroyed and in which the Trinitarian Glory will rest."

The Notebooks of 1944

• Catechesis of January 17 : If you remain in me like children in their mother’s womb, Our Father will see no other garment than the one you wear: myself, your Redeemer, the one who generates you in heaven, and his Son; and he will shower his Graces on his Son, the object of all his favor for whom he also made, above all things, the forgiveness and glory, for the joy of his Son who wants you to be pardoned and glorious.      
• Catechesis of March 16 : The value of obedience. Jesus reached perfection by obedience. The necessary obedience of co-redeemers. Obedience is also made up of tiny, moment-by-moment things. This obedience of each moment is your spring. If the trial seems insurmountable, it is because you stiffen in Pride. Dictations and visions follow an educational purpose in order to help you. You must relearn everything. What "Religion" means. Woe to those who prefer to return to Darkness. Be worthy of the gift I give you. The purpose of cloistered convents. The joy of having become a tertiary of the Servites of Mary.     
• Catechesis of March 30 : Mary Magdalene mortifies herself in remembrance of the pains of the Passion of Christ, who also died for her.
• Catechesis of May 20 : (Comments on the seven "swords" piercing Mary’s Heart). My first sorrow did not concern only my love as Mother of God. I knew my fate. I knew it because I was not unaware of the Redeemer’s destiny. The prophecies announced his great suffering. The Spirit of God, united to me, enlightened me even more than the prophecies said. That is why, from the moment I said: "Behold the servant of the Lord," I embraced suffering along with love.
• Catechesis of June 11 : Soul victims live in a spiritually balanced way. They live in limbo on the border of bliss. Love impatient to unite with those who love. Soul victims compared to the four living creatures of Ezekiel. The only thing that can make you lose your spiritual balance is your will. Never say to yourself: "I am not capable of doing well what I do". At the spiritual level, all human thought must die. The saint’s heroic virtues. The main thing is always to endure the world and love it supernaturally. To save the world, there is no other way than suffering. Christ, in heaven, still suffers.      
• Catechesis of July 5 : These are what small things mean to a "true Soul": they are the flowers. Certainly, they are intertwined with many thorns, but what can we do! They grow on the paths of the earth, where man passes stamping his carnal footprint, also where Lucifer sows his seeds of hatred. They are very different from the flowers of my paths, mine. These are my tears and those of Mary that made them bloom, it is my Blood and that of my co-redeemers—including, among others, yours, Soul victim—that have fertilized them. These flowers are eternal. They are reached by passing through a rampart of thorns: the world. But then... oh, then! What Peace! I, who love, pick one of my flowers from time to time and bring it to you beyond this rampart of thorns, for I do not want to see you cry without receiving some comfort from me, I who know what being redeemer and unloved means. […] But these are abysses. They will have to answer for wanting to remain abysses even though my co-redeemers and I have made ourselves like a net that dives to the bottom of the abyss, even at the risk of accepting the bitterness of Darkness—while we are children of Light—to bring them a memory of Light, give them the desire for it, lead them to it. To bring them out of Darkness: that is the work of redeemers. Even when it seems to us that we ourselves are in Darkness, we who are not Darkness.
• Catechesis of August 2: No one, no matter how great, can come before me if he does not recognize in Mary, the closed Gate through which God alone entered, the Mother of the Savior, the Virgin Mother, the divine Mother. I united her to my condition of Living in heaven to tell you what her glory is. She is only inferior to God, for she is created by him. But her Maternity and her co-redemptive pains exalt her above every creature. Gate of heaven, she is the source of faith, hope and charity, temperance, justice, strength and prudence, Grace and Graces, salvation; it is through her that the God made flesh came to you.        
• Catechesis of August 6: You wanted to know this joy anew, and you climbed higher. Two, three, ten years ever higher on the rough trunk, always for more strength and perfume, ever more dew, sky and rubies on ever more numerous flowers. When you reached halfway, you knew the name of that tree: it was my cross. And it spoke to you with its voice of suffering and love. On its wood, you read the truths, written with the Blood of your God, that are life, you embraced them and tasted their sweetness, and you desired to climb all the way up, where a painful Face smiled at you while letting tears and drops of blood flow, that is your dew and your rubies. From that moment on, you desired nothing else.
  Then your Master and Redeemer made the trunk of his throne smoother, ever smoother and softer to help you rise up. For love obtains in return love and mine, who already loved you to want you entirely for him, loved you with preference now that you loved him with all your being.
  My little voice, here you are arrived at the knowledge of your God. From the top of our scaffold of loving redeemers, you observe, not with desire but with mercy, the distant earth, these poor plants who do not know how to come to the cross; then you turn your eyes to heaven to pray for them because, being united to Christ, you share his divine Thirst to love and save Souls. From the top of the cross, you learn the highest science and, like a bird at the top of a very tall cedar, you sing its teachings so that those poor plants hear them and come to the Light. You have received greater gifts. But the gift of gifts was love.        
• Catechesis of August 19: To cry is not a sin. It is the tribute paid to our condition. I say Good “our”, because your God was man and wept, just as Mary, who was exempt from all miseries by her Immaculate Conception, wept: as co-redeemer, she had to experience Suffering, which she should not have known. Man and Woman wept. You may well weep too, who are certainly a Soul closely united to God, but not divine nor immaculate.
  The essential thing is to know how to weep so that these tears do not become sin, that is without bitterness, and to make these tears a currency that can serve to redeem the slaves that Satan holds chained in his galley.
  Save, save! And do not be afraid. God is with you. 
• Catechesis of September 14: At that time it seemed impossible to love more. And, as you loved your Jesus, especially in his role as Redeemer, you desired to be called Mary of the Cross. The cross! That is all your love It then seemed to you impossible to love more. But you see, my little spouse, that, as love for God belongs to God, it shares infinity with him. One can always love more and never reach its limits. Indeed, love increases as it is fulfilled and perfects itself.

The Notebooks from 1945 to 1950

• February 10, 1945: Mystical Calendar of Maria Valtorta. Her “act of offering as victim to Justice and Love”.      
• January 28–29, 1946: During the night. I complain of my excessive suffering. I say: “It is too terrible.” Saint Azarias tells me: "Why call terrible what comes from God? Why say it is unbearable? How can one speak of atrocious what is participation in the Redemption of Christ? Hell is atrocious. What comes from Satan is unbearable. Only what comes from Hatred can be terrible. God never gives more than a creature can bear. His Son is the only one on whom he has laid his hand heavily. These sufferings were the only ones without measure. Christ, who knew the justice of it, nonetheless endured them without calling them terrible, atrocious or unbearable, because that would mean accusing the Father of striking him without charity. Soul victims must conform to the Victim in all things. Cry, but do not claim you suffer too much.
• February 17, 1946: Regarding you, the doors of heavenly profits, the possession of God, will be opened, not because you are "spokesperson", but because you are a voluntary victim: indeed, by the word of the Soul, by the word of love, you have written "these" words and put on paper what your Soul was already doing. Only this will have value to judge you on earth and in heaven. This alone explains why I made you my spokesperson: because you showed goodwill and strong love.
• March 13, 1946: If I examine myself carefully, on the eve of human judgment on my work as spokesperson, if I scrutinize scrupulously my Soul and my whole being to decipher the true words within me, I can say that now I love, I understand that I love God with all my being. It took me forty-eight years to reach this total love, so total that I have no fear of condemnation, but only the pain that it might fall on Souls I led to God and who, I am convinced, have been redeemed by Jesus who lives in me but who might separate from the Church, this link between humanity and God.
• May 3, 1946: Because I am above you. You are in the beam of my rays. All the light you receive is me. All the Peace you feel is me. All the joy you experience is me. I stand above you, invisible but present. You are protected, even if you believe yourself alone. For Love never fails at the agonies and sacrifices of those who work for the glory of God and the redemption of Souls.
• January 19, 1947: (about the Weddings at Cana) “Jesus’ Mother was there." The Mother! Could she be absent where the new man had to be born? Could Eve not be there if from now on "Life" was to take the place of Death? Can Woman be missing when the hour approaches when the Serpent will have his head crushed and limits will be placed on his freedom of action? Impossible! The Mother of the living, the immaculate Eve, the Woman of the "Hail Mary" and "Let it be done to me according to your word," the Woman with the powerful heel, the Co-redemptrix is therefore present at the Banquet where the union of humanity and Grace is inaugurated.        
• April 7, 1947: Maria, it is I who lives in you, my dear Soul victims and servants of love. What you give, it is still I, because you are totally given to me to the point of no longer existing for yourselves, but because I exist. You existed until you had the will to be entirely mine, after which we merged. The greater, that is, I, absorbed the lesser, you. You are the outer garment, but the rest is I who lives in you. And Souls sense my fragrance, they rush. They glimpse my light, and they rush. You are amphoras that give off the fragrance that fills you, veils that envelop the light but without hiding it. Souls speak to you to speak to me. Let them come.      
• May 14, 1947: My dear Soul victim, in the chalice of propitiation offered every day on the altars, there is my Blood and the generous tears of Soul victims. For your pain is love. You asked to suffer out of love, I granted it out of love, you endure it out of love. In victims, everything is love: as much the smile for my love that consoles them, the groans under the torture of the flesh, or the tears due to misunderstanding or betrayal by men, and even those of sadness to feel that your God is not loved.    
• May 16, 1947: Look, look, make it your delight. There is no more beautiful light in paradise than this one, after ours. There is none sweeter. No. We, the Three glorious, find our joy there, and the Blessed theirs, just like the Angels. Paradise shines with this light of the immaculate Heart of our Mary. This light that you say is indescribable—it is the voice and joy of paradise—emanates from this breast, from this Heart of the eternal Virgin. If only man accepted that it spread on earth! It would be the second redemption, the second forgiveness... the final salvation! Ah, the pardon of the world! The pardon granted to the world by Mary! But the world rejects the Mother who would give birth to it in Peace. Love, love for the whole world. Then the light of the Heart of Mary will penetrate you with the joy that makes us truly Blessed.
• September 14, 1947 (the glorious Cross): Be at Peace, my Soul, my little crucified one. After having been considered an object of horror, the cross was exalted for having borne me, thus becoming an instrument of redemption. The crucified, after having been tested by suffering, will be exalted for having completed in themselves what was lacking in my Passion.  
• October 23, 1947: There can be no second redemption accomplished by me, the Christ. But there can still be one to save a greater number of Souls from infernal spirals: that of glorious Mary. The secret of the final Redemption lies in her devotion.      
• March 1949: It is not a lack of charity to be just with the guilty, and just by practicing justice in every act. Did I then lack charity towards my Mother by practicing this heroic justice which consisted in doing all the will of my Father? No, truly not. On the contrary, by acting thus I made the Immaculate the Co-redemptrix. I crowned her head with that second glorious crown which she would not have had otherwise. Moreover, she did not refuse it, although it is a crown of immoderate suffering.    
• August 15, 1949: Weep over the torment of my Mother, who finally bursts forth after her heroic suffering on Calvary. You, at least, must understand this double torment of mother and first and perfect believer. No one understands it except you, who have seen it and remember, who hear the voices, see the tears and sobs.
  Make reparations by your understanding love for the lack of consideration for Mary’s suffering, co-redemptrix. That is what I ask of you: that you repair the superficiality with which too many people consider my Mother’s passion.
  I ask you today, on this feast of the Assumption, on this day of Marian joy. However, Mary had to drink a cup as bitter as mine to have this joy... Mary was a sea of pain, before becoming Queen of heaven.
  You are washed by my blood and by the sea of Mary's tears. Yet no one thinks of it... As for you, make reparations for all those indifferent.  
• Revelation (p. 563): For pity for these poor men swept away by the turmoil of blood, fire, persecution, death, infinite Mercy will make shine on this sea of blood and horror the pure morning Star, Mary, who will be the herald of the last coming of Christ. It follows that the new evangelists will teach the Gospel of Mary, truly too much left in the shadow by The Evangelists, the Apostles and all Disciples, whereas a wider knowledge of her would have served as teaching to good many, thus avoiding many falls. She is indeed co-redemptrix and plays the role of master: a master of a pure, faithful, prudent, compassionate, and pious life, at home as among the men of her time.          
• Ib° (p. 564): Christ will seek to prevent this denial, not only of Religion but even of reason, by opening new horizons and pathways enlightened by spiritual lights, and by arousing, among those who do not openly reject him, a powerful awakening of spiritual life, with the help of these new evangelists not only of Christ but also of the Mother of God. They will carry Mary’s banner. They will lead to Mary. And Mary, who was once already a cause and source—indirect but nevertheless powerful—of man’s redemption, will be once more. She is indeed the holy Adversary of the treacherous Adversary, and her heel is destined to crush the infernal dragon forever, just as Wisdom, which has established its seat in her, is destined to defeat the heresies that corrupt Souls and minds.

The Book of Azarias

• Passion Sunday: I (Jesus) said: "I must pass through this suffering here below to reach glory above." You too, if you want to advance amid the cruel thorns of your path strewn with snakes, thorns, obstacles, carrying your bundle on your shoulders, to reach the goal—the immolation which is also the goal to be reached, in other words co-redemption—you must constantly keep your eyes fixed on this "goal", on perfect charity for Souls, which is accomplished by total self-sacrifice. There is no greater love than to give one’s life for one’s brothers and friends. I said it, and I did it. (Text also in the Notebooks on April 7, 1946).        
• Palm Sunday : The forces of evil cast curses on the innocent and accuse them of crimes to crush them even in The Spirit and "to distance them from salvation". Oh! My Soul, even if you were accused of sin, O expiatory and redemptive victim for the sins of men, a victim who offers herself to continue the work of the Redeemer Jesus, burdened by accusations of sins as Christ was during those terrible Hours, then think that it is an outside weight, an external garment [...] These garments whitened by the pain of pains, by the Victim of victims and by the great tribulation of the true faithful, the "victims", the martyred to be co-redeemers, these garments are adorned with those precious stones which are your sufferings and the unjust accusations.    
• Second Sunday after Easter: "Do this in memory of me." By these words, the eucharistic rite was established. But not only that.
  These words also contain advice given to the elect among his redeemed. The advice is: "To be worthy of the election I chose you for beforehand, you, my true servants among all my servants, do, in my memory who teaches you by these words what it is and how one becomes masters and redeemers, break yourselves without reluctance, Pride, fear, or human considerations. Break yourselves, shatter yourselves, annihilate yourselves, destroy yourselves, give yourselves, deliver yourselves to men, for men, and out of love for Me who gave myself to whoever wanted to break me as I gave myself to those who wanted miracles and instruction."
  He who does not know how to break and give himself cannot be a true disciple. The generosity, the self-immolation of one who knows how to break himself to satisfy the hunger of his brothers is the sign that makes true servants of God recognized [...] The Blessed Apostle Peter confirms my words in his epistle: "Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example to follow in his steps." The sheep of the true fold would no longer be part of it if they abandoned their shepherd to follow steps that are not his, to pastures not belonging to the master of the flock. His steps are not those of material joy, but those of suffering, fruitful for the one who endures it and for others, because suffering with Christ and in Christ means continuing the redemption of Christ.       
• God’s Feast : Mary immolated herself, was ground to dust between the millstones of obedience and suffering, she, the Intact One whom neither Weddings, nor childbirth, nor death managed to burden, violate or corrupt as is the case for every mortal. Only love. Love alone delivered her to the millstone by which the Co-redemptrix, from ear of corn she was, became a wheat flower.
• 7th Sunday after Pentecost: Love therefore suffering and mortification as means at first of atonement, as means of sanctification thereafter, praising the Lord who grants you to offer a continual sacrifice holier than that of material offerings of silver or gifts similar to the bulls and rams of old Law. Offer the sacrifice of your will, your passions, your whole "human self" to the paternal Providence of God, so that he may lead you, even to death on the cross like his Son, to become, better than your own co-redeemers, the co-redeemers of your brothers. Yes, Maria. Offer your sacrifice for your brothers and your confreres.          
• 9th Sunday after Pentecost: Currently, in the Law of love, offenses are still washed by sacrifices. Not by putting the guilty to death, but by offering oneself as a victim for faults, following the example of the Redeemer. Then it is no longer simply the hands nor only the priestly blessing, but the whole being that is consecrated to receive the blessing that opens the Kingdom of God to the saints, to those who immolate themselves to save sinners and repair offenses done to God.
• 14th Sunday after Pentecost: Console your Mother. The apostle was also torn, yet he consoled the torn Mother. John had his own pain. But she suffered all her present and future co-redemptive pains. And you know them...
• 17th Sunday after Pentecost : How good it is, how it must fill you with grateful joy to think that, to serve and help him in redemption and in apostolate, God uses men and not Angels and that, to transform men into gods, his sons, he uses his power which is all love!        
• Immaculate Conception and 2nd Sunday of Advent : Mary obtained all this for you because she knew how to wear her garments of God-beloved of the Eternal One with the true joy of the humble, because she knew how to sing the praises of God and of Him alone, even amid the sobs and desolations of the passion.
  She exulted! What a profound word! Her spirit always exulted magnifying the Lord, even when her humanity was mocked by an entire people, even overwhelmed and oppressed by her pain and that of her creature. She exulted thinking that her pain, and Jesus’ pain brought glory to God by saving men.
  Beyond the groans of the Mother, beyond her laments as Woman, her co-redemptive spirit sang. It sang submissively in that dreadful hour, full of hope in the words of Wisdom. Her spirit sang the love that blessed God for having pierced her! [...] It is said that Ave is the reversal of Eva (Eve). But Ave is still an echo that recalls Yahweh, the very holy name of God, just as it recalls even more vividly, as I already explained to you, the name of the Word: Joshua.
  In the sacred tetragram formed by the children of God’s people to pronounce, in the secret Temple of The Spirit, the name not to be spoken, there is already Ave, the beginning of the word by which God made the All-Beautiful the holy Mother and Co-redemptrix. Ave: it is almost as if – which really happened – the Lord, announcing himself by his name, entered her womb to become flesh, in the unique womb that could contain the Unique.

Lessons on Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Romans

• Lesson n°6 : I address the Host-souls. God needs pure hosts, holy hosts, hosts made immaculate by their charity which purifies them from human weaknesses. He needs hosts. Hosts of love, in reparation of all offenses done to Love. Hosts of expiation, in reparation of the sins of the world. Hosts of Purification. The stench of sins infecting the world is so vast and powerful that it reaches the Heavens. Purify the immense cathedral of the Universe so that God can still look upon it with that saving compassion.
  And be happy to be called, desired by God in this function of hosts. For the maintenance of human life, the sacrifices of Soul-victims are more necessary than the elements themselves. It is Love who tells you: "Those who accept to be victims of holocaust are the legions of archAngels who repel the demonic legions. They keep the world in place by calming the wrath of God. Those who accept to be hosts are imitators of Christ, and the most authentic ones. Those who sacrifice themselves engender sons to the Lord their God".
• Lesson n°14: Mary is the Co-redemptrix who tirelessly cooperates in God’s final triumph. She is that inexhaustible charity that works tirelessly for God’s glory and in the clothing of Servant despite her glory as Queen. She is the Mother, the perfect Mother of all who ask her for Life.
• Lesson n°17 : "I will set my rainbow among the clouds and remember my covenant." Oh! Truly the Rainbow of Peace, the Co-redemptrix, is among the clouds, above the clouds, a gentle star shining in God’s Presence to recall to him that he promised mercy to men, and gave his Son that men might obtain pardon. She is there not as a thought sweetness, but as a true, complete reality, with her spotless Soul and incorruptible flesh. She is not content to be happy and adoring there. She shows herself active. She calls and attracts humanity to Salvation. Mary’s hour. This hour.        
• Lesson n°19 : In him and through him. Many are those who, by generous obedience or heroic request, have become "hosts", "redeemers", "able to continue and complete the Passion of Christ"!
  But even if these singular heroes of the highest charity are unknown, you all, Christians, are "living hosts", and you are required "to offer your members as an instrument of justice". To offer them purified of all fault, for you are now "not under the law, but under Grace". Freed as you are from the slavery of sin, supported as you are by Grace, you must no longer know the death of The Spirit, and you will not know it if, voluntarily, you do not return to be servants of fault.

In fundamental Christian texts

In the Bible

• Jesus said to them: "The cup that I shall drink, you shall drink, and with the Baptism with which I am baptized, you shall be baptized. Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother: "He is set for the fall and for the rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against—yes, a sword will pierce your own soul too—that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." I now rejoice in my sufferings which I endure for you, and what is lacking in Christ's sufferings, I complete in my flesh by suffering for his body which is the Church.

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church

• Men can deliberately enter into the divine plan, through their actions, prayers, but also through their sufferings. They then become fully "collaborators of God".
• Our participation in Christ’s sacrifice: "He indeed wants to associate to his redeeming sacrifice those who are its primary beneficiaries. This is fulfilled supremely in his Mother, associated more intimately than anyone else to the mystery of his redemptive suffering".

In other sources

John Paul II – Audience of April 9, 1997

She cooperated to obtain the Grace of salvation for all humanity:

"Applied to Mary, the term "cooperator" nevertheless assumes a particular meaning. The cooperation of Christians in salvation is realized after the event of Calvary, of which they commit to spreading the Fruits through prayer and sacrifice. However, Mary’s cooperation was realized at the very event and as mother; it therefore extends to the whole salvific work of Christ.   She alone was associated in this way to the redemptive offering that brought the salvation of all men. In union with Christ and subject to Him, She cooperated to obtain the Grace of salvation for all humanity."

Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet - The compassion of the Holy Virgin

"Do not believe, my brothers, that the holy Mother of our Savior was called to the foot of his cross only to witness the torment of her only Son, and to have her heart torn by this horrible sight. There are higher designs of divine Providence on this afflicted mother. And we must understand today that she is led to her Son, in this state of abandonment, because it is the will of the eternal Father that she be not only immolated with this innocent victim, and attached to the Savior’s cross by the same nails that pierce him, but also associated to the whole mystery accomplished there by his death."

Lumen Gentium - Chapter 8 § 61

"The Blessed Virgin, predestined from all eternity, within the plan of the Incarnation of the Word, to be the Mother of God, was on earth, by virtue of a disposition of divine Providence, the venerable Mother of the divine Redeemer; generously associated to his work in a way absolutely unique, humble servant of the Lord. In conceiving Christ, in giving birth to him, in nursing him, in presenting him in the Temple to his Father, in suffering with her Son who died on the cross, she brought to the work of the Savior a cooperation absolutely unparalleled by her obedience, her faith, her hope, her ardent charity, so that supernatural life might be restored to Souls. Hence, she became for us, in the order of Grace, our Mother."

Jesus to Ottavio Michelini - Confidence of Jesus to his priests and faithful - November 30, 1976: Soul victims

My son, write:

Who are the Soul victims? What is the raison d’être of Soul victims? Why are Soul victims known only to very few other Souls? Why do Soul victims often incur the aversion, misunderstanding, or persecution of those who, logically, should understand and support them in every way. Who are they? Soul victims are Souls specially chosen by Heaven, by the Divine Trinity, of which they become daughters and brides; they are the Souls most loved by the Father, most intimately united to the Son and the Holy Spirit.

They are Souls who generously, often heroically, give their human life to God, subordinating all their life to divine will, wanting only what God wants from them, desiring only God, true, unique, great Good, Alpha and Omega of all and everyone, offering and immolating themselves, out of love for God, Supreme Good, reason and end of life, to repair their offenses and those of others. What do they do? They climb with Christ to the Cross.

Soul victims are privileged Souls who ask not only to be able to follow Christ, in accordance with his word: “Whoever wants to come after Me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me” they do not only content themselves with following Christ on the way

of Calvary, but they climb with Christ to the Cross. They are courageous, heroic and generous Souls; they are the Souls who deeply feel the social character of the Church, especially of the weakened Church, and who offer themselves for it. Soul victims are enlightened Souls who have understood that there can be no love of God and love of our brothers without suffering; they are the most faithful and authentic interpreters and executors of the two commandments of Love. Soul victims are Souls who, being above the dense darkness which envelops humanity, want to rise up and, indeed, rise up to the heights, above the polluted and corrupted atmosphere of this materialistic humanity and, although walking on Earth, their Souls and thoughts are on the heights, in Heaven, turned toward God, in God and with God.

Soul victims are lightning rods for humanity; woe to men, woe to Earth, if there were no Soul victims! Divine Justice would have already taken its inexorable course, reducing everything and everyone to ashes. Why are they so little known? Because, my son, true Good, true virtue, disdain publicity, the noises of the world, the thoughts of the world, the ways of life of the world; that is why they love to live withdrawn, Hidden, in silence, always ready to catch the voice and the lights coming from above, to conform to the divine will which certainly wants them in the world, but Hidden to the eyes of those who cannot understand them, for these Souls enraptured by God can only unfold their colloquy

with God in their humble reserve. They are still little known, my son, because men do not understand them, they appear to their eyes as foolish and senseless;

thus the world does not love them, often despises, mocks and avoids them, but in reality fears them and often opposes them, because their heroic self-denial means by itself a severe condemnation and a just warning that malformed Consciences cannot tolerate.

Our foolish… we believed

Men, one day, will have to rectify their thoughts and judgments about Soul victims whom, deliberately, they ignored and despised. Men one day will see, like the rich man saw poor Lazarus he neglected, in Abraham’s bosom. Men, one day will turn to Soul victims crying out:

“Our foolish, therefore we have strayed from the way of truth. We believed…”

My son, I told you other times that my ways are different from your ways; he who believes in Me will not be lost in the dark labyrinths of a world dominated by the Evil One, but he who believes in Me will follow me on the paths I traced for all with my life on Earth. I bless you, my son, and love Me. Come, son, behind Me; come and follow Me and you will not regret it.

Layperson (laic) living in the world but following the rules of life of a particular religious order.

Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992).