The Strength of the MarTyres

The Strength of the MarTyres

Cover page (2022)
Work Details
Author	Maria Valtorta
Design and Commentary	François-Michel Debroise - Benoît de Fleurac
Foreword	Véronique Lévy
Pages	217
Full Title	The Strength of the MarTyres in the writings of Maria Valtorta
Publication	September 2022
Publisher	Centro Editoriale Valtortiano
ISBN	978-88-7987-391-8
Distribution	Bookstore - online sale - Publisher's site

This collection offers a selection of 15 texts extracted from the writings of Maria Valtorta - mainly The Notebooks - recounting the marTyree of the first Christians, with historical contextualization for each.

It is inspired by this phrase of Jesus to Maria Valtorta:

"You, Christians, take the stories of my marTyres for fables and say to yourselves: 'It is a legend!' Eh Good! know that it is not one. It is history.

Why do you not feel your spirit exalted at the tale of the greatness and heroism of my heroes and encouraged to imitate them in a lofty way?

My marTyres were determined to accomplish their Mission and the ministry - which they had received from me - to sanctify the world and to bear witness to the Gospel.

They cared for nothing else. They had become once again 'men and Womans' and no longer beasts, by the Grace that lived in them." (Notebooks 1944, March 5).

Summary of the work

• Foreword by Véronique Lévy (7)
• The paths of testimony (14)
• The marTyres are intimately linked to the history of Salvation (17)
• The blood of the marTyres (21)

1. The holy innocents (26)
2. Stephen, marTyre in Jerusalem in 32 (37)
3. The first Roman marTyres who died in Rome in 64, under Nero (52)
4. Pheniculus and Petronilla, probably died between 64 and 68 in Rome, under Nero (67)
5. The priest Diomedes, marTyred probably in the 1st century, in Rome (78)
6. Pope Cletus (Anacletus), marTyred in 91 or 92 in Rome, under Domitian (84)
7. Felicity and Perpetua, marTyres in Carthage in 203 under Emperor Septimius Severus (101)
8. Martina, marTyred in 226 in Rome under Severus Alexander (110)
9. Cecilia and Valerian, marTyres in Rome in 229 under Emperor Severus Alexander (114)
10. The old priest and the gladiators, marTyres without doubt in 304, in Rome, under Maximian Hercules (140)
11. Agnes, marTyred in Rome in 304 under Emperor Maximian Hercules (147)
12. Irene of Thessalonica and her marTyred sisters in 304 in Thessalonica, under Diocletian and Galerius (168)
13. Justina and Cyprian marTyred in 304 in Antioch of Syria under Diocletian and Galerius (173)
14. Pope Marcellus, Valens and Valentine marTyred in 309 in Rome under Maximian Hercules (182)
15. Flora and Mary of Cordoba marTyred in 851 in Cordoba under Abd-al-Rahman II (191)

• Teachings of Jesus on marTyree (197)
• Maria Valtorta and her work (210)

Foreword by Véronique Lévy

"Do you hear those Souls rising in Chorus in communion with the whole Church, with the most holy Virgin Mary, the Angels and the Archangels... Do you hear their names called at the Heart of the Eucharistic Prayer as a blessing? Lin, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus, Cornelius and Cyprian, Lawrence, Chrysogonus, John and Paul, Cosmas and Damian... the litany of pious and valiant marTyres escorts the holy Sacrifice of the Mass with their blood. Echo of a beyond time, immemorial round of the Blessed... Constellation come from elsewhere, eternal horizons... Ignatius, Alexander, Marcellinus and Peter, Blandina, Felicity and Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia, Anastasia and all the saints... The marTyrologist weaves his crown of virgins, of poor and children, kings, beggars or knights of the byways... Alleluia, alleluia. It is true brotherhood that has overcome the crimes of the world: they followed Christ and possess the Glory of the heavenly Kingdom. The dazzling army of marTyres sings your praises Lord. Alleluia! Athletes of Charity, all chose to lose their life to Save it, seized in the barest love whose other name is Truth. This Love transfigured their death, and beyond still to plunge it into the « Fire of the smelter, to purify it in the bleach of the washer.»

For they have dipped their robes in the blood of the Lamb and this robe of innocence has become the tunic of a Baptism of Blood.

An Italian mystic, Maria Valtorta, soul victim whose silent marTyree flowed, invisible, from the hollow of her paralysis, received from Jesus Christ the distinguished Grace of the vision of these marTyres: fifteen contemplations, transcribed among all her work,- especially in the Notebooks-, are finally gathered at the Heart of this collection, The Strength of the MarTyres. The Lord revealed to her that all these sown lives were offerings of love intimately united to His; that their scattered blood ignited like a Fire on earth, the gospel of Faith. The holy innocents, Stephen, Pheniculus, Petronilla, Irene, Flora, Justina, Valentine and many other names, sometimes forgotten, intertwine there in a rosary of lilies woven to the Body and Blood of Christ: hosts sacrificed in the Host. Maria Valtorta sees them, hears them: love, live, suffer and die. Of this ecstatic death so violent or so gentle, often unbearable in the cry of the executioners, the raw gleam of the blade, the crushing of flesh and the scent of blood. The blood of the marTyres fertilized the nascent and infant Church... the militant, suffering and triumphant Church... Escorting it to its passion, to the Cross, until it apparently becomes nothing again: a minuscule peninsula for the end, last ark when all seems lost, raft of Grace rising up the course of Holy History in the Breath of the Spirit. Its immaculate sail is woven from the Yes of the Virgin where shines at the Heart of the weave like a thread of joy and crimson, the pure joy of the marTyres. « Blessed shall you be when they insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. » (Matt 5:11,12)

MarTyree is not a victim: The victim does not know why it suffers, lives, and dies. It struggles in agony. Its cry is strangled in terror. It confuses itself with death. The marTyre, however, is seized in love and united to Life. He is His most radical witness. This is the etymological meaning of the word marTyre. And it is as a witness of Eternal love that he faces, overcomes, and crosses this death of his faith. By his Baptism, his flesh vivified by the Spirit no longer dies: it carries in seed the sovereign freedom of the children of God; this freedom experienced by the blade, the Fire or the abandonment of all, bursts forth in the Yes of a life given without return to the Bridegroom. For the song of the marTyre is a nuptial song. It cradles in its atrocious pain the wounds of the world transfigured into stigmas of love. And its tortured flesh carries them like a scar on its Heart, the scar of a Covenant that has conquered death. The marTyre is prophet: he announces the Kingdom which is not of this world but which bears the world. He is priest: he unveils eternity on the altar of a love that transfigures the death of his faith. He is king: his Heart is wounded by the thorns of a crown of pain but of Glory. The crown of crucified Love Who crucified hate with His wide arms, that of the Wisdom of God Who broke the folly of death. For, « if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we will be also in a resurrection like His.(...) And if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we believe that we will also live with Him.

We know indeed: Christ, risen from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has power over Him.»  (Rom 6:5-9)

Yes, marTyree designates that which will never pass: the unique Word of God Who Became Flesh in the flesh of Mary to sow ours with His eternity; to hollow at the Heart of the most annihilated atom, the infinite; to make us face to face beyond the horizon of death. In the Trinitarian dance. The marTyre is the faithful witness of the Book of Revelation of Saint John, extreme herald of Revelation: that of Love who triumphs over mimetic rivalry; that of Love who triumphs over the « War of all Against all.»» MarTyree is the shining sign of a light exposing the grimace of a world going to its ruin because it chose nothingness as master. For idols, robots. Because the structures and foundations of this world are cemented by the clients of death instead of priests celebrating life and modernity too often serves useful archaicism.

The marTyre despises the simulacrum of the immortality of a flesh deserted of its Soul and robbed of the Spirit Who animated it, robbed by the Merchants of the Temple of our bodies. It exposes the Violence and lies of a civilization now and celebrating Peace in the shadow of War; a civilization whose flagship is the transhumanist mirage imposing the relentless laws of the digital empire and social credit. The irreducible freedom of the marTyre threatens them: is he not the accident of a grain of Salt that does not fade, the risk of a derailment of the circuits of the uniform Program? Scandalous, he is the dissident watching at the interstices of the digital networks. Posted at the fissures of its interfaces, he diverts parallel trajectories, defies the opaque algorithms of all artificial paradises so that through these cracks passes the light of Life. He hacks the System: from the Heart of flesh of his Humanity, Heart of flesh where is inscribed, inviolable, the Law of love that will never pass. Is he not the bridegroom of Christ, Word of God Who gives meaning and being to the darkest matter?  Archer of infinity, he aims at eternity.

The Church of the last times is no longer Hidden in the Darkness of the catacombs. Its Apostles and marTyres are not always exterminated in tears, terror, and blood; thrown into barbaric arenas; or erased, by slow and social death. They are the splinter of truth in the denial of the world. They hollow the already transfigured flesh of Eternity Calling each atom to its source, to The Book of Life unsealed where our names are written in the Heavens, in the ink of the Glorious Blood of Jesus Christ.

And they sang a new song, saying: You are worthy to take the Book and to open its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed for God by Your blood men from every tribe, language, people, and nation; (Rev 5:9)

I looked, when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a voice like thunder: Come. (Rev 6:1)

Yes, come Lord Jesus. Your Judgment will have Mercy for the love of the humble and gentle blood of your most holy marTyres. For it is not for fun that they loved You, as You loved us to death on a Cross... so that death, wages of sin, be crucified forever there... And there live Your life, and remain Your joy, at the Heart of the most unrelenting nights.

                                                     

                                            On this day of the canonization of Saint Charles de Foucauld

                                                                                                      May 15, 2022

                                                                                                      Véronique Lévy"

The first pages

The time of the marTyres

[...] If Jesus is attached to these distant marTyrees, it is because it is a story much closer than one thinks. Persecutions, which never ceased over the centuries, resumed even more fiercely in the 20th century. According to John Paul II, this period was comparable, in Violences, to the early days of the Church: "During the 20th century, perhaps even more than in the beginnings of Christianity, very many witnessed the faith amid often heroic sufferings. […] They endured forms of ancient and new persecution, they experienced hatred and exclusion, violence and assassination. Many countries with ancient Christian tradition became lands where it cost to remain faithful to the Gospel." These contemporary facts have meaning in the history of Salvation. Jesus explains it to Maria Valtorta. He begins by recalling the general law of marTyree:

"Those who give up what human has dearest, life, to be able to follow me, out of love for Jesus and the brothers and sisters, will be called to a dazzling resurrection. I will never tire of repeating it: there is nothing greater than love in heaven and on earth, and there is no greater love than the love of him who gives his life for his brothers and sisters."

Then, a little further, He extends the global War ravaging the earth at the time, to the dimensions of another War, that which Satan leads:

"I told you one day that in the current tragedy the forces of Satan are already in motion, who sent his black Angels to stir up the kingdoms of the earth against each other. The supernatural battle has already begun. It is there. Behind the scenes of the small human battle.

"Small, not in terms of its scale, but of its reasons. It has absolutely no origin in the little human reasons. Not at all. Its true reason, which turns brothers into as many homicidal beasts who bite and kill each other, this reason is quite another.

"You fight with your bodies. But in reality, it is the Souls who fight. You fight under orders of five or six powerful ones. That's what you think. No. There is only one executor of this ruin. He is on earth because you want it, but he is not of this world. It is Satan who pulls the strings of this carnage by which more Souls die than bodies.

"[…] Blessed are those who have overcome by the Blood of the Lamb and have remained and will always remain faithful. Blessed are those who have repelled Satan and his flatteries and have not cared about his apparent triumphs, about his efforts deployed at this hour, of which he knows it will be brief for his reign of curse; those who remain faithful to Christ and to his Church, dismembered by anti-Christian persecution, undefeated marTyree like the great MarTyre his Spouse, the crucified Christ, but who is reborn even more beautiful after apparent death to enter glorified into Heaven, where the true Pontiff awaits him to celebrate the Weddings."

Our time is thus the continuation of a spiritual Struggle that began with the early days of Christianity.

Before going further into the confidences of Jesus, it is appropriate to clarify the meaning of the words: The word marTyree refers to violent death inflicted because of faith. The words marTyre/marTyree designate the persons to whom it is inflicted. In Greek, the word marTyre means "witness" of God, more especially unto blood, but these testimonies were not always visibly bloody, many were internal marTyrees, often unknown to men.

Jesus lingers, however, in his fresco of the 15 marTyrees, to reveal to us the very visible and concrete aspects of the hate of God and the cruelty of men. In this way, He first intends to make us better understand the power of their testimony, of their marTyree and from where they drew the strength that animated them.

The paths of testimony.

Blood marTyree is not the only way to experience it. The "Soul victims", who offer themselves in "holocaust", live it the same. [...] The sufferings endured by all these Soul victims are nothing minor or symbolic. Maria Valtorta, who suffered many physical and moral sufferings during her life, describes how the harsh reality of marTyree is also accompanied by a spiritual beatitude:

"Ah! (The Demon) tormented me in all ways! Only I know how much he tormented me! And for years! It was something strange. The Soul always remained identical to itself, united to God, in Peace, in the Thirst for sacrifice. Prayer was my joy. I desired the Sacraments more than air itself. The flesh was in madness. I have the impression that by a will to attribute I do not know to whom, to the Most High or the Most Low, I was somehow doubled. On my spirit reigned God, while on my matter Lucifer bit, excited, upset... and sometimes threw into the mud. I lived hell."

An echo of this is found in the marTyree of Stephen who, during his agony, contemplates the Glory of God (Acts 7:55-56). This Presence of Heaven in the atrocious sufferings of marTyree is felt in the 15 scenes Jesus reveals to us.

Thus, blood marTyres and Soul victims also face Evil following and imitating Jesus. They do so publicly or discreetly, spectacular or invisible, but both participate in the Christ's work of redemption. Both face, for varying durations and intensity, physical and moral suffering as Jesus did integrally. But both participate in His triumph Against "those who kill the body without being able to kill the Soul" (Matthew 10:28).

Marie of the valleys (1590-1656), had the future vision of these Soul victims. She calls them the marTyres of Divine Love: "They will be great marTyres even though the executioners do not touch them, but they will be marTyres of Divine Love. It will be Divine Love that will marTyre them. They will be burned in the furnace of Love and they will be greater marTyres than many others of the first marTyres who suffered marTyree for the hope of crowns and glory, but these do not look to the reward but only to the glory of God."

Christ gave His life as a sacrifice for the salvation of the world and He invites to the radicality of His example: those who do not understand that they must give their life and their death, after me, for the Salvation of the World, are not worthy of Him.

Would marTyree then be the only path offered to the disciple?

Not all are called to sit beside the Lord drinking from the bitter cup of the Passion (Matthew 20:21-23), but holiness is within everyone's reach, "According to the measure of the gift of Christ". The daily cross, which is the lot of all, offers many occasions to exercise God's love and Neighbor's love which found holiness: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your Heart, with all your Soul, and with all your mind. This is the great, the first commandment, answers Jesus to a scribe who questioned Him. And the second is like it: You shall love your Neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 22:37-40).

The marTyres are intimately linked to the history of Salvation.

"Blood marTyree accompanies the evangelization of all continents: Europe, Africa, Americas, Asia, Oceania. It affects Missionaries, as well as the faithful or nuns and monks from indigenous populations. As observed by John Paul II, the 20th century was a century of recrudescence of persecutions following the Apostasy of peoples. The vision of October 13, 1884, of Leo XIII opening the purifying trial of the "Century of Satan" announced it. That day, at the end of Mass, the pope witnesses a dialogue between God and Satan. The devil boasts of destroying the Church by means of increased time and power, which God grants him. The pope then sees the century "wrapped in Darkness and the abyss", then a legion of demons scattered throughout the world until Saint Michael the Archangel drives them into the abyss. Leo XIII then composed a prayer prescribed at the end of every Mass:

Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection Against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

This inspired prayer has fallen into disuse, but on Sunday, April 24, 1994, Good Shepherd Sunday, John Paul II during the Regina Caeli prayer invited to keep this tradition alive:

"It is to this same battle that the Book of Revelation refers, says John Paul II […] Pope Leo XIII certainly had this image in mind when, at the end of the last century, he introduced into the whole Church a special prayer to Saint Michael […] Even if today this prayer is no longer recited at the end of the Eucharistic celebration, I invite you all not to forget it but to recite it to obtain help in the battle Against the forces of Darkness and Against The Spirit of this world."

John Paul II did not formally restore it, but he invites to continue it. During his homily, he explicitly referred to chapter 6 of the letter to the Ephesians: "Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places."

All these events fit well into the battle of Evil Against Good, of the Struggle of the one who has been a murderer from the beginning (cf. John 8:44), enemy of Man and Creation: "It is by him that disease and death entered the world. It is also by him that crime and corruption entered the world. When you see someone tormented by some misfortune, also think that it is by Satan that he suffers. When you see that someone causes misfortune, also think that he is an instrument of Satan.(EMV 122.8)"

At the Heart of the first World War the Virgin appears at Fatima and entrusts a prophetic message to three young visionaries. Commenting it at the request of John Paul II, Cardinal Ratzinger acknowledged well the Trials of the century that had just ended: "…in the vision, we can recognize the past century (the 20th century) as the century of marTyres, as the century of sufferings and persecutions of the Church, as the century of world Wars (first half of the century) and many local Wars, which filled the whole second half and which made people experience new forms of cruelty."

So if Jesus gives us to meditate on the scenes of marTyree from the early times, it is to show us His triumph Against the forces of evil by the Grace which manifests in His marTyres.

It is to destroy the works of the devil that the Son of God appeared. (1 John 3:8).

From all times, believers have been confronted with the world who wants to impose its domination. This is still true today where they are summoned to adhere to its "culture of death" says John Paul II (Evangelium Vitae § 21), under penalty of public disgrace.

MarTyres consider that their love of God and men is superior to their life. They received the courage, Grace and happiness necessary for their testimony. Like Christ, their "triumph" is not a triumph According to the world, it is even its antithesis, but like Him, they triumphed over death and reign with Him as recalled by the excerpt of the Apocalypse 7:13-15 highlighted in this chapter.

One is tempted to make an exception for the holy innocents massacred on the order of Herod: they decided nothing. But the lesson of this episode is not found in the attitude of the Bethlehemites massively rejecting the Messiah, cause of their misfortune nevertheless perpetrated by a Tyrean, but in those shepherds faithful to the beatific vision of the Nativity. They were rewarded at the end of their Trials.

At the Last Supper, Jesus gives His Apostles the key to the centuries-old battle: "In the world you will have tribulation, but take courage! I have overcome the world (John 16:33)".

MarTyres confess their faith, that is to say, they do not hide their belonging to Christ whatever the appreciation which follows. In this, they are models for those who today too often keep silent about their faith believing to respect that of others. In this, they are mistaken because mutual respect begins with respect of one’s own convictions. If we do not do it, who will do it for us?

Already in her Autobiography, Maria Valtorta, orphan and bedridden, had this cry from the Heart: "Once again I was convinced that after twenty centuries of Christianity we are still far from having understood the essence of Christianity which is a Religion of generosity, boldness, charity..." (Autobiography, page 398).

It is one of the invitations we receive from these testimonies."

The blood of the marTyres

"MarTyres appear from the very first times of the Church. The holy innocents accompany the birth of Jesus as the marTyree of the deacon Stephen opens that of the Church.

About ten years later James of Zebedee the Apostle, called the Greater, is the first of the Apostles to suffer death, in 41-44, during the persecutions initiated by Herod Agrippa I. This king, who was the brother of Herodias and the companion of Caligula the mad emperor, died eaten by worms.

James of Alphaeus the Apostle, called the Lesser, first bishop of Jerusalem, was stoned in 62 on the order of Ananias II, reigning high priest, with several of his companions. According to Flavius Josephus, he was thrown from the top of the Temple terrace into the Kidron valley where a fuller finished him off with a stick. This last marTyree in Judea preceded shortly those who would begin in Rome and continue over ten large-scale persecutions:

• Nero, in 66-68,
• Domitian, in 93,
• Trajan, in 107,
• Marcus Aurelius, in 164,
• Septimius Severus, in 199-204,
• Maximin, in 235,
• Decius, in 250,
• Valerian, in 257-258,
• Aurelian, in 273-275,
• Diocletian and Maximian, in 303-311.

The persecutions under Diocletian and Maximian, in 303, were the longest and the most violent of all. This period was called the era of the MarTyres. Diocletian, pushed by Galerius, his son-in-law, published four edicts during his reign:

• by the first, he ordered to demolish the Churches, burn the holy books and deprive Christians of their civil rights;
• by the second, he pronounced the imprisonment of Church leaders;
• by the third, he ordered tortures Against priests who would refuse to sacrifice to idols;
• by the fourth, he extended to all Christians the obligation to sacrifice.

However by the edict of Sardica, April 30, 311, Galerius put an end to these bloody persecutions. Two years later, by the edict of Milan, Constantine and Licinius granted Christians the right to freely practice their Religion.

Some criticism, claiming to be historical, denied the extent, or even the reality, of these persecutions mainly arguing that since Christians were minorities, they posed only insignificant problems. This argument does not hold, for several reasons:

1 – Christianity very early penetrated the emperor’s entourage: Claudia Procula, adulterous granddaughter of emperor Augustus, intervenes to Pontius Pilate in defense of Jesus during his trial. Flavia Domitilla (Saint Domitilla), died after 95, of the imperial Family, was exiled because of her faith.

2 – Even if the percentage of Christians was only 10 to 15%, that still represents 8 to 12 million people. The testimony of the Church Fathers, like the marTyrologist, attest that Christianity was implanted at all social levels and sometimes at key posts, justifying its attempt of eradication by paganism.

"The blood of the marTyres is the seed of the Church" said Tertullian (155-255). It has never ceased to flow since, in various forms.

The visions of Maria Valtorta report precisely, fifteen marTyrees from the early times of the Church in the Roman Empire. Only one marTyree relates to the early Muslim occupation in Spain: that of Flora of Cordoba. Two are Gospel episodes: the massacre of the innocents and the stoning of Stephen. Some are found in the liturgical calendar, others are almost forgotten."

Notes and references

Note: Quotations from the work of Maria Valtorta on this page currently use machine-translated text and will gradually be replaced by the official English translation. Until then, the official translation may be consulted through the reference link provided with each quotation.

Official declaration that a person is holy and may be universally venerated.

Action of a person (called an "apostate") who renounces their Religion and faith, who publicly abandons their Religion (to adopt another or not). It thus announces their choice to religious representatives.

Person or animal who has been killed by stones. This punishment was used in the East and especially among the Jews. (For example, Jews stoned adulterers, blasphemers).