Communication can be a real problem. We are not always hearing what a person is actually saying. Humans have a great tendency to do a lot of presuming. We presume we know what the other person is saying. A great many times we presume wrongly and as a result we are forever arguing with one another. Some people are better communicators than others. There are different ways to communicate such as the universal language of music and art. Writing is another form. Not everybody is good at talking and being understood when speaking face to face with another. Especially when there is hostility present, such as prejudice. Prejudice blinds a person so that they are not really listening to what the other is saying. When two people from different backgrounds such as the classic example from a different culture, with a very different personality with completely different educational and emotional background, no wonder why we misinterpret one another so often. We are also told men and women speak a different language from one another and therefore have problems communicating with one another, especially married couples.

We Sometimes Speak A Different Language

What this is leading up to Protestants and Catholics also speak a different language as well. I have been both a Protestant and now a Catholic with very strong Protestants influences. My beliefs are mostly Catholic but I go about it the Protestant way. So I am a cross between the two and it is not a comfortable position to be in. There are some things that I have learnt as a Catholic from a book called “The Way of Divine Love” by Sister Josefa Menendez. It is a classic. Through her sacrifices she made way for the chaplet of Divine Mercy. She was what Catholic’s call a ‘Victim Soul.’ The word victim here does not mean what most Protestants think of when they say victim. In other words there is a language problem. When Catholic’s refer to someone as a victim soul, we consider them extremely blessed and favoured by God. Specially chosen for that important calling. It is a great honour to be chosen by God to be a victim soul in our eyes. You need to be truly loyal, humble and courageous with a huge heart. Otherwise you wouldn’t make it. After reading this book, I didn’t know how to explain it to a Protestant, about this kind of calling.

I remember I had a Protestant friend who was an elder at his church. He had the opinion if you had real faith in God, you would not experience any tragedies. Life wouldn’t be so hard. That view is the complete reverse of the life of being a victim soul. We all understand the calling of being a Martyr better. Sometimes we are called to defend the faith and that may cost our lives. One day I heard a Protestant repeating what Jesus said about her husband and that was her husband had prayed for a long time to suffer a little of Christ suffering with Him. Jesus explained it to her as a fast offering. Catholics would call it being a victim soul. Different words meaning the same thing. Jesus was speaking it in the language a Protestant would understand it. If He was talking to a Catholic He would have said victim soul.

God Does Know Our Language

God does know our language better than we do ourselves. This is fairly a new idea amongst many Protestants and not all agree with it. Catholics have always believed in it. We believe the more favoured you are the greater the fast offering of your life united to Jesus would be. Your influence is great with God, because you have proven faithful to Him. Your prayers are so much more powerful when we make sacrifices for God with love. Many Protestants see it as Catholics believe that we enter Heaven by our own works, which is far from the truth. Any offering you give God if it is not united with Jesus’s suffering and merits, which He alone has gain for us, by faith, it is never acceptable to God.

Protestants know about food fasting, but it needs not stop there. Victim Souls often do food fasting too, but they also literally share the sufferings of Jesus. Of course not the whole weight, nobody is strong enough spiritually and what we do suffer is given to us by grace anyway. One Asian woman has the stigmas on her hands, like St. Francis had. They say every time you go near her you smell a very beautiful aroma. You can see this program on YouTube. St. Francis was the first person God gave the stigmas too and then many other saints received them after that. Some saint’s stigmas were invisible, only the saint knew about it and others were visible for all to see.

One well known person was a priest who had the stigmas Padre Pio. Somebody asked him if they hurt and Padre Pio replied ‘do you think God gave me these for a decoration?’ For those who are new believers, stigmas are what we call the wounds of Jesus, where they nailed His hands and Feet to the cross. And the lanced that was speared through His Heart after He died to prove that He was dead. The thing that it also proved was that He was who He said He was, the Son of God. It is also said that the soldier that pieced His side with a lance was converted, because he witnessed with others the blood and water flowed out of the side of Jesus. Receiving the stigmas is a very high honour, but by itself it doesn’t give you a free ticket to enter Heaven. You have to believe Jesus has paid the price of our sins, put your whole trust in God and obey Him and serve no other god, but God Almighty like the rest of us.

Spiritual Mothers

I believe God wanted me to write about victim souls, because that wasn’t my intention. My intention was about Catholics and Protestants not listening to one another and that we do a lot of presuming about one another that is not true. For example many Protestants get worked up when Catholics refer to Mary the mother of Jesus, as our mother also. I think personally it isn’t the most important concern of God whether you refer Mary as your spiritual mother or not. Some however do love to make a great issue out of things. Instead of embracing all that we share in common, they love to fight and cause disunity in the members of the body of Christ.

One thing I do notice these same people do not have any problems with Protestants Prophets prophesying that God is raising up mothers and fathers to nourish, teach and lead His flock. And they have no problems accepting Heidi Baker and Joan Hunter and few others as mothers of the flock that God has given them. If that is acceptable to them what is so wrong referring Mary Jesus Mother as our spiritual mother as well.