St. Paul’s Prison Mass – A Vision of St. Paul and the Early Martyrs.

Based upon a vision experienced by Maria Valtorta, reported in The Notebooks 1944, February 29, pp. 176-186.

 

It is one of the earliest persecutions, and St. Paul will soon be holding Mass in a dark chamber for the future martyrs incarcerated there by the Emperor Nero. It is not Rome’s Mamertine, but the Tullianum jail. It is a large, dark cellar made of blocks of stone and oozing moisture. Its small size is not sufficient for the great throng of Christian prisoners held therein. They are from every age and social condition, from the elderly who were not mercifully allowed to die a natural death, to little children only a few years old who should have been left free to play their innocent games.

 

Packed together, the rich and poor, the Romans, Greeks, Iberians and Thracians, and others of different origins, have one thing in common, their love for one another. The strongest give up their places, on seats of stone, to the weaker, and the healthiest aid those who are sick. They surrender their cloaks and togas to help bind the wounds of those suffering from tortures previously undergone. 

 

They sing from time to time, until a child moans in the darkness, halting the song.

 

Someone asks, “Who is crying?” and the answer comes: “It is Castulus. The fever and the burn give him no relief. He is thirsty and cannot drink because the water burns his lips, scorched by the fire.”

 

The face of the child Castulus is one big burn; perhaps once handsome, now he is monstrous. There are no longer cheeks and nose, but a bright red swelling, and instead of eyes and lips, there are just open wounds. Apparently they must have held his face over a flame, and only his face, for the rest of his body is not burnt. 

 

An imposing matron says, “I am a mother who no longer has her baby to give milk to, have Castulus brought to me, milk burns less than water.” It is Plautina, who is sitting on one of the blocks of stone against a wall. A man comes forward and carefully takes the child of about 8 years into his arms and lays him along the lap of the matron, as if upon a bed. Plautina looks like the mother of sorrows, as tears roll down her cheeks. She squeezes her breast so that the milk trickles into the mouth of the boy, and lets some of it fall upon his face to medicate it with its balm. Castulus caresses her hand in thanksgiving, and lets himself be rocked to sleep by the Roman matron. 

 

The singing resumes, until interrupted by a voice that says, “Fabius is dead; let us pray.” They all pray the Our Father and another prayer. An old man exclaims, “How fortunate is Fabius, he is already seeing Christ!” Another person answers, “We too shall see Him Felix, and go to him with the two-fold crown of faith and martyrdom. […] We sinned greatly – we who were pagans for long years – and it is a great grace for the jubilee of martyrdom to come to us to make us new, worthy of the Kingdom.” 

 

Suddenly a voice thunders: “Peace be with you my brothers and sisters.” 

 

“Paul! Paul! Bless us!”

 

“Peace be with you,” the Apostle repeats, as he advances into the area with two other priests. 

 

“What about the Pontiff?” many ask. 

 

“He [Peter] is alive for now and safe in the catacombs; he sends you his greeting and blessing. He would have come but he is too well known among the jailers. I, less well-known and a Roman citizen, have come. Brothers and sisters, what news do you have for me?”

 

“Fabius is dead,”

 

“Castulus is suffering martyrdom.”

 

“Sixta has now been led to torture.”

 

“Linus has been taken with Urbanus and his sons to Mamertinus or to the Circus, we do not know.”

 

And Paul, with his arms opened in the form of a cross, prays in the middle of the dungeon: “Let us pray for them – whether alive or dead – that Christ may give all of them his Peace” After their prayers, Paul asks: “Where is Castulus?” He is told that he is on Plautina’s lap, in the back of the jail.

 

Paul cuts through the throng and blesses the child and matron. Castulus has awakened, and meekly raises a hand to Paul, who says to him: “Be strong, Castulus, Jesus is with you.” But the child cries, and moving his scorched lips with difficulty, laments that he can no longer receive his Lord. 

 

Paul responds: “Don’t cry; can you swallow a single crumb? You can? Well then, I’ll give you the Body of the Lord. Then I’ll go to your mother – what should I say to her?” “Tell her fire does not hurt when the angels are with us and that she shouldn’t fear for my sake or for hers. The Savior will give us strength.”

 

The Apostle then relates to the jailed Christians how a fourteen year-old girl named Lucina “. . . was tortured with a thousand torments. Beaten, hung, stretched out, and twisted with tongs. And she was always healed by the work of God. […] Then, unable to break and destroy the lily of her purity in any way, the tyrant ordered that she be bound and hung in such a fashion that she would remain as if seated and then lowered swiftly onto a pointed wedge, which tore apart her viscera. […] She is now in peace. The barbarian thought he had thus taken away her beloved virginity, but her purity had never flourished so beautifully as in that bloodbath.

 

“Courage, brothers and sisters. I had fed her yesterday with the Bread of Heaven, and with the taste of that Bread she went to her final martyrdom. I shall now give that Bread to you as well. […] The Circus awaits you. And you do not fear. In the beasts and snakes you will see celestial appearances, for God will work this miracle for you, and the jaws and coils will seem to you to be loving embraces; the roars and hisses, heavenly voices.”

 

All of the Christians, except for Plautina with Castulus on her lap, kneel and sing psalms of praise. At the same time, some friendly Roman soldiers and jailers enter, and mount guard over the group, while Paul prepares for the rite of Mass. 

 

“You shall be our altar,” he says to Castulus. “Can you hold the chalice on your chest?”

 

The child answers “Yes,” and a linen cloth is spread over his little body as he lays along the lap of Plautina. The chalice and the bread are set upon the cloth. The Mass is served by Paul and the two priests accompanying him. 

 

The Mass seems to contain “...parts now lacking and to lack parts now in use [in 1944]. It lacks the epistle, for instance, and after the blessing – ‘May the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit bless you’ – there is nothing else. But the parts are the same as now from the Gospel to the Consecration. The Gospel read was that of the Beatitudes.” [St. Matthew’s gospel was possibly written about ten years before Nero’s persecution began.]

 

After breaking the Host, Paul is about to bend over the little martyr to give him Communion as the first of all, with a tiny particle; but Plautina says, “He is dead.” Paul pauses for an instant, and then gives the matron the particle meant for Castulus. The child has remained with his fingers closed over the base of the chalice in his final contraction, and they have to disengage them from it in order to take the chalice and give it to the others. 

 

The Mass ends after Communion has been distributed. The Apostle removes his vestments and places them and the linen cloth, the chalice, and the receptacle for the hosts in a bag he is carrying under his cloak. Paul then takes the body of the little martyr Castulus, in order to give him a proper burial. As he goes out carrying the child, he blesses everyone: “Brothers and sisters, may peace be with you, and remember me when you are in the Kingdom.”

~ ~ ~

The victim soul and mystic Maria Valtorta was graced with over 20 visions of the heroic witness and martyrdom of the early Christians (e.g. St. Cyprian, St. Agnes, Pope St. Cletus), which occurred during the seminal years of the Catholic Church. The following depiction of St. Paul holding Mass for imprisoned Christians condemned to death under Nero is based on a detailed vision granted by the Lord to her in 1944, and recorded in her Notebooks. The treasury of this set of visions is especially relevant now, since it refutes the disgraceful lie of the modernists and revisionists that the death of Christians in the Colosseum and Circus Maximus is nothing more than a pious fabrication and myth. These visions are not included in her Opus, The Gospel as Revealed to Me, since they occurred after the Gospel era, but they comprise part of her three Notebooks. All of the chapters of the Gospel as Revealed to Me were lifted from her Notebooks, and that aforementioned book has received four Imprimaturs.

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