"You are, together, members of Christ's body” (1
Cor. 12.27)
Alexandrina Maria da Costa
was one of these living members of Christ who had received from the Lord the
vocation to participate in the sufferings of the Lord Jesus who humbled himself
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Phil. 2.8).
United to her divine spouse, she followed him with love and with a particular devotion
to the Way of the Cross for the conversion of sinners, and by fulfilling the
mission of "loving, suffering, dying" which had been confided to her
by heaven.
The servant of God was the
second daughter of Ana Maria da Costa. She was born 30th March 1904 in
Gresufes, Balasar, in the Archdiocese of Braga, Portugal and was baptized on
2nd April. Her mother, abandoned by her 'husband' a short time before marriage,
supported her family with dignity and educated her daughters with fortitude and
diligence according to the laws of God and the Church, giving them admirable examples
of prayer and the practice of charity, above all for the sick.
From her youth, Alexandrina
suffered the extremes of poverty when the family lost all its goods and, due to
family exigencies, contracted a large debt. For a short time she attended the
primary school in the town of Povoa de Varzim where, with great happiness, she
made her first Holy Communion. Returning to her birth place, she worked in the
fields and learnt sewing. She enjoyed the best of health and was a happy,
playful, lively, affable character. She dedicated herself to prayer with
assiduity, studied the catechism, took part in the parish activities and
committed herself to the correction of her faults. She often helped the sick
and the dying.
On the Holy Saturday of
1918, to defend her virginity against some men who forced their way into her
home, she jumped from a window, only to begin a road of anguish and suffering. At
first the doctors could not arrive at a diagnosis but later they came to the
conclusion that she had suffered an injury to her nervous system. All the
treatments were useless and her sufferings became greater day by day, so that,
by the year 1925, she was bedridden. The paralysis of her limbs gradually worsened,
and her muscles atrophied to the point that they were incapable of movement. In
the first years of the illness, as is natural, she begged heaven for a cure but
she was granted the grace to accept the will of God and even to suffer more. In
this way her bed became an altar of sacrifice, her body a temple in which God worked
marvels, and her soul an ardent song of love. She began to feel a great sorrow
for "Jesus, the prisoner of the Tabernacle", at the same time she
perceived more clearly her vocation of 'victim'. Instructed by Christ himself,
and guided by Him in the Wisdom of the Cross, she offered herself as a victim
of expiation, accepting crucifixion and participating in the Redemption with of
her sufferings, which were many, atrocious and continual.
She experienced in her body
and her soul the sufferings of the Passion of Christ and molestions by the
devil, to which were joined temptations, periods of aridity and darkness of
soul, doubts against the faith and mystical death. She was terribly upset that
she could not go to church, nor receive Holy Communion frequently and that her marvelous
experiences were gossiped about. She suffered equally from the visits of so
many people, the banishment of her first spiritual director, the clerical
enquiries and the medical inquisitions with their repressive recommendations
when they did not believe in her sincerity and honesty. God favored her with ecstasies,
visions, knowledge of future happenings and scrutiny of hearts. In the last 13
years of her life, she took no food other than the Eucharist.
Despite her illness she
exercised a great and fruitful apostolate, receiving with great courtesy many
visitors to whom she spoke words of faith and consolation, exhorting them to
receive the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist, often obtaining the
conversion of sinners. She taught the catechism, over a long period, to
children and was a zealous member of the Pious Union of the Apostolate of
Prayer, promoting books of the faith and the missions and encouraging vocations
both sacerdotal and religious. She was a Child of Mary and an Associate of the
Salesian Workers.
With the offerings which she
received from benefactors, she helped divine services, the missions, the
preaching of the Word of God, help for her parish, seminarians, youth causes,
the poor and the unemployed. Religious festivals and attendance at Masses also
occupied her, as did the construction of homes for the deprived. In 1936 she
wrote to the Holy Father about the consecration of the world to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary, which Pope Pius XII performed on 31st October 1942.
Forgetful of self, she lived
only for God and for her neighbor and, between the thorns of suffering, she cultivated
many beautiful perfumed Christian virtues. Faith was a light for her thoughts,
her affections, her words and her actions. She held total belief In Jesus
Christ, in the Gospels, in the revealed truths and the teachings of the Church.
The Commandments of God she fulfilled perfectly, she promptly obeyed the will
of God and was a docile instrument in his hands for the fulfillment of the
mission which he had given to her for the good of humanity. Raised up by the contemplation
of the great mysteries of the faith, by prayer, nourished by a special devotion
to the Most Holy Trinity, to the Eucharist, to Our Lady and identifying with
Christ nailed to the Cross, she was able to say "It is not I who suffer, it
is Christ who suffers in me" (follows 2 quotes Galatians 2 20 and
Colossians 1 24).
Her heart burnt with love
for God, the Church and for souls. She wrote:
I love Jesus in the
darkness, I love him in the humiliations, in the sufferings, in the heartaches, I love Him
in the surges of happiness, trying to do His will in all
things.
At the same time she affirmed her willingness to suffer to the
end of the world for the salvation of sinners. These are the words engraved on
her tomb stone, summing up her apostolate:
SINNERS, IF MY ASHES CAN CONTRIBUTE TO YOUR SALVATION, COME CLOSER, PASS OVRER THEM, TRAMPLE THEM INTO THE EARTH BUT NEVER SIN AGAIN, NEVER OFFEND OUR JESUS AGAIN.
SINNERS, THERE ARE MANY THINGS I WANT TO TELL YOU, IF I WROTE THEM ALL DOWN THIS CEMETERY WOULDN’T BE BIG ENOUGH TO CONTAIN ALL THE PAPER. BE CONVERTED! YOU DO NOT WANT TO LOSE HIM FOR ALL ETERNITY.HE IS SO GOOD.
ENOUGH OF SIN.
LOVE HIM! LOVE HIM!
Neither did her love for her
mother and her sister Deolinda, who looked after her tenderly, grow less, nor her
love for the poor, the sick, or the souls in Purgatory. Anyone who caused any
hurt, received immediately her forgiveness and her benevolence. Sincerely
humble, she held herself as nothing in the sight of God and unworthy of any
reputation in the sight of man; she avoided praise and rejoiced when despised.
The things of this world were as nothing, she happily embraced self-denial and
poverty, placing her hopes in God and His providence; she looked continuously
to eternity as the prize which she strove to reach, not by her merits but
rather through Christ. She kept herself free and pure of any wrong-doing and
observed perfectly the law of chastity even in the slightest temptations. In all
these circumstances she acted and spoke with a supernatural prudence. She was
just before God and also before her neighbor. She was strong in her obedience
to her ecclesiastical superiors, in the sufferings of body and soul and in
fidelity to her duties and daily fulfilling the will of God.
Again, when death was near,
when her sufferings were at their most intense, she persevered with strength
and generosity at the summing-up of herself and her life. With serenity of soul
she entered eternity murmuring:
I am happy because I go to heaven.
Comforted
with the Sacraments, her sad road completed and with her lamp alight, she went
to God on October 13th 1955.
The people who held her to
be a saint affirmed "The mother of the poor has died, a helper in
necessities; she was the consoler of the afflicted". An enormous crowd paid
their respects to her body laid out in the casket and were present at her
burial. In 1978 her remains were translated to the parish Church of Balasar,
where it rests today, venerated by the faithful who recommend themselves to her
intercession.
Recognizing the size and the
consistency of the fame of sanctity which the servant of God had shown in her
life, her death and after her death, the Archbishop of Braga set in train the
CAUSE for beatification and canonization during 1967 to 1973, the authority of
which was recognized by the Congregation for the Cause of Saints by decree
dated 16th November 1990. The Archbishop of Cagliari is the Proponent. The Holy
Father has ordered that:
The Servant of God Alexandrina Maria da Costa, lay virgin, member of the Association of the Coworkers of St. John Bosco, practiced the virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity towards God and her neighbor, together with the cardinal virtues of Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Fortitude to a heroic degree.
This is to be published and
reference made in the Acts of the Congregation of the Cause for Saints, given
in Rome 12th January 1996.
+Alberto Bovone
Archbishop of Cesareia of
Numidia. Pro-Prefect.
+Eduardo Nowak
Archbishop of Luna.
Secretary.
Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 13th
May 1996. Page 504.
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