Yours is a wonderful and prodigious life, O dear daughter!

The dome of the sky fell on me all cotton padded, and from it came the angels with instruments. I heard their wonderful songs. I did not understand them well, but I know that they were in honor of the Blessed Sacrament. I heard the words of Corpus Domini Jesu Christi, and felt that Jesus gave Himself to me and held me closer and closer to Him. The angels continued to sing; from among them came a powerful path directly to me, from it fell flames of fire and lots and lots of things, all were for me. Then Jesus began to say to me:

- This conduit, my daughter, is the Heart of your and my Blessed Mother: from it you receive our love in the greatest abundance; from it you receive our graces, virtues and gifts, divine riches and all that belongs to heaven. From it you receive life to live, life to give to souls. This is the dew, the blood that falls on mankind. It is a mixture that I make of my wealth, of my graces, with your pain. You are the new redeemer. I pass all for you through the channel of my Blessed Mother. It is through you, with Her, that the world is saved.

Do not grieve, my daughter, for not receiving Me in the Eucharist. The more you are humiliated and the more my divine cause is fought, the greater are the wonders I work in you. My divine science always has graces to give you and you, my beautiful dove, you always have sufferings to offer. Since your pain and your martyrdom are unique, so is my love unique, and my wonders in you. Lights are confusing to those who cannot see them clearly. Yours is a wonderful and prodigious life, O dear daughter! You are the dew which fertilizes and gives life. You belong to Jesus, You belong to souls. You're the little ball of Jesus, you are the ball of my entertainments, of my charms, just as you are the little ball of appealing charm for sinners. You belong to Jesus and you belong to them. You're a victim whose love enchants heaven, you are victim who gives life moment by moment for humanity. Receive all this divine life, give it to the hungry world, give it to the world in danger. I deliver it to you, unto you I entrust it. I, Jesus, have all confidence in you. I trust as much as you love me, as you love souls. You are rich with me, with me you save them, with me and my Blessed Mother. Go, my gardener, go to my plantation. Go to give, go to distribute.

Sentiments of the Soul, February 2, Friday, 1945

Corpus Domini Jesu Christi and not Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi (as priests said) because was Jesus Himself who gave his Body.
Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi: Body of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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Live from Balasar

Follow here the events of Bld Alexandrina's Feast Day.

Blessed Alexandrina's Feast Day - October 13th

Tomorrow, October 13th, as well as being the anniversary of Our Lady's Apparition and the Solar Miracle at Fatima, is also the feast day of mystic and victim soul Blessed Alexandrina Maria da Costa. 

Please pray for her Canonization.

Blessed Alexandrina Maria da Costa official novena prayer

O Jesus, who art pleased with simple and humble persons, who are so often ignored, forgotten and despised by men, raise to the glory of Thy altars Thy humble Servant Alexandrina, who always desired to live hidden from the world and aloof from its vanities and praises.

Thou well knowest, Lord Jesus, how in our times there is need of lessons in holiness, which is the true fulfillment of every human and Christian vocation and, consequently, the elevation of a creature to the supreme height of moral beauty.

Invest then, O Jesus, Thy Servant with the immortal halo of glory and hear our prayers, which we through her intercession offer to Thee; especially grant us the favour which we ask (...here mention your petition) if it be for the honour of Thy Blessed Name, the glory of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the salvation of sinners, on whose behalf the pious Alexandrina so wholly and generously offered herself a victim. Amen.

Nihil Obstat

Braga, 14th April 2005

P. Manuel Moreira da Costa Santos

Imprimi potest

Braga, 14th April 2005

D. Jorge da Costa Ortiga + Archbishop of Braga

Blessed Alexandrina, intercede for us!

Website: www.blessed-alexandrina.com

Booklet: www.newhope-ky.org/inspiringlives.html

DVD: www.marysdowryproductions.org/Blessed_Alexandrina_DVD.html

Alexandrina Society (Ireland): www.balasar.net

THE MARTYRDOM OF THE LAST TEN YEARS (3)

The last phase   

We have exhausted the direct sources, the Letters to Fr Pinho and the Diary; let’s use the other sources: C G (Cristo Gesù in Alexandrina), NoC (No Calvário de Balasar) .

About the sufferings, we have two letters of Dr. Azevedo to Fr Pinho. One is of 10^th January 1955: 

Alexandrina is prostrated as never before. She is reaching the top of her Calvary… It seems that everything has evolved towards this climax. (NoC, p. 299 port.)  

The other is of 17^th October 1955, four days after her death. 

In the last months her pains were horrible.  

Lately she been suffering immensely, and it seems to me that her illness, her pains, were of supernatural origin, that origin referred by Henri Bon, when speaks of the supernatural diseases. (NoC, pp. 298-299, port.) 

And a letter, to Fr Umberto, from Doctor Irene de Azevedo, daughter of Dr. Azevedo (a dear friend who, in place of Deolinda, had often written down what Alexandrina dictated for her diaries); here are some lines: 

We had the sensation that in that room of pain something tremendously great and mysterious was happening: that the last moments had arrived for a victim who had been asked for a great reparation. 

Standing next to her, I tried to give to her a little consolation by wetting her dry lips. I did not dare to speak to her, for fear of increasing her suffering (...)

She insistently asked that God take her quickly to Heaven: it was the only prayer worthy of her. (...) What an expression she had! Holy resignation to the will of God, but suffering to the point of terror, such suffering that a soul can only undergo with the grace and a great help of the Lord. 

Since then I have an idea of what the Passion and Death of the Lord would have been. (...) Contemplating her most painful face, I seemed to hear the phrase of Jesus: “Father, why have you abandoned me?”  Everything was consummated. (C G, p. 694) 

In September, the martyr Alexandrina had the generosity of allowing Deolinda to participate in a three-day spiritual retreat in Fatima. It was a heroic effort, because only Deolinda knew the best way to attend to her during these latter times of atrocious pain. 

Alexandrina, who felt that she was already near the end, wanted to give Deolinda, with the retreat’s infusion of spirituality, the strength to support the great blow of her death. (C G p. 691)   

In the beginning of “her” month, she hears the announcement of her departure. 

Today, 2^nd October, the day of the Holy Angels, I felt that someone had touched in my shoulder and I heard Angels singing. I asked:  

Who will sing with the Angels?   Our Lord answered:  

You, you, you, soon, soon, soon. (NoC, p. 299, port.) 

In 1965 Deolinda told to Fr Umberto as follows: 

It happened, if I am not mistaken, on 7^th October 1955. I had work in the house, watching the stonemasons. My sister called me saying:  

- Deolinda, you have run away from me!  I answered her: - I went, but I’m coming back straightaway!

I sat down next to her, because it was already difficult to hear what she was saying, and she gave me the money destined for the missions and the purse of the money for the house.  This was usual; I was always impressed with the way Alexandrina always managed our meagre finances, as well as money for charities. (C G, p. 691, note 17) 

The 12th   

At 2am Alexandrina said to Deolinda who was looking after her: 

I am going to tell to you something that I haven’t told you yet in order not to upset you. And this is it: on 1^st February, early in the morning, I heard a voice say: 

Make an act of resignation at the coming of your beloved Father (Fr. Pinho). (…)

I did not dictate this at the time so that you wouldn’t know. (C G, p. 691) 

Later she added: 

As soon as it is day, I want you to make three phone calls. 

1. To the girl Irene Gomes, asking her to come home with our mother and to bring all her clothes because she will be staying as I am going to die (the mother was at the seaside taking a cure). 

2. To Fr Alberto Gomes (her confessor), as a debt of gratitude on my part and, if he agrees, to repeat publicly the act of resignation at the arrival of Fr Pinho.

Meanwhile you will tell uncle Joaquin so that he goes to call Dr. Azevedo. 

3. To Mrs. Ana Pimenta (a friend and benefactor, who had expressed a wish to be present at Alexandrina’s death).   

During the morning she said several times: 

I desire Heaven. I do not have the slightest regret at leaving this earth. 

All the darkness of the soul has finished (...) 

It is sun. It is life. It is everything. It is God!

 Deolinda at one point asked her: Do you want anything? 

Heaven, because I can no longer stay on earth. 

I want to receive the Sacrament of the Sick, while I am still lucid.

In an illumination on the future, she exclaims:

One day, it will be very beautiful here! O Jesus, your will be done, not mine!

Around 3pm the same day, in the presence of her confessor, Dr. Azevedo, relatives and some close friends, she made an act of acceptance of death.

Let’s look at the report made by the priest who attended her at the moment of death, Msgr. Mendes do Carmo. 

When all was prepared in that Calvary-Room, she made her spontaneous Act of Resignation in front of all. 

– O Jesus Love, O divine Spouse of my soul, I, who in life always sought to give You the greatest glory, I want, at the hour of my death, to make You an act of resignation upon the arrival of my dear Spiritual Father; and thus, my beloved Jesus, if with this Act I give greater glory to the most Holy Trinity, I submit myself joyfully to your eternal designs… only to beg from Your mercy Your Kingdom of love, the conversion of the sinners, the salvation of the dying and the release of souls from purgatory.  My God, as I always consecrated my life to You, I offer to You now its end, accepting with resignation the death, along with its circumstances, that gives You greater glory.   

Later, in a clear voice, she asked for pardon, she thanked and forgave all…

Still later she received, in an angelic way, the Sacrament that purifies all vestiges of imperfections and guilt. 

The room was full of sobbing and Alexandrina, dying, said: 

- Do not cry, because I am going to Heaven. 

And she repeated:  

Do not cry, because I am going to Heaven! (C G, p. 824)  

Here are some phrases that she said at intervals: 

- O Jesus, I cannot stay longer on Earth. 

O Jesus, life costs; Heaven costs! 

I suffered everything in this life for souls.

I squeezed myself in this bed until I had given my blood for souls. 

I forgive all… The torments were for my good. 

O Jesus, forgive the whole world! … 

I thank those who did good to me; I will pray for them in Heaven. 

I am so glad to be going to Heaven! (Smiling and looking at a point above).

To the doctor who during the afternoon, wished her well before leaving, she said: 

What clarity, what light! It is all light (smiling).  

The darkness has disappeared. (C G, pp. 692-693)  

THE MARTYRDOM OF THE LAST TEN YEARS (2)

Spiritual sufferings   

The spiritual sufferings can be catalogued as two types: fights against Satan, though without more aggressions towards her body after the end of 1937, and temptations against the faith, also provoked by Satan.

SPIRITUAL FIGHTS AGAINST SATAN   

The demon was chained at my side. He wanted to get at me. I saw that he could not reach me, but I felt as if he was tearing my body to pieces by biting. The insults were plentiful. He said to me:  Cursed one, you will sin, I will drive you to desperation. S (20-12-46)

Satan concentrated on making her suffer the fear of being deceived about her mystical life, and of committing the sin of vanity by writing about it. 

The demon tells me that I invent my battles in order to have something to write about! My Jesus, I want to love You, but I do not want to have to write about it! You know well that it is him and not me. S (21-8-45)

- You manage with your falseness to deceive almost all the people: you will condemn yourself! 

And to tell the truth, in those moments, I felt that I was false, deceptive, malicious. S (20-12-46)

But the most insistent note is that of lust.   

For some days I felt that my body was an open house for anyone who wanted to enter it.  

I suffered much with this new suffering! (...) 

The demon, more enraged, came as a thief and I felt as if he took my heart. 

- It is mine - he said to me – let’s go and sin! - And he covered me with insults. - With your heart in my hands I can make you sin when I want. Then, much more alive, I felt this to be this dwelling that I spoke about above. As many as wanted entered into it. I was the house of sin, and the same sin: I accepted everything. My God, what a horror, so many sins, so many crimes!  I fought very much and the demon showed that he was very pleased because he had made me do everything he wanted. But I said often to Jesus that I was His victim and that I did not want to sin. S (23-7-45)   

It was four combats that I had with the demon; they had been combats of hell! 

I had hands for everything, except to bless myself with and to move the cursed one away from me. My body was bathed in sweat, my heart a thundering machine.  Yes, I managed to call for Jesus and our blessed Heavenly Mother. But what I did not manage, or it seemed to me, was to call them in time. 

I liked to be blind and deaf so that I could neither see nor hear the teachings of the cursed one and so that I could not allow myself to be disturbed by what he said against Jesus.  

But, if things were so that I could not fight nor suffer then neither could I be a victim of my Lord. S (7-11-47)

The demon tormented me with his strength and diabolical malice.  In the first three attacks he tormented me in the form of a man, but he introduced in me all human malice. What a horror! 

I sinned in all points and senses. And he, much rested, left to the world his infernal look and left it full of his malice. 

If only I knew how to tell of the poison that he instils in souls!  

What a horror! Oh, how he sins! S (11-10-46)

Sometimes Jesus gives her to understand for what kinds of sin she is making reparation. 

Our Lord made me to understand, through the feelings and visions of the soul, for whom He asked me to make reparation. 

The first two attacks had been for sins committed during worldly balls, sins practised shamelessly! 

The three following had been for priests. O my Jesus, how much we ought to pray for them! They are of the same clay that we are, poor men! They are subjected to great falls. S (9-7-48)

Jesus comforted her, encouraged her to continue, affirming that with such reparation she was saving souls. 

This explains the desperation of the demon, this is the reason why he tries to devour you: he knows well how many souls you have delivered from his clutches. S (14-9-51)   

- The demon has laid all his infernal anger on you. The damage that you have done him is great: you do more harm to his satanic work, with your suffering, than all the good done by humanity in general. 

He is raging, raging. He uses everything. He uses men to destroy my Cause. Never, never are his infernal designs satisfied. 

Suffer everything, my daughter, suffer all your unutterable pain and torment. 

Atone to Me, atone to Me for all the desecrations and all the insincere confessions. 

- Jesus, I love You: I am your victim! S (19-3-54)

TEMPTATIONS AGAINST FAITH   

It seemed me that a cloud descended on me, black, black, frightful. It wrapped itself all around me. Everything is night, from earth to Heaven. Beneath me are crosses and thorns; around me, surrounding me, crosses and thorns; on me, crosses and thorns. Everything is night, everything is crosses, everything is thorns, pain and blood: death in the world and death in eternity. S (29-3-45)   

I feel as if only myself and pain live in the world. I feel that everybody flees from me; I feel that Jesus flees from me.  I have pain for company, darkness for a dwelling. Everything that is born in them dies. Horrible blindness, frightful darkness! S (3-5-46)   

I believe, I believe that you are my Jesus, I believe even in darkness and pain: do not permit me to doubt! I do not want to displease You. S (22-7-49) How many pains, how many sighs hidden and suffocating!  I am under the earth and it is this same earth that stifles my sighs and hides my pains No cry of mine makes it to Heaven: no groan is heard there, not a single tear is seen.  What abandonment, my Jesus, what abandonment! S (27-7-51)   

It seems me that I am tempted to despair of myself. I lie to all and I lie to myself.  I have temptations against the faith: it seems that I want to convince myself that after this exile everything finishes, that nothing is improved by suffering. 

I feel the fury of the demon on me: he is raging against me. It seems that there is a strong iron grating separating me from him. (Indeed, after the end of 1937, Jesus does not allow him to touch her.) But my soul sees and feels that his strong teeth bite into these iron bars as if he were biting into me. He fixes me his desperate and ferocious eyes. I hear his howls and desperations. S (14-9-51)  

In this stormy immensity where only emptiness prevails, my soul conserves itself in peace, except sometimes, in some moments of agitation, doubts about  all of my life, temptations against the faith that almost cause me to fall into despair.  Why did I come to the world? What is served by suffering like this, in a life nailed to a bed?

These are not questions I want to ask. I feel they are temptations of the demon, that they are him wanting to rob me of peace. S (20-6-52)  

I am in a stormy sea. I do not cease to fight with the waves. I feel tired, I feel that I am fainting away, having to fight continually like this. I want to clutch at the sand, or some thing that will provide security, but I do not find it: everything fails me. I myself remain at the mercy of the waves. S (15-1-54)

She continued the fight between the will to believe and the temptation to disbelieve. It was a tremendous suffering! 

I believe, whether in pain or in joy, in abandonment or in comfort. I believe, in life and in death. I am yours, Jesus, I am your victim! S (16-7-54)   

I feel that I am not doing anything in the world, after losing Jesus and our heavenly Mother. 

Since eternity does not exist, or so (the demon) tries to persuade me: what am I doing here, without enjoyment, always suffering? What for, what for? 

“I believe, Jesus, I believe! I believe that You exist.  

What matters to me the feeling of the lie (saying “I believe”), if You are the Truth, O Lord, if You are You, and You are eternity?”

In this fight I disdained all Gethsemane (when she relived the Passion). Nothing exists. There is nothing, there has been nothing! 

Thus I climbed Calvary, without faith, without believing in eternity. And, such was the temptation, wanting to commit suicide! 

It seemed to me that I should want to discontinue a life which had no life, in any way at all. (Jesus suffered similar demonic attacks, not only at the beginning, in the desert, but also at the end, in Gethsemane).  

With what cost I called on Jesus and our Heavenly Mother and repeated to Them my “I believe”! 

In the darkness of agony and of death, I have wanted to repeat it, and I could not. 

Jesus came. He called out to me firmly and with sweetness: 

- My daughter, O my daughter, your reparation is for those without faith, for those without God, for the unbelievers. S (15-10-54)

One month later Jesus reaffirmed that He wanted this form of reparation, with its tenacious profession of faith. But He also gave her His aid. 

Repeat your “I believe”. You must live the faith without faith, love without the feeling of love. 

All I want of you is your “I believe!”, your adherence to the cross, your heroic generosity, always heroic.

Come and rest on my divine Heart. It is divine rest, it is comforting rest, it is life’s rest. S (19-11-54)   

Even while reliving the Passion the fight continued. Here is a description of it with wonderful poetical power. 

I believe, I believe firmly, I have repeated as many times on the top of the mountain, impaled on a spear, but in such a vertical line that I was not hanging more on one side than on the other: to God or the demon; to eternity or the vacuum. 

Thus wounded, covered in blood, I could do nothing but go on repeating my “I believe, I believe firmly!” 

I believe, even so my feelings are all liars. 

Jesus came; he said to me: 

- Believe, my daughter, believe, my beloved spouse, believe, tender flower of Paradise!  

Believe that I exist, believe that you are in the Truth, believe that all your life is my life. Courage, courage! S (17-12-54)   

The last year of her exile arrived, yet that tremendous fight was intensified still more.  

- O Jesus, forgive me! I do not have faith nor do I believe in You. Dear me, who will save me? 

- It’s Me; I save you, my daughter! You have inflexible faith, firmer than a rock.  

Make reparation for those who do not have it, for those who live without God. 

Trust, trust! Souls are saved by the millions, by the millions. Yes, my daughter! S (25-3-55)

And thus I go on walking on neither sea nor land, only with a false whisper, that always urges me to cast myself into the abyss. 

Save me, Jesus! Save me, Celestial Mother! Comfort me in this world of uncertainties and doubts. O pain, O pain, O agony and death! … 

In this painful and, so to speak, continuous fight, Jesus came and spoke to me: 

- (...) Courage, courage! You have faith, you have love and you give Me everything. (...) 

Go, live in the faith, repeat your “I believe”. Suffer and love, suffer and love! S (1-4-55)

My soul bleeds, my whole being bleeds in the darkness. 

O my God, speak to me about the soul, speak about what I so often seem not to have! How many times a voice cries out to me – to the soul and to the body too: “Grasp, grasp!” - but I can find neither one thing nor another to grasp.  I grasp, grasp at the darkness, at ignorance, at uselessness, at death!   It is what I have, is what I find in myself. 

To cry out, to cry out healthy and strong to Heaven, to Heaven that isn’t there, to an eternity that does not exist! O my God, it is useless to cry out to anything. I am in great agony. 

I want, if Jesus wants it, to be here for His glory and for the salvation of souls. S (13-5-55)   

Jesus warns her of an ultimate increase of the martyrdom. 

- My daughter, it is not the feelings of faith and consolation that console me, but rather this constant fight at the height of pain.  It is the last phase, the tremendous phase: the pinnacle of suffering will be facing the pinnacle of sin. The world sins, the world sins!  Have courage, you who are the light and the lighthouse of the world. Make reparation so that my divine Heart be loved. Stay my Father’s arm of justice, who insists that it fall on the earth. S (10-6-55) 

My daughter, climb, climb, courage! (...) Your phase, the last phase of your life cannot be more painful. But thus it is when I choose a soul for the highest degree of perfection, love, and union with me. 

Trust: you love Me and make Me loved. Your Heaven is near! S (8-7-55) 

 With a heroic firmness she repeated her “I believe” 

Cost what it may, what bleeds, bleeds! Even if lying to myself, I must always repeat: I believe in God, I believe in all the eternal truths, I believe that I have a soul, a child of the God’s blood! S (5-8-55)

Always fighting, always grasping, grasping without having anything to grasp, here I go from fall to fall, from abyss to abyss towards the endless abysses of darkness, death, uselessness.

And without faith, my God, without faith!  I always go on repeating in my soul: Everything for your love, Jesus, and for souls! S (19-8-55)

And, finally, in the last diary, she dictated:

In heart-rending anguish I repeated my acts of faith: 

I believe, Jesus, I believe that your birth, your death, your Calvary were for me.  

I believe, Jesus, I believe! 

My abysses are so black and deep that only God could penetrate them.  

Which is just what Jesus did.  

He went down into my depths, with the tender rays of His light he brought up to the surface my poor being and illuminated it: 

- Come here, my daughter, light and lighthouse of the world!  

You that you are darkness without equal, you are the light that shines, the lighthouse that illuminates everything.  

The darkness is for you, the light is for souls. 

Come here, light of whom I am light, lighthouse of whom I am lighthouse! 

Can I not make you shine with My brightness?  

Can I not make you to be a lighthouse, just as I am the lighthouse?

In the same diary we read a last afflicted appeal of Jesus: 

- My daughter, let Jesus cry out through your lips: 

“O Church, O Church, accept the voice of the Lord! Vigilance, vigilance!  

O Church, my beloved Church, pay attention, pay attention, do not sleep, do not rest!  

Never has the world sinned in such a way.

Never was there such urgent need of reparation.” (...) 

Have you not said to Me many times that you wanted to consume yourself and to disappear in my love? Courage, courage! I have done everything to the letter, everything that you have said to Me. 

- O Jesus, look at my soul! Only You know how to look at it. 

Listen to my requests!  

And the world, the world! Jesus, forgive it, because it is yours! S (2-9-55)   

With such an anguished plea, which explodes from a heart bleeding with pain and burning with love, the diary of our holy martyr closes.    

THE MARTYRDOM OF THE LAST TEN YEARS (1)

In preparation for the feast of our Beata, let's start today to transcribe the penultimate chapter of For Love Alone! by Eugenia Signorile. It will be undoubtedly a nice wellspring for meditation. Let’s fix ourselves  this time on her growing physical sufferings.

If we take an overall look at the last decade of Alexandrina’s life, we see that the martyrdom of the victim increases continually, with sufferings of all kinds. 

During an ecstasy of the Passion (interior), when describing the actual ascent of Calvary, Alexandrina dictated: 

The closer one approaches the top of the mountain, the more difficult the climb becomes: more agony, more blood, more abandonment, more pain. S (12-1-51)

This statement aptly defines the path her life was taking during this period. Sufferings were invading her whole person, as much in the physical sphere as in the spiritual.  We will look at each separately – even if they are not, in essence, separable – because one influences the other.     

Physical sufferings   

From the end of 1944 she started to feel that the eyes suffer with the light. Fr Umberto offered her dark curtains to cover the window.  In 1945 she alludes to this torment repeatedly. 

I pass my days in a dark prison: the eyes of my body cannot see light and my soul has no light. S (23-7-45) 

My daughter, my spouse, listen: I am leading you. Your suffering will increase: the eyes of your body will be always as if light did not exist. 

The darkness and the pain of your soul will be unutterable. S (31-8-45)

My blindness grows, my darkness increases. I do not see. The world darkened: it seems that God did not create light (...) S (6-9-45)   

January 1955 arrived, the confined space of the room and almost complete blindness gave her the impression of being in a dungeon in which she was unable to breathe: 

(...) to poor nature everything is repugnant: even now not being able to reach to see the light makes my room into a dark dungeon. 

My need of air and not being able to reach to see the light seems to take me almost to the point of desperation. 

The affliction is such that it seems to me that all my being crumbles. S (14-1-55) 

Early on Easter morning, 1955, she was to have a slight relief from the torment of blindness. (Dr. Azevedo had told her to ask Jesus for it.) But it would be temporary. In the ecstasy of Good Friday, 8^th April, Jesus said to her: 

- My daughter, on the morning of Easter Sunday you will see not complete light, but a half-light. I will be the strength of your eyes. 

I will not alleviate your sufferings; no, my daughter, no! You will remain thus until your death. When they ask if you are better, answer with a smile.   Jesus alleviates on one side to overload the other. You have no alleluia, neither in the body nor in the soul. Leave them (the alleluias) for Me, to stay the arm of my Father’s justice and to save souls. (...) This light will not be lasting: you will have some hour per day, some hours, some days. S (8-4-55)     

Alexandrina also had frequent haemorrhages and other afflictions which caused a daily loss of blood. We saw the note of Dr. Azevedo in the Diary of 9^th November 1945. The day before Alexandrina had dictated:

I said many times to Jesus: I want to give all to You, all until the last drop of my blood for your divine love and for the rescue of sinners, just as You have given yours for me.  But I did not think that Jesus took things so seriously! 

Only yesterday I remembered my offer to Jesus and, because I feel that I am without blood, without life, I fear, from one moment to the next, to leave the world without the promises of Jesus being realized (that they would bring Fr. Pinho back as her director). S (8-11-45)

Two weeks later she dictated a telling metaphor: 

I feel that my body has reached the last spasms of its life. It is like an engine that does not have strength to pull the weight of its carriages. S (21-11-45)   

The same November, Jesus said to her: 

To speak has become a great sacrifice for you, but do not be afraid, because your life of love, your life for the good of souls will continue in your looks, smiles and sweetness until the last instant. 

What a life of enchantments and divine wonders! S (23-11-45)

With the passing of the years, of course, this sacrifice always became harder: 

At each effort that I make to pronounce a word, all my being seems to frustrate itself, such is the suffering that I feel. O Jesus, everything for your love and for the salvation of souls! May all my life be to suffer and to love You, to love You and to suffer!  Without pain I would never be able to live. S (24-10-52)  

Even to dictate the diary became progressively more painful! In the entry of 15 October 1954 we read: 

Only Heaven sees, it alone can evaluate my sacrifice. I cannot speak: at each word that I pronounce it seems as if a jet of blood spurts to my lips. 

It is only for the love of Jesus and of souls that I make so great a sacrifice.  To obey (Fr Umberto had ordered to her to go on dictating the diary and to send it to him in Italy) when and if we can, does not cost, but when it is achieved by such unutterable suffering, it is an unheard of sacrifice! 

The pains of the body are so colossal, and those of the soul measure themselves by them.  

O Heaven, O Heaven, O life without life! S (15-10-54).   

Her heroism in sacrifice will continue for almost eleven months: the last diary entry carries the date, 2^nd September 1955! 

By the end of 1946 the joints of the arms and the vertebrae had dislocated themselves!  Dr. Azevedo decided to intervene: he prepared two supports in the form of an elongated S, that he attached to the sides of the bed’s headboards; he tightly wrapped Alexandrina’s arms and bound them on these supports in such a way that they held her by passing under her arm-pits. Moreover he placed hard boards under her mattress and wrapped her whole body around them.

Alexandrina was to remain like this for nine long years until her death. 

This happened exactly on 3^rd October, the anniversary of her first crucifixion. 

(This anniversary day,) without reflecting or linking anything, also happens to be the date on which my poor body, swaddled, was placed on hard boards. 

But, in spite of this, I went on thirsting for more and more pain, more and more love. S (4-10-46)

This bed became her bed of thorns. 

I want to be a victim of Jesus and, because I want to be a victim, it is with the smile of the soul, the smile of good will, that I continue to be a victim on my bed of thorns. How I am tangled in them! How I am hindered in the smallest movement! How much they wound me! S (10-7-49)

On top of this she was frequently in a fever, which gave her the sensation of having her flesh destroyed. 

My poor body continues to be a skeleton: skull, wounds, thorns, arrows, pain and blood, sometimes this one, sometimes that. 

What is my pain? Only Jesus understands it. That is enough for me. S (12-9-47)   

The martyrdom is always the same, only with the increase of the ardours of the fever and excruciating pains, almost insupportable pains. What an affliction!  Only Jesus sees it and knows and understands. S (4-11-49)

My body is scorched, inside and out, sometimes it seems to burn in a true hell. I ask for relief, I ask for the position to change, to be able to resist without desperation.  In other parts of my body the ice freezes me: fire and ice at the same time; cold, ice that aches, that torments like fire. S (12-3-54) 

Of course, insomnia doesn’t fail to follow! 

I passed a night vigil. I suffered very much; I could not pray. Only at one time or other I could utter an ejaculation. But I remained always united to Jesus and I was always His victim. S (7-11-53)   

In my nights of vigil I pray, I pray, I unite myself to my Loves, I offer to Them my tears, but it does not help at all: all my efforts are in vain! S (18-3-55)      

Blessed Alexandrina Feast

October 13

8:00 - Welcome to Pilgrim

9:15 - Lecture by Fr Dario Pedroso on "Alexandrina and the Year of Faith."

10:00 am - Eucharist and Blessing of the Sick

12:00 pm - Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament

17:00 - Eucharistic Adoration

18:00 - Mass of the Feast chaired by an Auxiliary Bishop of Braga

19.00 - Movie "Alexandrina lives the Passion."

The celebrations will be transmitted on the Foundation of Blessed Alexandrina website.

Bld Alexandrina in Heaven...

In Heaven I'll be as the poor blind man by the roadside, hand outstretched, begging for alms.

I’ll ask graces for spreading on Earth. Bld Alexandrina

Short film on Bld Alexandrina

Mary's Dowry Productions have a new DVD with short films, each of 10 minutes, on six Blesseds. It is entitled: Well Known Blesseds Volume One. Each short film tells the life of a particular Blessed and volume one focuses on the lives of Blessed John Henry Newman, Blessed Mother Teresa, Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, Blessed John Paul II, Blessed Alexandrina Maria da Costa and Blessed Dominic Barberi.

The short filme on Alexandrina "is a small overview and we deliberately put it on with a lot of popular saints so as to get people who are interested in them to find out about her too. It's a completely differente production to the other DVD we have as it's only 10 minutes" (Mary's Dowry Productions).

Although on this list above our Beata comes in second to last, she is the first in the DVD package. Her popularity is growing in the Anglo-Saxon world.
See the List of Catholic films availabe from Mary's Dowry, titles and lenghts of DVDs. 
Find here divulgation on previous DVD: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

THE FIRST CONSECRATION OF THE WORLD TO THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY. OUR LADY OF THE VICTORY

                 By José Ferreira

Through you the world was consecrated to my Blessed Mother.

Jesus to the Bld Alexandrina (1954)

The Decree of the Bld Alexandrina’s Heroic Virtues states that “in the year 1936, (Bld Alexandrina) asked the Pope  the Consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which Pius XII made on 31^st October 1942”.

Let’s see in a short overview the way that took to it.

  

I will do you great things through you

In the letter to Fr. Pinho of 27^th September 1934, Alexandrina wrote:

“My beloved Jesus told me that He would be my Director and my continuous, frequent, usual Master and your Reverence there by far; but that I had to obey to you first and then than to Him.

He also told me to tell your Reverence that my pilgrimage on earth would not last long, but that great things awaited me”.

On the first Saturday December 1934, Jesus insists on these “great things”, very clearly

“I will do great things through you”.

  Bld Alexandrina

I want an act of Consecration to be made

 

The first time Jesus asks the Consecration is on 30^th July 1937. He orders:

“My daughter, I require you to tell your spiritual father that, in proof of the love that you bear for my most Holy Mother, I want an act of Consecration of the entire world to be made every year, on one of the days of her feasts, chosen by you – the Assumption, Purification or Annunciation – asking that the Virgin without stain of sin to shame and confound the impure ones, so that they return to the to the true path and cease to offend Me”.

Like I asked Holy Margaret Mary to be the world consecrated to my Divine Heart, so I ask you to be it consecrated to Her with a solemn feast”.

Fr Marian Pinho, Alexandrina’s first Spiritual Director, was at that time a remarkable Jesuit, who had embraced the task of promulgate in the country the Eucharistic Crusade for Children, for which he created a successful magazine, who collaborated in other magazine, the Messenger of the Sacred Heart, and more, who directed the main Jesuit magazine, Brotéria. His name was known all over the Portugal.  But the task he then received from Jesus was not a common one.

He felt himself even not entirely sure if that order came from Jesus or if it was only a pious mistake of Alexandrina. Therefore, he waited a year without making any diligence. But, then, the order came again and in circumstances that convinced him:

“Why are my orders not accomplished? Didn’t I give enough signals your Spiritual Father that is my Spirit who guides you?... I want the world to be consecrated to my Mother, Blessed Mary; this is the remedy for so many evils that threaten it!”

From now on begin the several diligences: letters to the Holy Father, examinations by ecclesiastical order and so on.  In 1938, Jesus gives a proof, his Passion physically relived by Alexandrina. This suffering stops as soon the consecration is made.

Let´s see these words of Jesus that Alexandrina heard on 25^th April 1938, but that don’t still concern the Passion:

 “I want penance and prayer to be made. It is you who are shortening the divine justice and you must suffer this until he consecrates it (the world)”.

On 4^th January 1941 Jesus relates to the Passion in these words:

“My daughter, ask the Holy Father to have compassion for your martyrdom (the Passion) and satisfy the divine desires of Jesus, which is to consecrate the world to my Blessed Mother”.

This way of reliving the Passion stopped after the consecration.

Bld Alexandrina reliving the Passion. Painting contemporary of the event.

Our Lady of the Victory

Soon in 10/IX/36 Jesus shows his desire that his Mother be invoked as Lady of the Victory:

“I’ll say you as will be made the consecration of the world to the Mother of the men and my Blessed Mother. I love her so much!

The entire world will be in Rome by the Holy Father consecrated to her and later by the Fathers in every churches of the world under the title of Queen of the Heaven and of the Earth and Lady of the Victory…”

On 2^nd May 1940, Our Lord commands to say the Pope:

“If he wants that the world to be saved, that he rushes the hour of its Consecration to my Blessed Mother. That he places her in front of the battle and that proclaims her Queen of the Victory and the Messenger of the Peace”.

Here she is declared not Lady but Queen. But the title Lady of the Victory will come again.

In the prayer of the consecration Pope Pius XII used the title “Victress of all God’s battles” which, according Fr Marian Pinho, corresponds to Lady of the Victory[1].

Joy for the Consecration

It seems that since 22/5/1942 the Pope definitively took the decision on the consecration. Indeed, on that day Jesus says to Alexandrina:

“Glory, glory, glory to Jesus!

Honour, honour and glory to Mary!  

The heart of the Pope, the golden heart has decided to consecrate the world to the Heart of Mary!

What great happiness and joy to the world, to belong more than ever to the Mother of Jesus!

The whole world belongs to the divine Heart of Jesus; everything will belong to the Immaculate Heart of Mary”.

A week later Alexandrina prayed during an ecstasy as follows:

“Hail Mary, Mother of Jesus!

Honour, glory, triumph to your Immaculate Heart!

Hail Mary, Mother of Jesus, Mother of the whole Universe!  

Who will not want to belong to the Mother of Jesus, the owner of the Victory?

The whole world is going to be consecrated to her maternal Heart!

Keep, pure Virgin, keep, Virgin Mother, all your children in your most holy Heart!”

On the eve of the Consecration Jesus addresses to Alexandrina as follows:

“The Heaven, the Heaven full of glory! The Heaven full of triumph!

A lovely crown, more beautiful than the sun and the stars is prepared for the crazy one of Jesus.

Jesus is everything for His crucified one.

Jesus gives her everything to receive everything from her!”

The act of consecration

On 31^st October, at the conclusion of the Fatima jubilee[2] (25^th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady in Fatima, in 1917), the whole world could listen, on the radio, the voice of the Holy Father consecrating the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in  Portuguese!

As far as we can see, even the Catholic Authorities didn’t expect the Consecration.  The following day newspapers ignore it. All attention was concentrated on the Jubilee of the Apparitions and it was an honour for the country to hear the Pope speaking Portuguese… Besides, we must remember that Portugal was not in war.

 Only after some days did people begin to pay attention to the final words of the papal speech where the Act of the Consecration had been referred.

But there were people who noted it: Fr. Marian Pinho and Alexandrina. However, he was forbidden to write to Alexandrina, so he sends a short telegram from Fatima to Balasar…

Let’s read now the papal prayer:

  

“Queen of the Most Holy Rosary,

Help of the Christians,

Refuge of the human race,

Victress of all God’s battles,

we humbly prostrate ourselves before thy throne,

confident that we shall receive mercy, grace, and bountiful assistance and protection on the present calamity,

not through our own merits, but solely through the great goodness of thy maternal Heart.

To thee, to thy Immaculate Heart,

We, as Common Father of the great Christian Family,

as Vicar of Him to whom all power was given in heaven and on earth

and from whom We received the care of all souls redeemed by His Precious Blood,

— to thee, to thy Immaculate Heart, on this tragic hour of human history,

we confide, deliver and consecrate,

not only the Holy Church, the Mystic Body of Jesus,

now in such suffering and agony in so many places and sorely tried in so many ways,

but also the entire world torn by fierce strife,

consumed in a fire of hate, victim of its own wickedness.

May the sight of the widespread material and moral destruction,

of the sorrows and anguish of countless fathers and mothers,

husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, and innocent children,

of the great number of lives cut down in the flower of youth,

of the bodies mangled in horrible slaughter, and of tortured

and agonized souls in danger of being lost eternally,

move thee to compassion.

O Mother of Mercy,

obtain peace for us from God,

and above all provide for us those graces which prepare for, establish, and assure peace.

Queen of Peace,

pray for us and give to the world now at war the peace for which all people are longing, peace in the truth, justice, and charity of Christ.

Give peace to the warring nations and to the souls of men,

that in the tranquillity of order the kingdom of God may prevail.

Extend thy protection to the infidels

and to all those still in the shadow of death;

give them peace and grant that on them, too, may shine the sun of truth,

that they may unite with us in proclaiming before the one and only Saviour of the world:

“Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good will!”

Give peace to the peoples separated from Us by error or by schism,

and especially to those who profess such singular devotion to thee

and in whose homes an honoured place was ever accorded thy venerable icon

(today perhaps often kept hidden to await better days);

bring them back to the one fold of Christ under the one true Shepherd.

Obtain peace and complete freedom for the Holy Church of God;

stay the spreading flood of modern paganism;

enkindle in the faithful the love of purity, the practice of the Christian life, and an apostolic zeal,

so that the servants of God may increase in merit and in numbers.

Lastly, as the Church and the entire human race were consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus,

so that in reposing all hope in Him,

He might become for them the sign and pledge of victory and salvation:

we in like manner also consecrate ourselves forever to thee and to thy Immaculate Heart,

our Mother and Queen,

that thy love and patronage may hasten the triumph of the kingdom of God,

and that all nations, at peace with one another and with God,

may proclaim thee blessed and with thee may raise their voices to resound from pole to pole in the chant of the everlasting Magnificat of glory, love and gratitude to the Heart of Jesus,

where alone they can find truth, life and peace”.

Pius XII making the Consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary 

Jesus’s and Alexandrina’s reaction

How did Alexandrina react? On 7^th November she wrote to her director:

“When I learned about the consecration of the world to our beloved heavenly Mother in a telegram, Jesus allowed me to have some passing moments of consolation.  

I was out of myself; I didn’t know how to thank Jesus and our heavenly Mother.  I raised my hands to Heaven and said: blessed be Jesus, blessed be our heavenly Mother!” 

Alexandrina’s diary of 7^th November begins with these words of Jesus: 

“Be happy, beloved daughter, be happy dear daughter, because the desires of Jesus are realized!

Be happy, because great blessings have come to this guilty earth!”

The WW2

The Consecration was made and it was a step forward leading to the end of the war. Let’s remember the words of 2^nd May 1940:

“If he (the Pope) wants the world to be saved, that he rushes the hour of its Consecration to my Blessed Mother. That he places in front of the battle and that proclaims her Queen of the Victory and the Messenger of the Peace”.

The time of the Consecration was that of the fights in North Africa that ended with the battle of El Alamein. It is very interesting to read these words of Winston Churchill about the importance of the moment:

“Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat”. 


Through you (Alexandrina) the world was consecrated to my Blessed Mother.

In Internet we read this comment on the Consecration we are speaking about[3]:

“The noted Mariologist Gabriel Roschini called the 1942 consecration of the human race to the Immaculate Heart of Mary the greatest honor, which anyone can imagine. It is the highest manifestation of the Marian cult. It opens new perspectives for salvation history”.

Twelve years later hears Jesus confirms what we saw on the Decree of Alexandrina’s Heroic Virtues:

“Through you I want this love (to the Sacred Heart and to the Immaculate Heart) to be ablaze in all humanity, the same way as through you the world was consecrated to my Blessed Mother. Dear spouse, let the love of our Hearts spread all over the world!”

When might it be possible a monument be erected in Balasar to commemorate such a great event?

                                   Translation into English by Assunção Gomes.

Bibliography

COSTA, Alexandrina Maria, For Love Alone! (organized by Eugénie Signorile and translated into English by Leo Baron Madigan of Lumiar): http://alexandrinabalasar.free.fr/for_love_alone_index.htm

PINHO, P.e Mariano, No Calvário de Balasar, (second edition), Apostolado da Oração, Braga, 2005.

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[1] In the Fr. Marian Pinho’s letter to Cardinal Pacelli, on 11^th September 1936, the author informs: Agitur enim de impetrando Summo Pontifice, ut in tantis rerum discriminibus et angustiis, mundus totus Reginae Coeli et Terrae ac Dominae a Victoria consecretur. “It is the case of asking the Roman Pontiff to consecrate, in a moment of so many difficulties, the entire world to the Queen of the Heaven and of the Earth and to the Lady of the Victory”.

[2] This anniversary was commemorated in Lisbon, because there was still no Basilica in Fatima.

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_XII_Consecration_to_the_Immaculate_Heart_of_Mary