Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all people who usually come to visit this page. May Jesus come to your heart.

BLESSED ALEXANDRINA (8a)

The Passion Visibly Relived

Between 1938 and 1942, Alexandrina relived, during ecstasy, the Passion of Jesus with accompanying actions which enabled the few people in her room to follow the order of events during that most painful way of the cross in its brutal cruelty; but it constituted a guarantee that the request for the Consecration of the World to the Immaculate Heart of Mary was of divine origin. On March 27, 1942, she suffered the Passion in form of physical participation for the last time.

The following Friday, April 3, Good Friday, she did not again suffer the Passion externally but relived it in her heart.

On the same day, Jesus told her:

- Fear not, my daughter, you are no longer nailed to a cross. The crucifixion that you now experience is the most painful that can be imagined in history (SoS[1], 03/04/1942).

Alexandrina reliving the Passion: contemporary painting.

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[1]Sentiments of the Soul, Alexandrina’s largest work, is a kind of diary.

BLESSED ALEXANDRINA (7c)

The Consecration of the World to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

When Churchill said that before the Battle of Alamein (Egypt in 1943) the Allies had achieved no victory, and after Alamein had suffered no defeat, it is not difficult to believe that the Consecration was decisive in hastening the end of the War.

This suggests that a memorial should be built in Balasar to commemorate the Consecration.

Quotations
- I command you to tell your spiritual director, in proof of the love that you dedicate to my Blessed Mother, that each year I want a Consecration Act of the entire world made... just as I asked St. Margaret Mary to consecrate the world to my Divine Heart (LtFP, 08/01/35).

- My daughter, I have chosen you for more sublime things! I have chosen you to inform the Pope of the desire I have for the world to be consecrated to my Blessed Mother (LtFP, 11/01/37).

Pope Pius XII proclaiming the World Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on October 31, 1942.

BLESSED ALEXANDRINA (7b)

The Consecration of the World to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

In the life of Alexandrina

In 1936, she started to apply to the hierarchy for the Consecration.

In 1938, began the experience of living the Passion externally.

In 1941, Padre Terças published an account of the Passion experience which revealed Alexandrina’s name to the public, a disclosure altogether contrary to her wishes.

In 1942, she began the fast and complete anuria, which would last until death. The year also saw the withdrawal of her beloved spiritual Director, Fr. Mariano Pinho.

Page fragment of the newspaper edited by the Diocese of Braga on the eve of the Consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. At the top, right, it mentions the Fatima Apparitions, at bottom and at the top left presents news of World War.

BLESSED ALEXANDRINA (7a)

The Consecration of the World to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

In 1935, Jesus asked Alexandrina for the World to be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which didn’t take place until seven years later, on 31 October 1942, in the midst of World War II.

During these years a lot had taken place in the world, and also in the life of Alexandrina.

In the World

In Portugal, living under the authoritarian regime of Salazar was better than under tyrannical regime of the Republicans which remained in force from 1910 to 1926.

In Spain, the Republican carnage had been brewing for years; and between 1936 and 1939, the country saw the horrors of civil war. Italy was dominated by the fascism of Mussolini.

In Germany, Hitler was preparing to plunge the world into world war.

At the head of Russia was Stalin, one of the grossest political aberrations of all time.
In 1939, the WW2 started, in which the US participated after late 1941 (Pearl Harbour).

Spanish Republican revolutionaries shoot the statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

BLESSED ALEXANDRINA (6)

At the school of Jesus

Alexandrina spend 30 years in bed. In the beginning she nurtured the hope of being healed, asking Our Lady of Fatima who appeared at the Cova de Iria ten years before; but what she received was a love of suffering.

In the meantime Jesus called her to his school and she found that the guiding motto of her life would be to suffer, to love, to make reparation.

Jesus invited her to his crucifixion and she accepted the offer boldly, without hesitation.

Jesus then led her to the highest summits of the mystical life and made her the loftiest promises for her role in the world and in the Church.

Quotations

It was in September 1934 that I understood it was the voice of our Lord and not a fantasy, as I had thought. Then he asked me and said:

- Give me your hands, that I want to crucify; give me your feet, that I want to nail with mine; give me your heart, that want to pierce with a spear, as mine was pierced. Consecrate me your whole body; offer yourself all to me!

(Autobiography)

- Give me your blood for the sins of the world. Help me in my rescue mission.

Without me you can do nothing; with me ye shall have power to save sinners and many, many things (LtFP[1], 03/01/35).

Bld Alexandrina in 1935.

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[1] Letters to Fr Pinho. Fr Mariano Pinho was Alexandrina’s first spiritual director.

HONOR AND GLORY TO THE LORD IN THE HIGH HEAVENS!

Honor and glory to the Lord in the high Heavens!

At last the day of my joy dawned

And the day of all those who are really devotees of the dear heavenly Mother!

Oh Virgin of the Assumption,

O Immaculate Heavenly Mother,

More beautiful and pure than the Angels!

The Lord created you so pure, so pure,

With his own purity,

He created you so that you could be his Mother.

Oh, how beautiful and immaculate You are!

In You there is no stain of sin!

Oh Heavens, speak for me,

Acclaim the Lord’s Mother and our Mother for me,

The Queen of Heaven and Earth!

Heavenly Mother, I am yours, make me pure!

BLESSED ALEXANDRINA (5)

The Jump

On Holy Saturday 1918, the day she was fourteen, Lino Ferreira, along with two Brazilian emigrants visiting their families, forced entrance to the room where she, Deolinda and another young woman were, intent on criminal purposes. To escape them, Alexandrina jumped from a window. That heroic twelve foot leap affected her spine and came to confine her in bed from 1925 till her death.

Alexandrina jumped from the window of her house.

BLESSED ALEXANDRINA (4)

Adolescence

After returning to Balasar, Alexandrina was soon living in an area called Calvary, in a small house that her mother had inherited. At the age of twelve, she worked for a while at the house of a neighbour, Lino Ferreira, who wished to seduce her, but she rejected his advances.

Alexandrina was by this time a catechist and a singer in the church. She was very active in the practice of charity, without losing the qualities of playful girl and proud of her physical vigour.

BLESSED ALEXANDRINA (3)

In Póvoa de Varzim

As in Balasar there was no school for girls, Deolinda and Alexandrina were sent to study in Póvoa de Varzim. Alexandrina confesses she learned little. But her schooldays in Póvoa showed her that the urban life of a small town was very different from her rural parish. It allowed her also to experience the sea and to see the Church was under Republican persecution.

It was during this period that she made ​​her First Communion and Confirmation.

Main altar of the church of Povoa de Varzim where Alexandrina made her First Communion.

BLESSED ALEXANDRINA (2)

Childhood

Alexandrina was a healthy child, vigorous, playful, with zest for work and with poetic sensibility. She spent her childhood in the countryside, in the hamlet Gresufes, getting a deeply Christian education.

Alexandrina was born in a cold day of March in front of this fireplace. 

BLESSED ALEXANDRINA (1)

The Birth

The parents of Blessed Alexandrina Maria da Costa were Maria Ana da Costa and António Xavier. They were neighbours, but unmarried. António Xavier was an emigrant in Brazil. Once he came back to Balasar and Deolinda was conceived; later he went again to Brazil. In a second coming, was conceived Alexandrina.

But even before her birth the unworthy father António married a girl from Póvoa de Varzim.

Faced with this situation, the young mother saw herself as a widow and started caring only for the maintenance and education of her daughters.

She became an active, exemplary and prayerful woman.

She suffered much, but Jesus promised Alexandrina he would take her mother to Heaven without her having to pass through Purgatory.

D. Ana, mother of Bld Alexandrina.

The arrow indicates the house where Alexandrina was born at Gresufes.

BLESSED ALEXANDRINA (0)

Although there are several biographies published in English on Blessed Alexandrina, this brief biographical sketch was written to fill a specific need. It is based mainly on the works of Signoriles, an Italian couple who wrote extensively on Alexandrina.

I thank the collaboration Leo Madigan, who translated it.