Tribute to Eugénie Signorile and Leo Madigan (4)

ALEXANDRINA, I WANT TO LEARN FROM YOU!

A short synthesis of practical passages from Alexandrina’s work

By C.E. SIGNORILE

Chapter III

ALEXANDRINA AND THE PRAYER

Praise and gratefulness

True prayer is a contact of the human with the divine, and is essentially love; a colloquy of love - also made of silences - between the creature and its Creator.

Alexandrina is completely love;, in every fibre of her being she fully lives the union with God-Love, therefore she is an “incarnation of love” in each prayer, just as in each moment of her life.

In her school may we, also, learn to pray!

Let us quickly summarize several aspects of her prayer:

When I see flowers, I admire, I praise and I adore the power of God…
She feels herself incapable of adequate praise, therefore:
I ask all created things that praise the Lord to praise Him for me. S (19-03-48)

Full of longing, I looked the sky and I said:
“Oh, how beautiful is The one who created you!” C (09-08-41)

From the contemplation of creation springs an amazement that makes all our being vibrate with recognition, because we do not feel unconnected, contemplating out of wonder alone, but involved, even being a unit of nothingness in The Everything. It is worship, with grateful love, for each individual thing; it is for this reason that everything has been given to us. For us Christians there is also the Incarnation and the Eucharist!

On our path we find moments of joy, for which for which we are spontaneously thankful:

I offer thanks for all the benefits that I receive, the ones that I know about and the ones that I don’t, and for all the benefits that I have received and that I will receive in time and eternity, which is the Heaven. And I thank those that are granted to souls through me.
I offer thanks for those who do not thank Our Lord, for the whole of humanity.

And she adds:

But I ask Jesus - her love for Jesus is so exquisite! - not to accept this gratitude as coming from me, but as if it was each one was offering his own thanks, so that Jesus will not feel ingratitude from any soul. S (07-08-53)

On the other hand it is very difficult for us to be thankful for the periods of pain; this is contrary to our human nature. But the Christian knows that all that happens is willed by God who is love, therefore – when he has progressed to a certain spiritual state – he has also progressed enough to appreciate the reason for the pain and be thankful for it.

Here Alexandrina is masterful:

Every day, shortly after receiving Holy Communion, I pray the “Magnificat” in thanksgiving for the pains or joys of each day before they come. S (25-01-46)

I have had joys that have soon died, and thorns that have long been piercing me.
I receive everything as little tendernesses from Jesus; everything I offer to Him and I am thankful to Him in my heart. S (01-08-47)

Thank you, thank you, Jesus, in the consolation and in the pain, in life and in death. S (03-04-53)

Repentance, conversion and request for pardon

I was very bad at the end of this afternoon. Surely I disgusted Him (Jesus). I am terribly sorry about it.
It is in the smallest things that I show who I am. C (28-06-40)

Dear Celestial Mother, let me cry rivers of tears of repentance for my many sins, sins which I commit in spite of the many benefits I receive from You and from Jesus. S (08-04-49)

Repentance must be followed by conversion.

Do You remember how much I have offended You? Now I want only to love You. C (25-09-41)

Repentance and the will to change lead to a request for pardon.

O Celestial Mother, ask Jesus to pardon me! Tell Him that it is the prodigal son who comes back to the home of his good Father, disposed to follow Him, to love Him, to adore Him, to obey Him and to imitate Him. (A p. 17)

O my Jesus, o my Jesus, pardon, pardon, pardon for my sins! Pardon for the sins of all mankind! S (13-11-53)

The love Jesus is her sole aim, always present in everything she does.
How many are those who hate me and disdain me!
How many are those who calumniate me!
When I ask myself: what wrong have I done them? the thought that soon comes to mind is: what wrong did Jesus do to us, but to love us and to die for us? And soon I feel myself obliged to pardon them and to repeat many times: Pardon them, my Jesus, allow them to be converted so that they will be consumed in the fire of your divine love! S (13-05-43).

Invocation and supplication

Prayers of invocation and supplication must not be seen as requests for God to do our will, to support our desire, no! They must be expressions of a loving dependence of the creature on the Creator; they must come from a humble and loving heart that opens itself in all its depth and delivers itself to the Father to exposes its necessities with the confidence that - at the opportune moment - it will be favoured, if this is not opposed to the supreme Good, that is, to the will of God.

The supplications that Alexandrina directs to Heaven are very beautiful examples in this sense: they are presented with the humility, of one who feels that she is very small, indeed nothingness, before Him to Whom she prays; her confidence, her faith, in the mercy of God, confidence born of reciprocal love; the insistence in asking, just as Jesus told us to, as we see in the Gospels. Here are some examples:

Listen to my prayers, listen, listen, Jesus!
do not look at the this poor person, poor and needy, who asks You, but look at your divine promises and your own command in telling me to ask things of you. I ask, Jesus, I ask and I trust. S (01-02 52)

I believe that you will not disdain my nothingness and that you will have compassion for me. Give me your grace, guide me always in your ways” S (29-10-48)

Jesus, I ask to be saint, as you want me to be, and if you want me to be. I ask to be able to love You in the way that your Sacred Heart desires. S (14-09-45)

I am so far from being perfect, from being able to deal with all the charity of Jesus. Help me, my Love, to turn fully to you, to relocate myself truly in your divine Heart.
What anxieties I have of loving You and of loving my neighbour! What hunger for your love, what hunger for perfection, what anxieties for Heaven!
I am afraid of my own weakness, I fear myself in everything and for everything. S (05-08-49)

My God, my God, what fighting, what suffering, what combat between what I am and what I should be. My nature is ever in rebellion and yet I am anxious only to do the will of my Lord!
I call, I call for Jesus and for our heavenly Mother, I ask for the sweetness, the meekness, the patience of Their divine Hearts.
I ask that the Holy Spirit enlighten me and assist me. S (22-06-51)

Jesus, have pity, feel sorry for me, enrich this my nothingness, fill me with your love!
I do not ask you to work wonders in me that can be seen: I ask you for the wonder and the wealth of your love. C (14-05-41)

Give me, O Jesus, the fire of your most holy Heart.
You be my strength, give me your peace! S (15-03-46)

Notice that even when she asks for material aid, such as the money needed when her mother was running the risk of losing their mortgaged home, her prayer does not lack the spiritual note:

O Jesus, I do not ask for honours, or great things, or wealth from You, but I ask that You leave us our little home, so that my mother and sister (she thinks that her death is near) have somewhere to live until the end of their lives, so that my sister has a garden to pick the flowers to adorn Your altar in the church, on Saturdays.
O Jesus, all the flowers are for You.
Jesus, rescue us, lest we perish! Spread this message far and wide, to those who can help us (the necessary money did indeed come, from Lisbon, through the mediation of her director, Fr Pinho)!
I do not ask You to answer my prayer in this way, or in that, because I do not know which is best! I trust in You” (A p. 24-25)

Invoking Mary

The invocations that Alexandrina addresses to Our Lady are present in almost all the prayers of supplication: she sees Her as an aid, as a mediatrix.

As an aid in loving:

O Mother of Jesus, give me your love so that with it I can love the Lord, who is yours and mine! S (15-12-44)

As an aid in the participation of Holy Mass:

(...) at the moment of the Sacred Communion I ask Her I that I might communicate as She would communicate, if She were receiving Jesus. S (13-07-51)

As an aid with Her example:

Mother of Jesus, Give me comfort to bear the cross Your way;to bear the cross in this bitterness, darkness, and utter dryness. S (15-12-44)

When I suffer with the death that I feel in myself, I say: “My heavenly Mother is my life.”
When I do not have light nor strength to suffer, I repeat: “My heavenly Mother is the light, my heavenly Mother is the strength.”
When I feel that all my life is a fraud and that I lie to myself, I murmur: “It doesn’t matter to me, my heavenly Mother is not deceived, She is the truth.” And in all things I go on repeating the same thing: I want what my heavenly Mother wants, I go where She goes. S (15-09-50)

As mediatrix:

My poor prayers are unable to reach Heaven. I want to make them precious and valuable, but I cannot.
I ask my beloved Mother Herself to talk to Jesus and offer everything to Him, to mention everything to Him, and to do my asking for me. C (07-11-40)

I will to ask (my heavenly Mother) to obtain from Jesus a pure and holy love, a love without limits to help us to bear the cross, the tribulations and anguish that Jesus sends us; to take them with joy and love, with blind confidence, and that in everything we do His most holy will.  (06-12-39)

Dear heavenly Mother, see if You can find in my nothingness some little bits (of suffering) that You can transform into flowers to offer my Jesus for me. C (01-06-39)

Heavenly Mother, heavenly Mother, ask your Jesus for light for your little daughter, ask for comfort for my soul! C (23-06-41)

Dear heavenly Mother, come to earth and take your little daughter in your most holy arms: I want to give to You my heart; only You can full it with your love so that I will be capable of loving Jesus.
Set me on fire with rays of love so strong that I will be able to set the world on fire.
Jesus is not loved! With my pain and your love, I will make Him be loved. I sure that in this way I will also love.
Heavenly Mother, heavenly Mother, how glorious it will be to see all hearts burning for Jesus in one single ray of love! C (15-01-40)

Heavenly Mother, dear heavenly Mother, teach to me to love Jesus! I love Him with your love, and love You with His. S (07-05-49)

Intercession

The Christian participates in the tribulations of all fellow Christians, suffers for their tribulations and intercedes for them:

I pray to You for all the afflicted, of every kind, that have approached me to intercede for them.I pray to You for all those who recommend themselves to me and for those who want to recommend themselves.I pray to You for the entire world, believers or disbelievers, also such as our President Salazar and our governors.
And now, my Jesus, I pray to You for the souls in Purgatory. S (14-04-50)

Also at the height of the mystical life (when she receives the Eucharist from the hand of her Guardian Angel) she does not concentrate on herself:

(...) my Highest Good, I am on fire, I am burning intensely, stronger and with more light. Blessed be your love and your mercy to me!
I press You to my heart and I ask you, my good Jesus, to embrace those that I love, to take all those around me and belong to me and all Your children, to yourself. Embrace all humanity, Jesus; forgive it, forgive it always! S (11-04-52)

Alexandrina’s main preoccupation is with spiritual dangers. Her mission is to save souls, and to inflame hearts with love of the Eucharist. Look how she prays for her family:

I pray to You for all those who are dear to me and for all my family: also for those who have strayed on the wrong path, convert them and those who are in Your grace, kindle the divine fire in them and burn them in Your love! S (14-04-50)

Alexandrina prays and offers her suffering for a beggar who has knocked at her door; he dies by falling into a river. In anguish, she asks Jesus:

— My Jesus, was the soul of that man who fell to the river saved?
— Yes, my daughter, it was at half past eleven in the evening that he appeared in my divine presence. How beautiful and charming it was; when he saw Me in front of him, even before I asked him to give an account of himself, he said to me:
— Forgive me, forgive me, my Jesus! You alone are my Lord.
I forgave to him and he was saved.
She had asked also for another soul. She asks:
— And the other also, my Jesus?— Yes, my daughter, and still many more; and they are safe through you, through your sufferings.
Pray very much for them. I am full of compassion… S (26-04-46)

She also prays for the cure of sick people. To the prayer she adds sacrifices, and an increase of suffering.

Of course, she is not always heard and some die! Let us look at two examples of a cure.

For the serious illness of the wife of her doctor and friend, Azevedo, Alexandrina pledged herself totally:

I asked them to light the bulbs and the candles and for all of them to kneel.
I offered to Our Lord my body and my soul as a victim for the patient; I marshalled all Heaven towards this end.
And she asked:
Leave her, leave her, Jesus, to finish rearing her little sons; prove to me now the love that you have for me! S (24-12-48)

She was cured. She eventually died on 21st February 1986.

At the end of 1949 Alexandrina’s Mother fell seriously ill. We can imagine the anguish, the fear that she might die! Moreover Alexandrina had scruples about not living “well” this tragic moment:

But I do not suffer perfectly, do I, my Jesus?
You are sad because I cried?
Jesus answers:
No, my daughter, no! Also I cried and my blessed Mother cried. I know everything.
Later He added:— Tell me one thing. If I asked you for your dear mother, would you not give her to me willingly?
— I give, I give, my Jesus; but I do not give her to you without tears, I cannot; this I do not promise.
(...) O Jesus, if it is not detrimental to the salvation of her soul, leave her some more time next to me. Give me more, more sufferings, overload me and alleviate her.
And, if it is not for the good of her soul, I want to lose everything, but may her soul be saved.
But what I want, o Jesus, is that you take her straight to Heaven; do not refuse me this .
— Ask, ask, my daughter; nothing will be denied you, if it is not damaging to souls.
I promise you, when I call your mother to Me, to take her straight to Heaven, to my glory. S (02-12-49)

She died after Alexandrina, on 24th January 1961.

Perseverance in prayer,

even without strength, and in a blackout of Faith.

Alexandrina always remained close to God, even when she was completely without strength for vocal prayer and struggling with temptations against Faith.

It seemed to her that she was not able to pray for the intensity of her multiple sufferings, though in reality her whole being was consumed with prayer.

What my poor body has suffered during these days, only Jesus knows; the agonies and the tortures of the soul, only He can understand them.
This martyrdom of soul and body has hindered my ability to pray, to be able to meditate on the Passion of Jesus.
I imagined Him on the cross quickly and I only said:
What Jesus suffered Jesus for my love! He suffered so much that He died for me. And will I have courage to deny some few sufferings of soul or body?
Oh, no, my Jesus! With your grace I will not deny You anything: I am your victim, night and day. S (04-04-47)

I have scarcely prayed at all because of my sufferings, my painful martyrdom. I had almost completely forgotten about heavenly things: I have said to Jesus and to our Heavenly Mother that this does not represent a lessening of my love, but a willingness to suffer (we are in 1954). S (19-02-54)

My vocal prayer has been almost non-existent, but my spirit, in the midst of the flame of suffering, didn’t disunite itself from Jesus, did not leave suffering to offer the nothing of its nothingness to Him. S (24-02-50)

I passed a vigil night: I suffered very much; I could not pray.
Only sometimes I could manage an ejaculation. But I was always close to Jesus, and I was always His victim.
My heart was in pain and love anxieties. S (07-11-53)

Many times her soul expresses itself through the look:
O, how much suffers this poor body that nor tatter is!
I do not know and I cannot speak to my good Jesus and to the beloved Heavenly Mother: I listen to Them, with the aim that my look gives and asks for everything to Them. O, poor me! What a painful to live for the body and for the soul! S (06-04-51)

Tormented by the doubts on the Faith truths, with a very steady will, always reanimated by the fire of her love to Jesus, she persists on repeating her `I believe', even without certainty:

I have horrible temptations against the Faith: everything seems me lie.
“I believe in God Almighty Father. Jesus, I believe in You; Jesus, in You I trust!”
I am in a furious sea. The black waves where I fight arrive at the Sky. S (09-08-46)

- O Jesus, I do not see You, I do not feel You, but I want to trust that it is You.
- Faith colloquy, pain and love colloquy, my daughter: it was what Jesus has said to you. Yes, without the love, your madness of love, you could not be repairing victim, you could not suffer and thus live of Faith without feeling. Trust, trust. S (16-04-54; let us remember that Alexandrina is victim-soul)

My life is pain and darknesses, without interruption of one alone moment. (…)
All the other life (the spiritual) was erased, died; even the name of Jesus and our Heavenly Mother! Heaven, the blessed Homeland, everything was erased, everything disappeared. It seemed that these sweet names did not exist: Jesus, our Heavenly Mother, Heaven with the divine Trinity whom I loved so much, had died for me.
I felt this, but it did not stop me from crying out with my heart and soul: “Jesus, Heavenly Mother, save me, I am yours! O Heaven, O Heaven, come to my aid!”
I shouted like this in the height of my pain.
And without feeling or hearing anything of comfort and joy, I bent myself to receive the cross and, as always, I repeated: “Jesus, I am Your victim” S (16-08-46)

The affliction is such that it seems to me that all my being is destroyed.
Then I call for Jesus, for that Jesus whom I feel to have lost along with our Heavenly Mother, for that Jesus in whom I feel I do not believe.
Therefore, how many times, my God, has it seemed to me that I have lost the Faith and no longer believe the truths of the Holy Church, nor in eternal life! Even if I don’t believe in anything, I invoke the Heaven in its power. I go on repeating `I believe in eternal life!' S (14-01-55)

I continue to pass the nights in vigil; I pass some nights in which I sleep some minutes, if what I do can be called “sleep”.
I pray, I pray, I speak much with Heaven, without receiving comfort from it: all my praying does not appear to reach there.
All my life has been erased, as if in me there is nothing. Heaven is darkness, the earth is darkness and in me is darkness.
It is a combat, it is a fight to live without soul, to live without Faith.
O my God, my God, I do not have a guide nor a light to lead me. My abandonment reminds me of Yours.
The combat is hard. My feelings try to deny all things such as: God, the existence of the soul, and eternity.
I force myself to pray, as if all these things existed; and my anguish is infinite in giving myself to Jesus, in giving myself to souls. S (25-03-55)

But what the soul feels is not shared by the heart: she persists in grasping herself to the Faith, even if it seems to her that her martyrdom, and her fight against recalcitrant nature, are all in vain.

I believe, my God, I believe even if this my `I believe' of mine always seems a lie.
I repeated it many times today! Many times I called for Jesus and our Heavenly Mother:
Look at my heart and not at my feelings! The heart does not lie: everything is for You, for souls.
I believe, I believe! Save me, save me, Jesus! S (15-04-55)

I want to pray, to join myself to the Lord, and I cannot: I maintain this union as well as I can.
I offer Him all the thorns which, coming from this direction or that, find me and make me bleed.
But how, Lord, how to offer You anything when I am so useless? In darkness, in death and, above all, without Faith?
My God, what a horror! S (01-07-55, three months before her death).

Tribute to Eugénie Signorile and Leo Madigan (3)

ALEXANDRINA, I WANT TO LEARN FROM YOU!

A short synthesis of practical passages from Alexandrina’s work

By C.E. SIGNORILE

Chapter II

ALEXANDRINA AND THE DIVINE LIFE

Conformity with the God’s will

Let’s remember:

“… but my happiness and my contentment are solely in the suffering and the fulfilment of the Lord’s will.” 

Here is an essential component of Alexandrina’s spirituality: conformity with God’s will. 

Alexandrina’s primary impulse is to love God, and the oblation of self-will is a characteristic element of that love. 

This love of Jesus is often expressed as a smile of the soul.

Alexandrina explains this well in the letter of 18-06-46 to her director Fr. Pinho: 

But it is a very different smile from that of my lips. I have it and I feel it constantly; it is not a smile for the world, it is an interior smile; a sweet smile, a tender smile, smile which kisses and hugs the Lord’s will; a smile that embraces the cross with all the pain that entails. It is a smile that means acceptance of the cross because it is Jesus who is offering it.
This smile is real, it is not deceptive: it is the smile to the cross, and to the will of Him who sent it. 

Here are some other sentences that express the same conformity: 

And, among so many thorns, so many sufferings, so heavy a cross, I feel the joy of the soul that smiles at everything that comes from Lord’s hands. 
I can groan, I can cry with the eyes of the body, but those of the soul are glad, ready to receive all the martyrdom that Heaven sends. C (02-06-48) 

I have joy in nothing save in the continuous effort of wanting to do with the Lord’s will perfectly.I want to smile at everything, but my nature is so weak! It wilts, it faints and it dies. C (22-09-51)

Here I am (in the fatigue of having to dictate this diary),resigning myself, subject to obedience, contradicting my will, obeying blindly, without having a will of my own, only wanting what Jesus wants. 
I don’t want to say anything more; I just want to blank out completely the movements of my own will. (…) Jesus would be sad: to this I cannot assent! I obey blindly, I obey for love. S (23 - 02-51) 

I cannot speak. To Heaven I send my sacrifice of blind obedience. S (21-01-55, year of her death) 

We are thankful to the Blessed Alexandrina for her heroic conformity with the God’s will; if not, we would be deprived of thousands of pages of very rich treasures, so beneficial for us!

Alexandrina and the reward

The true Christian does not follow the straight path moved by the fear of punishment, or by the desire of reward, but only by love of Jesus, whom he loves by becoming always more like Him. Alexandrina affirms: 

I do not suffer in expectation of reward: I suffer because my heart is thirsty for Jesus and in Him alone can it be satisfied. C (23-03-40) 

I don’t search for my honour, or for my glory (we are in 1947 and she had already acquired a degree of fame), but Yours,Jesus. I do not suffer with a view to reward for myself, but with the aim of saving souls. S (10-01-47) 

 My Jesus, my Jesus, I do not want my soul pure to avoid the sufferings of purgatory: I want it pure to console You, I want it pure because I do not want wound You, I want it pure in order that with such purity I may save souls for You. 
This is the reason of my suffering; it is for it that I accept everything, my Jesus. S (21-02-47) 

I wanted to love to the point of madness, I want to love my Jesus without a thought of Heavenly reward as the outcome.
The reward that Jesus gives does not interest me: I want to love Him; only Him above all, because He is worthy of love.
He is the reward of my life. Jesus and souls are the reward of my pain; but it is always Jesus, because souls belong to Him. S (28-02-47)

Humility

A basic and very insistent note in Alexandrina’s spiritual symphony is the humility.  

Her poor rising, in a poor and ignored place, her almost null instruction (no more than one year of the elementary school) will have contributed for her humble attitude. But her virtue is in remaining always humble even when her fame is spread.

Instead, the notoriety makes her to suffer!

In her mystical life, extraordinary, so rich of virtues, she does not attribute anything of good to herself, but everything to Jesus; and she defends herself always when Jesus praises her.   

Jesus, there is in me some thing of good, praiseworthy? I do not feel it, I do not know it.  But, if there is, belongs to You, it is not mine. S (22-01-45) 

My Jesus, count always on me as your victim.  Do not count on my love, but on yours, because it is with it that I love You; do not count on my generosity and my force, but on yours: it is your generosity, is your force that takes me to accept with joy all the suffering. S (05-04-47) 

I have lived only for You and thanks to You. I have never, never trusted on myself.   I trusted never, never on me; for your grace, I didn’t attribute me whatever.  My nothing, my immense misery, my uselessness is what is always, always present to me. S (03-07-53) 

And, turned towards Our Lady, she says: 

You know, dear Mother, how little I feel myself in yours most holy presence.
How many times I have said to You that I am not worthy to kiss your most holy feet, but also the soil, not where they had settled, but where they had made shade! S (02-08-47) 

Of course, her humility faces always also the next one.  

However, she always signs “the poor Alexandrina”. 

After that, let us hear the following phrases: 

I do not desire to be more than the other souls. I want for all what I want for me: the purest love, more burning hot, more saint love. L (26-07-39) 

If the pain of some souls that wound me with thorns afflicts me, I strengthen for not thinking about their faults and say:  
Oh Jesus, shape them, resemble to Yours their hearts. 
Shape them and resemble at first my heart, because it is that what more needs.
Jesus, celestial and beloved Mother, I am your most unworthy and smallest daughter among those You have in the world. S (12-07-45) 

Let us have present that this to feel herself “small” does not hinder her to search to be useful for the good, to become saint developing her mission of salvation of the souls. 

My God, I want to be small at the world’s eyes, but great at your divine eyes. L (04-11-35).  

She trusts on Jesus: 

He can of the nothing make everything. And to the most unworthy and poor daughter can give the biggest graces and full her with the biggest wealth.
I am the most useless instrument in her divine hands. If it is of her divine will, he will be able to make me useful for everything and all. C (06-09-41) 

Jesus, blessed be You! I am small, I am nothing. Use this nothing in favour of the humanity.  Receive the prayer of the most unworthy of your daughters! S (24-09-54) 

Let’s see some replies of Jesus: 

I love the simple, teeny souls and for this reason the neediest ones I raise them to the biggest highness.
The humility, the humility, beloved daughter, how much it consoles Me! It is for that I love you (...). S (04-05-46) 

Win, win in your smallness! 

All the humble and anxious soul of living hidden is great with its Lord, wins with its Lord, raises itself with its Lord.
The humiliated for loving Jesus is exalted in the Jesus’ love. S (28-08-53) 

Let us finish with a fragment of dialogue between Jesus and Alexandrina: 

— Oh my beloved Jesus, I would want to give You love, to give You repair and to remove from the world all the badness. My desires are yours: I have nothing mine, but with what he is Yours I can make much thing.
Give me light, give me your grace!
— Have confidence, my son daughter: with nothing I made everything.
In the teeny things I make the biggest wonders. The humble soul is everything for my divine Heart.
From your nothing I raise you to the biggest highness; in your blindness you have all the light. S (17-09-48)

Confidence, surrender

God is love, and for us God is a father.

Therefore, a father who loves. 

Not only this, but he is also all powerful, so he is able to make everything work for our good. 

The true Christian, as a son, must do everything he can to repay such love. 

He must try to manage, in all situations, to surrender himself to the love of the Father and to be “quiet and calm as a child weaned in the arms of its mother” (Ps 130). 

Without a doubt, it is very difficult in most cases to reach this state of spirit! It is necessary to intensify our love and our prayer asking for aid toward this objective. And the aid will not be wanting, when the opportune time comes! God’s time is not our time and certain long delays are according to the Supreme Will for our sanctification, and other reasons that we do not know. 

In this matter, too, Alexandrina is our great master.   

I trust only in my Jesus: seeing me like this, so weak and insignificant, he gives me more help and he inclines himself to me.
Jesus, I want to be always small to be always in your divine arms: that way I have no fear of falling.
With you I can take the cross. C (07-09-39) 

You gave me the grace of knowing the abyss of my misery, but at the same time I see that bigger, infinitely bigger, is the abyss of your love, your mercy and compassion.
I trust in You blindly; in You is my hope. S (27-03-42) 

I delivered myself, I abandoned myself (...) Jesus and the Heavenly Mother take care of me, even when I do not feel it.
I believe in You, I believe in You, my God! I believe in You. S (06-10-50)   

In this persistent affirmation, repeated, we feel a conflict doubt.
It is a fight that we must face with the aid of prayer.  
But I trust, my Jesus, I trust, even against all odds, against the death of all my hopes. 
I trust on you, Lord, and I will not be confounded! S (29-08-47) 

I establish myself in Jesus, I hug the Crucifix and I try to live the life of each moment without thinking about what will come, so that I will have no earthly preoccupation: to suffer, to want to trust and to love, to see in everything the will of the Lord. S (17-09-48) 

I delivered to Jesus and to my heavenly Mother my incompressible life: They, in their divine wisdom that understands all things, accept me.  To me it only belongs to suffer and to follow them blindly.   May the will of the Lord be done in all things! S (28-05-48)   

This is the true attitude of the victim soul. We are not all called to the mystic heights; but all Christians must look in that direction.

It is a continuous fight against doubts!   

Alexandrina, as late as 1953, was still asking for aid, but at the same time she always reaffirmed her confidence:   

Help me, my Lord, help me!  

I put my entire trust in you.
Even when I see everything banking up against me may my abandonment be total, even when I see the earth being destroyed, and even the sky, I will no cease to trust in you! S (27-11-53) 

Will I be capable of continuing my life? …  I am able to do all things in Him who comforts me, I can do all things with the help of Jesus and my dear Mother. S (01-04-55)   

Let us remember the affirmation of S. Paul:

I can do all things in Him who strengthens me (Fil 4,13).

Inhabitation

With baptism the Christian receives the embryo of the divine life; but in order for this to be developed and become effective, his active contribution is needed.

Jesus says:

If somebody loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make out home in him. (Jn 14,23)

It is this ‘living within’ of the most Holy Trinity in the heart of the Christian, made a “son of God”, that we called “indwelling”.

However, in the daily life of most Christians, awareness of this extraordinary truth is clouded. Alexandrina is among those elect souls who are so spiritually elevated that they live in constant awareness of divine intimacy. Jesus says to her:

Your heart is the throne of love, of purity, of the delights of the divine Trinity: The Trinity lives in you, ever enriching you with grace and divine wealth.
Go with the strength of your Jesus and tell everything, so that nothing remains hidden. S (24-05-46)

A few months later, Alexandrina dictates:

I try to live always, as far as possible, inside my soul. And how do I live? On my knees (spiritually), with hands joined, head inclined, adoring, loving the most Holy Trinity.
I adore, I love with my desires alone: for in my wretchedness I can do nothing more. If I could manage to convince all souls to live the inner life with this divine Treasure, how they would adore and love! S (05-10-46)

Awareness of indwelling continues also during one’s daily occupations:

I want to live inside this body that does not exist (she is already physically destroyed, after five year of total fast, not to mention all her other physical and moral sufferings); I so want to live there, deep inside, the interior life, the intimate life with God Father, Son, Holy Spirit; that I do not want to leave. I want to look after the exterior life without ever leaving the interior.
My Jesus, my Jesus, do not let the world separate me from You! S (17-01-47)

Almost two years later Jesus says to her:

The Father speaks in you, with His power and wisdom, the Son with His redemption and love, the Holy Spirit with His light. Everything is for souls: from you everything shines out and is poured into them (....) S (05-11-48)

And again:

Listen to me: you have heaven in your heart, the Divine Trinity that did not arrive suddenly but has always been dwelling in you. It is delighted when you speak of It.What glory, what glory you give It! How many souls live the interior life, the life of the most Holy Trinity through you!” S (22-07-55)

Through her, in her school, then, also let us pledge ourselves never to ignore the divine Treasure which we have in us!

And thus, little by little, we will manage to realize the desire that Jesus makes known to Alexandrina, but which we can take as addressed to ourselves:

I want everything that it is mine to shine through you:
I want your looks to have my purity;
I want your lips to have the sweetness of my smile;
I want your heart to have the tenderness, the charity and the love which mine has;
in short: I want you to reflect me in everything. S (13-06-47)

Bicentenary of Saint John Bosco’s birth

It was celebrated today in the Church of Santa Clara, Vila do Conde, where the Salesians were for many decades, the Bicentenary of Saint John Bosco’s birth.

We put down copy of the Diploma of Salesian Cooperator of Alexandrina, which is the same of Deolinda. As people know, through Fr. Humberto, the Salesians had an important role with Alexandrina.

Tribute to Eugénie Signorile and Leo Madigan (2)

ALEXANDRINA, I WANT TO LEARN FROM YOU!

A short synthesis of practical passages from Alexandrina’s work

By C.E. SIGNORILE

Chapter I

ALEXANDRINA AND THE OTHERS

For those who suffer 

My poor heart, despite being so bad, suffers, suffers, dies for not being able to change itself into bread and clothes, into comfort, joy, consolation and balsam for all those who suffer. S (16-1-48)

I would like to be balsam for all the wounds, consolation for all the sadnesses, comfort for all the discouragements, food for all the hunger, clothes for all the cold, and remedy for all the evil.
I am nobody, I am nothing, I am of no value. S (21-5-48)

It want to run throughout the world and to dry all the tears, to console all the discouraged, to clothe all the naked, to feed all the hungry.
It want to spread over all humanity, both bodies and souls, the charity of Christ.
Oh holy charity of my Lord, how beautiful you are, how you can please and console my Jesus! S (12-02-48)

For those who make her suffer 

I want to resemble Jesus; I want, no matter what it may cost, to pray always, always for those who wound me. S (28-2-47)

When the thorns penetrate me deeply, when the contradictions and the humiliations paralyse me, I say:
“Blessed be the Lord! May everything be for Your love and for the salvation of souls.
My vengeance, my Jesus, will be to beg You on earth and in Heaven for mercy for all who cause me suffering”. S (25-07-52)

I love those who love me, I love the just ones and the sinners, I love all those who wound me, because in all I see Jesus and all I love for Jesus’ love.
Good bye, oh world! Don’t be more ungrateful, don’t sin any more!
I go to Jesus, but I go on looking after you. S (01-11-45)

I am resigned: I receive everything as a gift from Heaven and I see in all who make to me suffer the image of Jesus, and so I forgive all. C (20-03-46)

My Jesus, accept from me what reparation is necessary.
I accept, I want to suffer for everybody, friends or enemies. It does not matter which to me: they are children of Your holy blood; I want to save them all. S (31-01-47)   

For everybody: the smile 

In all Alexandrina’s photographs she appears with a smile: Her smile is her constant characteristic. We think that she will be remembered throughout the centuries as “the saint of the smile”.  Jesus insisted that she always smiled, even in pain: 

Give me your pain hidden in a smile, and in love. S (09-12-49) 
Smile when in pain, so that I can smile when I judge the sinners. S (08-12-50)
… hide the martyrdom of your soul with your smile, as much as you can.
It is with your smile, or rather, with my smile that is on your lips, that you transmit the good, a great good, the maximum good for a so vast a number of souls.
I am in your heart with the Father and the Holy Spirit; I speak throughout your lips and I smile with your lips. S (08-02-52)

And Alexandrina obeyed, sometimes with heroic effort while undergoing atrocious suffering.
Oh, my pain, oh my soul’s sufferings!  I suffer suffering and I suffer smiling. S (07-09-45)

Jesus commands me to suffer with joy. S (02-11-46)

I smile for all, but my smile is deceiving: it is for hiding the great anguish that I have in my soul. C (18-06- 46)

All my body was a living wound; my head, a fountain of blood.
The soul went on crying, while my lips went on smiling, comforting and advising. To all (the endless visits of curiosity seekers) I subjected myself, conquering my repugnance, for Jesus’ love. S (26-05-50)

I smile for all, while the soul cries. It seems me that I am deceiving everybody, in every sense: I a face of joy and gladness, but my happiness and joy are only in the suffering and the fulfilment of the Lord’s will. S (29-08-47)

Tribute to Eugénie Signorile and Leo Madigan (1)

In the space of less than two months passed away two people who dedicated to Alexandrina much of their time. Died first Eugenia Signorile, who began her study at the request of Fr. Umberto and on Blessed wrote many books, and died later Leo Madigan, who, inspired by Francis Johnston, wrote a book on the same Beata and translated some books by Eugenia Signorile and many pages of the Sentiments of the Soul.

To remind them, we will transcribe the work by Eugenia Signorile Alexandrina, I Want to Learn from You! (in Italian Alexandrina, Voglio Imparare da Te!), translated to English by Leo Madigan.

We will do it in parts, by chapter if possible.

ALEXANDRINA, I WANT TO LEARN FROM YOU!

A short synthesis of practical passages from Alexandrina’s work

By C.E. SIGNORILE

INTENT

If all people followed Jesus’ steps, true peace would finally reign. But also, if all followed the true Christians, the “healthy” members of the mystical Body of Christ, peace, the establishment of the kingdom of God would take place here, on this Earth. 

Blessed Alexandrina is one of these models to follow. Many times Jesus told her that she was humanity’s guide: 

You came into the world to be the school of all humanity.

In you, maidens learn to keep the white lilies of their purity for Me;

In you the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the wise and the ignorant learn.

In you all learn to love Me in suffering, to take up their cross. S (05-12-47) 

Your life, my daughter, is a school of love, a school of pain.  

I want so much want to shout out loud to tell all humanity to learn from your life: it is a wise school, it is a sublime school; it is a school which teaches every aspect of the divine life. S (28-03-52) 

Little daughter, celestial gift, all your life speaks to them. All your life is a continuing guidance. Your forced smile, your moans, all your resigned suffering speaks to their hearts; it captivates them, attracts them, and they come to Me. You are the Missionary of Jesus. This sublime mission will continue with more glory, more splendour, when you come to Heaven. S (21-08-53) 

The darkness of your room (the light wounded her eyes) invites souls to reach out for great things: it is a foretaste for them. Your small room preaches to them and it will always preach to all that enter it. All your life preaches to them, and this preaching will be extended to the entire world. S (28-01-55) 

Courage, my daughter!  

Your bedroom, your life, how many lessons do they give to the world!  

It is a divine school that teaches men; it is God’s light which shines in the darknesses. S (11-02-55) 

If therefore we want to live as true Christians, to participate in the redemption of poor humanity, let’s go to Alexandrina’s school. This school is accessible to us through her writings, dictated in obedience to her spiritual directors, with that sense of sacrifice and love for souls, which was her mission. 

But if the volumes of such writings are simply buried in libraries, how can people come to know of them? That's why we need anthologies. 

We have intended to extract from them a small collection of thoughts and sentences to carry with us in daily life: a small vade-mecum to be a stimulus and aid to every Christian who truly loves and does not want to squander his life here on this earth.

                                           The Signoriles, October, 2004.

Leo Madigan died

Now we received this message that informs about the death of Mr. Leo Madigan:

Dear Mr. José Ferreira, our friend Leo Madigan died yesterday, Saturday, at 23 hours. Probably the funeral will be tomorrow, Monday. Back to the subject as soon as possible to give more information.

Leo has a half-brother who is here to deal with all that is necessary. Let us pray for his soul!

Leo Madigan

Mr. Leo Madigan is very ill, no longer speaks.