Alexandrina Maria da Costa (30 March 1904 – 13 October 1955), best known as Blessed Alexandrina of Balazar, was a Portuguese mystic and

victim soul The concept of a victim soul is an unofficial belief which derives from an interpretation of the Roman Catholic Church's teaching on redemptive suffering. Such a person believes themselves to be one chosen by God to suffer more than most people dur ...

, member of the Association of Salesian Cooperators, who was born and died in

Balazar Balazar (or Balasar) is one of the seven parishes of the municipality of Póvoa de Varzim. The population in 2011 was 2,543,Póvoa de Varzim Póvoa de Varzim (, ) is a Portuguese city in Northern Portugal and sub-region of Greater Porto, from its city centre. It sits in a sandy coastal plain, a cuspate foreland, halfway between the Minho and Douro rivers. In 2001, there were 63,470 ...

). On 25 April 2004 she was declared

blessed Blessed may refer to: * The state of having received a blessing * Blessed, a title assigned by the Roman Catholic Church to someone who has been beatified Film and television * ''Blessed'' (2004 film), a 2004 motion picture about a supernatural ...

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

who stated that "her secret to holiness was love for Christ".

Early life

Alexandrina Maria da Costa was born on 30 March 1904, in

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of th ...

. Her father abandoned the family when she was very young. She had only eighteen months' schooling before being sent to work on a farm at the age of nine. In her teens she started to work in Balazar as a seamstress along with her sister.Freze, Michael. 1993, ''They bore the wounds of Christ'', OSV Publishing page 279 Alexandrina said that when she went with other girls to the countryside, she picked flowers that she later used to make flower carpets to the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows in Póvoa de Varzim. One day, she started bleeding from her head, due to a crown of spines, she said. At 14 years old, in March 1918 an incident changed her life. Her former employer along with two other men tried to break into her room to rape her. To escape them, Alexandrina jumped down from a window, barely surviving. Her spine was broken from the fall. Until age 19, Alexandrina was still able to "drag herself" to church where, hunched over, she would remain in prayer, to the great amazement of the parishioners. During the early years, Alexandrina asked the Blessed Mother for the grace of a cure. She suffered gradual

paralysis Paralysis (also known as plegia) is a loss of motor function in one or more muscles. Paralysis can also be accompanied by a loss of feeling (sensory loss) in the affected area if there is sensory damage. In the United States, roughly 1 in 5 ...

that confined her to bed from 1925 onward. She remained bed-ridden for about 30 years. The parish priest lent her a statue of the

Immaculate Heart of Mary The Immaculate Heart of Mary () is a Roman Catholic devotional name used to refer to the Catholic view of the interior life of Mary, mother of Jesus, her joys and sorrows, her virtues and hidden perfections, and, above all, her virginal love ...

for the month of May. She asked for a little altar to be fixed to the wall by her bed where it was graced with the statue of Our Lady of Fatima and decorated with flowers and candles.

Later life

In June 1938, based on the request of Alexandrina's confessor, Mariano Pinho, several bishops from

wrote to

Pope Pius XI Pope Pius XI ( it, Pio XI), born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti (; 31 May 1857 – 10 February 1939), was head of the Catholic Church from 6 February 1922 to his death in February 1939. He was the first sovereign of Vatican City f ...

, asking him to consecrate the world to the

. This request was renewed several times until 1941, in which the Holy See asked three times for information about Alexandrina to be supplied by the Archbishop of Braga. In 1938 Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli was the secretary of the state of the Vatican, and he became

Pope Pius XII Pope Pius XII ( it, Pio XII), born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (; 2 March 18769 October 1958), was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 2 March 1939 until his death in October 1958. Before his e ...

in early March, 1939. In 1942 he performed the consecration of the world.''Totus tuus: John Paul II's program of Marian consecration and entrustment'' by Msgr Arthur Burton Calkins 1992 page 97 After December 1938, Alexandrina corresponded regularly with Lucia Santos. Quarto de Alexandrina

According to her Vatican biography, from March 1942, for about 13 years until her death, she received no food except for the Holy Eucharist, and her weight dropped to about . She was examined by medical doctors, with no conclusion. Based on the advice of a priest, her sister kept a diary of Alexandrina's words and mystical experiences. According to her Vatican autobiography, Jesus spoke to her, at one point saying: "You will very rarely receive consolation... I want that while your heart is filled with suffering, on your lips there is a smile". In 1944, she joined the "Union of Salesian Cooperators", offering her suffering for the salvation of souls and for the sanctification of youth. Umberto Pasquale (1906 – 1985) was a

Salesian , image = File:Stemma big.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms , abbreviation = SDB , formation = , founder = John Bosco , founding_location = Valdocco, Turin ...

priest and writer. At the beginning of the 1930s, he went to

and in 1944 he met Alexandrina Maria da Costa, the main subject of his books.

Tombstone

Based on her request, the following words were written on her tombstone: :"Sinners, if the dust of my body can be of help to save you, come close, walk over it, kick it around until it disappears. But never sin again: do not offend Jesus anymore! Sinners, how much I want to tell you.... Do not risk losing Jesus for all eternity, for he is so good. Enough with sin. Love Jesus, love him!".

References

External links

Sanctuary of Alexandrina of Balazar
– Official website {{DEFAULTSORT:Costa, Alexandrina Maria Da 1904 births 1955 deaths People from Póvoa de Varzim Portuguese beatified people Portuguese Christian mystics Portuguese Roman Catholic saints 20th-century Christian mystics Roman Catholic mystics Beatifications by Pope John Paul II Venerated Catholics by Pope John Paul II

Early life

Later life

Tombstone

See also

References

Further reading

External links