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

Association of Salesian Cooperators The Association of Salesian Cooperators (ASC) is a lay association in the Catholic Church and the third order of the Salesians. It is also one of the three main branches of the Salesian Family founded directly by Don Bosco in 1876. The movement was ...

, 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 Portugal, Portuguese city in Norte Region, Portugal, 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 River, Minho ...

). On 25 April 2004, she was declared blessed by

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005. In his you ...

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, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

. 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 for the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows in Póvoa de Varzim. 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 (: paralyses; also known as plegia) is a loss of Motor skill, motor function in one or more Skeletal muscle, muscles. Paralysis can also be accompanied by a loss of feeling (sensory loss) in the affected area if there is sensory d ...

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 Catholic devotion which refers to the view of the interior life of Mary, her joys and sorrows, her virtues and hidden perfections, and, above all, her virginal love for God the Father, her maternal love for ...

for the month of May.

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 (; born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, ; 31 May 1857 – 10 February 1939) was head of the Catholic Church from 6 February 1922 until his death in February 1939. He was also the first sovereign of the Vatican City State u ...

, 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 The Archdiocese of Braga () is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church in Portugal. It is known for its use of the Rite of Braga, a use of the liturgy distinct from the Roman Rite and other Latin liturgical ...

. In 1938 Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli was the secretary of the state of the Vatican, and he became

Pope Pius XII Pope Pius XII (; born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli; 2 March 18769 October 1958) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 2 March 1939 until his death on 9 October 1958. He is the most recent p ...

in early March, 1939. In 1942, he performed the consecration of the world. 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 The Eucharist ( ; from , ), also called Holy Communion, the Blessed Sacrament or the Lord's Supper, is a Christian rite, considered a sacrament in most churches and an ordinance in others. Christians believe that the rite was instituted by J ...

, 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 The Salesians of Don Bosco (SDB), formally known as the Society of Saint Francis de Sales (), is a religious congregation of men in the Catholic Church, founded in 1859 by the Italian priest John Bosco to help poor and migrant youth during the ...

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

and in 1944 he met Alexandrina Maria da Costa, and became her spiritual director."Blessed Alexandrina da Costa", Daughters of Mary Help of Christians
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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:Alexandrina of Balazar 1904 births 1955 deaths People from Póvoa de Varzim Portuguese beatified people Portuguese Christian mystics 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