Talk:Alexandrina Maria da Costa
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Please read my article. If you like, correct and put it in due place. If you don't like, delete all. Thank you. J.F.
[edit] Biography
Alexandrina Maria da Costa (30 March, 1904–13 October, 1955) was a Portuguese mystic, born and died in Balasar. In the sequence of a jump from a window when she was 14 years old to run away from men who pursued her, suffered a gradual paralysis that placed her in the bed from 1925 onwards. Her first mystic manifestations occurred on 1934. She is said to hear a voice repeating that her way will be: «to suffer, to love, to repair». She offered herself as victim soul and Jesus announced that he will do on her «great things» and that he will be her master, even having Alexandrina spiritual director.
On 1935, she heard the claim of Jesus for the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Her spiritual director, Marian Pinho sj, after some hesitations, in the following year began diligences to obtain that consecration. But things have run slowly and in 1938 Jesus asked her for suffering weekly his holy Passion. Indeed, from March, 1938 onwards, all Fridays, between 12 and 15 o’clock, she, paralysed since 1925, stood up from bed and in a way all could understand followed the several steps of the Passion until the Calvary, but not arriving at the «consummatum est», as it was predicted. That was a very violent spectacle, as can be verified in a film made in 1941 and in a contemporary written publication. However on May 1942 this visible suffering stopped. Perhaps the Pope was already decided to make the consecration, what happened on 31 October, 1942, 25 years after the apparitions of Fatima.
Alexandrina’s health was bad, her sufferings were continuous. But now she began other torment: she stopped eating. Her sole food became the daily Communion.
Braga’s archbishop insisted on medical evidence; then she was carried to Oporto to be watched in the Refuge of Infantine Paralysis. They have been 40 days under hard observation, but at the end Dr Araujo could affirm: «It is absolutely certain that during forty days of being bedridden in hospital, the sick woman did not eat or drink».
However this didn’t convince Braga’s religious authorities; they published a note where was said that in Alexandrina there was nothing extraordinary. Some time after, Fr. Marian Pinho was forbidden to visit Alexandrina and later sent to Brazil. In 1944, she gained a second spiritual director, Fr Umberto Pasquale sdb. But soon he was also prohibited of visiting her and later must go to Italy.
From 1944 until 1955, Alexandrina dictated weekly the «Soul’s Feelings», her mystic diary. She had the frequent visit of the assistant physician, Dr Azevedo, who had also the course of theology and was her great admirer. She couldn’t move any member and had great problems of vision and bones. Her suffering was horrible, but you would see her lips always smiling. In some periods she received thousands of people a day, who heard her teachings. Jesus said that she was living his public life.
Meanwhile, her physical forces weakened more and more and on 13 October, 1955, she flew to Heavens, as her admirers have said. On 25 April 2005, Alexandrina Maria da Costa was beatified by Pope John Paul II.
Bibliography: Francis Johnston, Alexandrina, the Agony and the Glory
[edit] Writings and spreading
Alexandrina left an Autobiography (only until 1943), five volumes of the «Soul’s Feelings», a diary which is her main work, several volumes of letters and minor works. These writings weren’t yet integrally published; indeed in Portugal the Catholic Church, till the present, didn’t manifest a true interest on them.
Diversely, in Italy, Fr. Umberto Pasquale and his co-operators and followers – A. Rebesco (whose biography Estatica was translated into Thailandese and Chinese), Gabriele Amorth, Chiaffredo Signorile and his wife Eugenia Signorile – had edited biographies or works composed with quotations of Alexandrina’s writings.
Fr. Marian Pinho, who died in 1963, edited in Brazil two biographies on Alexandrina: Vítima da Eucaristia (which had translations into French and German, before author’s death) and No Calvário de Balasar.
Actually, besides Italy, Alexandrina Society intensively divulges Alexandrina in Ireland and Scotland, and there are many active admirers in other countries like France, USA, Mexico and Brazil. Some years ago one biography was written in Argentine and an anthology was edited in Japan.
