Venerable Alexandrina Maria da Costa

From Balasar to the world

By José Ferreira

You all can come to the garden that I have cultivated,

To gather flowers of virtue,

Flowers of purity,

Flowers of grace,

Flowers of charity,

Flowers of heroism,

Flowers of all kinds.

Come all, gather, they are celestial flowers!

My daughter, garden of the Paradise, in you I sow;

To you the world comes to gather flowers of virtues, flowers of love.

My daughter, hidden treasure,

In you is the divine wealth locked up.

Words of Jesus to the Venerable Alexandrina

One of the most surprising aspects of Venerable Alexandrina is the universal dimension insistently attributed to her message. Everything in her has a worldwide reach. If it happens in Balasar, it is to be projected into the world.

Already on November 22nd 1937, when she was known only in a closed circle of family members and friends, Jesus affirmed to her:

«Immediately after your death, I want your life to be known, and so it will be; I will make it be so. It will reach the whole world».

One day, during an ecstasy of the Passion, she was lying on the floor under the weight of the cross, two men were trying to raise her, but they couldn't do it. She weighed not more than 34 kilos. To the question of the spiritual leader on how much did the cross weigh, Alexandrina explained it had the "weight of the world ".

The consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, whose messenger she was, was not the one of Russia or of Portugal, nor of Christianity alone, but of the whole world. This is quite clear in the words of Jesus pronounced on May 29th 1942:

«Hail Mary, Mother of Jesus!

Honour, glory and triumph to her Immaculate Heart!

Hail Mary, Mother of Jesus, and Mother of the entire universe!

Who wouldn’t wish to belong to the Mother of Jesus, to the Lady of Victory?

The whole world is going to be consecrated to her maternal Heart!

Keep, pure Virgin, keep, Virgin Mother, in your most holy Heart, all your children! »

Let’s see the universal reach attributed to the life of Alexandrina and to her redeeming suffering on these astonishing sentences – where redeemer must of course be understood as co-redeemer:

«Write everything, write, my daughter.

If what I say remained occult, it would have no value to the world.

Mother of the sinners, new redeemer, save them, save them.

You are the new redeemer chosen by Christ.» (1/12/1944)

Or in this other quotation:

«The divine Gardener comes to his garden to see the wonders that He created there and the fruit of so much work.

The King comes to his wife's palace, the divine Redeemer to his redeemer, the new rescuer of the mankind.

My wonders in you are not occult; I do not allow them to remain hidden!

They will shine! They are my glory; they are salvation for the souls.

Everything will be known, my master of divine sciences, everything will be known in the book of your life!

You are the heroine of love, the heroine of pain, the heroine of atonement, the heroine of quarrel, the queen of heroisms!» (18/05/1945)

There are plenty of statements like these, and they are always highly poetical. But the following one has even an outstanding character. On Immaculate Conception's Day, when the world was being destroyed in a war that didn't seem to have an end, it was handed to the care of Alexandrina. Furthermore, she was declared its queen, "queen of the world":

«You are the second Noah´s Ark.

In you I keep the sinners;

In you, as in that ark, I keep everything for the new life of the world.

Your pain, your immolation is pain and humiliation of life more for the soul rather than for the body.

Courage, little daughter! Don’t be afraid!

The rain that is falling on the new ark is not of condemnation, it is of salvation:

It is rain of humiliation, disdain and sacrifice.

The ark is not in danger: it sails in the heights.

As soon as the waters of persecution lower, the world will see the wealth that it contained, a wealth of salvation.

Little daughter, dear beloved, I am not alone, my Blessed Mother stands by me; listen to what she tells you».

Jesus was on the left, His Mother on the right. She took me on her lap, pressed me strongly against her most holy Heart, covered me with caresses and told me:

«My daughter, I am coming with my divine Son to deliver to you the whole mankind and close it in your heart.

The keys are in the hands of your Jesus and your beloved Mother.

I have given to you my most holy mantle and my crown of queen: you have been crowned by me. You are queen of the sinners; you are queen of the world, chosen by Jesus and Mary.»

(8/12/1944)

Poetical anthology

In the following little "poetical anthology", the worldwide dimension that we have been stressing is always clear. Let’s see:

The flames of the building are burning underneath and around

My breast burns, and so does my heart: what a burning hot fire!

The building is always inside me: it is in flames and it burns violently.

I feel again that on this building a worldwide rock was placed

I beat it, I turn around it, and I must shake it.

The flames of the building are burning underneath and around.

The fire is not over; the rock, all around, is broken in bits, as firewood.

I feel the bits of the rock sliding.

But, my God, with what a heavy fatigue! There is so much to do!

This fire cannot stop: the whole rock has to be transformed, melt in the divine fire.

I would like to see fire alone: fire in the bodies, in the hearts, and in the souls.

(17/4/1945)

I would like to swallow the world

I feel in me a burning hot fire; it burns me thoroughly:

My whole body is a furnace.

I have thirst of Jesus; I am hungry, very hungry of souls.

I would like to swallow the world.

I feel more and more as its mother.

What madness for a world that is only deceit, mud and filthiness!

I am a mother who cries the loss of her children;

I am a mother who cannot see them in such a clutter, in so much misery and atrocity.

I am a mother who cries blood tears that bathe the whole mankind.

I cannot resist to such a great pain, I cannot rest.

I want to save the world, I want to suffer everything, I want to give it life …

8/3/45

Mother of mankind

Since Sunday I feel I am the mother of mankind, a tender mother.

At the same time, pain also comes against this love: pain caused by the clutters of these brothers whom I feel to be my children.

I would like to introduce myself to the rulers of all nations to ask them to reconcile with one another but I want a reconciliation of everlasting pardon,

So that the same disorders never come again.

Such a desire is some times so great that I seem to be flying towards them.

To get this peace, I would submit my body to the biggest punishments and sacrifices,

Even if I had to be dragged from nation to nation and do the most painful things.

I would like to take Jesus' Heart in my hands and tell them:

Look how badly It is wounded! Our sins do wound It so...

(6/03/1945)

SHORT BIOGRAPHY

The Venerable Alexandrina Maria da Costa was born in Balasar (Portugal) on the 30th of March 1904.

A jump from a window to the road (12 feet), to escape being molested by a lustful man, who had entered her house for the purpose, later confined her to bed for 30 years. In the solitude of her room, in the midst of great sufferings, she dedicated herself to devotion to the Blessed Eucharist. In order to make reparations for the profanations and the neglect Our Lord suffers from His creatures. It was in His school that she learnt to offer herself as a victim for sinners.

In 1935, and on several other occasions, Our Lord, giving her to understand that war was a punishment for the grave sins of mankind, said:

«It is the lovers of the Holy Eucharist who will hold back the arm of divine justice, that the world may not be destroyed, that greater punishments may not befall».

In the same year Jesus ordered her to ask the Pope to have the world consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and to have a liturgical feast in Mary’s honour as a means of inviting men to lead a good life.

«The same way I asked Margaret Mary for the devotion to My Sacred Heart, so now I ask you for the Consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of My Most Holy Mother, with a solemn feast in Her honour». (30/07/1935).

During the war, as a devoted child of the Holy Father, she offered herself as a victim on his behalf and wrote him letters to console him in the midst of perils of international disasters.

Soon after the election of Pope Pius XII, Jesus, on the 27th of March 1939, said to her:

«This is the Pope who will consecrate the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, My Mother»

Three years after these words of Our Lord come to pass. Already on the 6th of December 1940, Our Lord had assured her:

«Peace will come, but at the cost of much bloodshed. The Holy Father will be spared. The proud and furious dragon which the world is, will dare not touch his person, but his soul will be the victim of this dragon».

Alexandrina lived from the 27th of March1942 till her death in 1955 solely of daily Holy Communion without taking any other food. A little before her death, Jesus said to her:

«Find other persons to love me in the Sacrament of My Love, who will replace you when you are gone to Heaven. Invite men to pray and penance and to be inflamed with My Love. I pity the world! What will become of it if it does not listen to this divine appeal».

And that same month the Blessed Virgin, as a loving Mother of Mercy, showed her a means of appeasing the divine justice, saying:

«Speak to people, speak to them about the Holy Eucharist, tell them about the Rosary».

She composed this prayer: «O my Jesus, I adore Thee in all the places where Thou dwellest, in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. I keep Thee company in place of those who despise Thee; I love Thee in place of those who do not love Thee. I make reparation for those who offend Thee. Come into my heart».

Overcome by suffering and offering herself as a loving victim, she died on the 13th of October1955.

Her mission of leading people to God still continues in a visible manner, as can be gathered from the pilgrimages to her tomb and to the room where she lived and died and also from the favours attributed to her.

The Pope John Paul II declared her Venerable on the 12th of January1996.

NOVENA PRAYER

(For private use only)

O Jesus, Who art pleased with simple and humble persons, who are so often ignored, forgotten and despised by men, raise to the glory of Thy altars Thy humble Servant Alexandrina, who always desired to live hidden from the world and aloof from its vanities and praises. Thou well knowest, Lord Jesus, how in our times there is need of lessons in holiness, which is the true fulfilment of every human and Christian vocation and, consequently, the elevation of a creature to the supreme height of moral beauty. Invest then, o Jesus, Thy Servant with the immortal halo of glory and hear our prayers, which we through her intercession offer to Thee; especially grant us the favour which we ask (... here mention your petition) if it be for the honour of Thy Blessed Name, the glory of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the salvation of sinners, on whose behalf the pious Alexandrina so wholly and generously offered herself as a victim. Amen.

Hymn to the Tabernacles

(Excerpt)

Oh Jesus, I want each little drop of rain that falls from the sky to the land, all the water contained in the world, offered drop by drop, all the sands of the sea and everything the sea contains, to be