Alexandrina Maria da Costa was born on 30 March 1904 in Balasar, Portugal. She became paralyzed after jumping out of a window to preserve her purity from men who broke into her home. God helped her to see that suffering was her vocation and that she had a special call to be the Lord's "victim". From 1938 to 1942, Alexandrina lived the three-hour "passion" of Jesus every Friday, having received the mystical grace to live in body and soul Christ's suffering in his final hours. During these three hours, her paralysis was "overcome", and she would relive the Stations of the Cross, her movements and gestures accompanied by excruciating physical and spiritual pain. She was also diabolically assaulted and tormented with temptations against the faith and with injuries inflicted on her body.
On 27 March 1942, a new phase began for Alexandrina which would continue for 13 years until her death. She received no nourishment of any kind except the Holy Eucharist, at one point weighing as few as 73 pounds. Medical doctors began to conduct various tests on Alexandrina, acting very cold and hostile towards her. This increased her suffering and humiliation, but she remembered the words that Jesus himself spoke to her one day: "You will very rarely receive consolation... I want that while your heart is filled with suffering, on your lips there is a smile". As a result, those who visited Alexandrina always found a woman who, although in apparent physical discomfort, was always outwardly joyful and smiling, transmitting to all a profound peace. Few understood what she was deeply suffering and how real was her interior desolation. As a "testimony" to the mission to which God had called her, Alexandrina desired the following words 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!". Alexandrina died on 13 October 1955. Her last words: "I am happy, because I am going to Heaven". St. Pope John Paul II. “Alexandrina Maria da Costa (1904-1955).”
The Holy See, 25 April 2004, https://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20040425_da-costa_en.html#top.
BACK TO LIST