If we take an overall look at
the last decade of Alexandrina’s life, we see that the martyrdom of the victim
increases continually, with sufferings of all kinds.
During an ecstasy of the Passion
(interior), when describing the actual ascent of Calvary, Alexandrina dictated:
The closer one approaches the
top of the mountain, the more difficult the climb becomes: more agony, more
blood, more abandonment, more pain.
S (12-1-51)
This statement aptly defines the
path her life was taking during this period. Sufferings were invading her whole
person, as much in the physical sphere as in the spiritual. We will look at
each separately – even if they are not, in essence, separable – because one
influences the other.
Physical sufferings
From the end of 1944 she started
to feel that the eyes suffer with the light. Fr Umberto offered her dark
curtains to cover the window. In 1945 she alludes to this torment repeatedly.
I pass my
days in a dark prison: the eyes of my body cannot see light and my soul has no
light. S (23-7-45)
My daughter,
my spouse, listen: I am leading you. Your suffering will increase: the eyes of
your body will be always as if light did not exist.
The darkness
and the pain of your soul will be unutterable. S (31-8-45)
My blindness
grows, my darkness increases. I do not see. The world darkened: it seems that
God did not create light (...) S (6-9-45)
January 1955 arrived, the
confined space of the room and almost complete blindness gave her the impression
of being in a dungeon in which she was unable to breathe:
(...) to
poor nature everything is repugnant: even now not being able to reach to see the
light makes my room into a dark dungeon.
My need of
air and not being able to reach to see the light seems to take me almost to the
point of desperation.
The
affliction is such that it seems to me that all my being crumbles. S (14-1-55)
Early on Easter morning, 1955,
she was to have a slight relief from the torment of blindness. (Dr. Azevedo
had told her to ask Jesus for it.) But it would be temporary. In the ecstasy
of Good Friday, 8th April, Jesus said to her:
— My
daughter, on the morning of Easter Sunday you will see not complete light, but a
half-light. I will be the strength of your eyes.
I will not alleviate your
sufferings; no, my daughter, no! You will remain thus until your death. When
they ask if you are better, answer with a smile. Jesus alleviates on one side
to overload the other. You have no alleluia, neither in the body nor in the
soul. Leave them (the alleluias) for Me, to stay the arm of my Father’s justice
and to save souls. (...) This light will not be lasting: you will have some hour
per day, some hours, some days. S (8-4-55)
Alexandrina also had frequent
haemorrhages and other afflictions which caused a daily loss of blood. We
saw the note of Dr. Azevedo in the Diary of 9th November 1945. (vide
Ch 9, on the transfusion). The day before Alexandrina had dictated:
I said many
times to Jesus: I want to give all to You, all until the last drop of my blood
for your divine love and for the rescue of sinners, just as You have given yours
for me. But I did not think that Jesus took things so seriously!
Only yesterday I remembered
my offer to Jesus and, because I feel that I am without blood, without life, I
fear, from one moment to the next, to leave the world without the promises of
Jesus being realized (that they would bring Fr. Pinho back as her director). S
(8-11-45)
Two weeks later she dictated a
telling metaphor:
I feel that
my body has reached the last spasms of its life. It is like an engine that does
not have strength to pull the weight of its carriages. S (21-11-45)
The same November, Jesus said to
her:
To speak has
become a great sacrifice for you, but do not be afraid, because your life of
love, your life for the good of souls will continue in your looks, smiles and
sweetness until the last instant.
What a life
of enchantments and divine wonders! S (23-11-45)
With the passing of the years,
of course, this sacrifice always became harder:
At each
effort that I make to pronounce a word, all my being seems to frustrate itself,
such is the suffering that I feel. O Jesus, everything for your love and for the
salvation of souls! May all my life be to suffer and to love You, to love You
and to suffer! Without pain I would never be able to live. S (24-10-52)
Even to dictate the diary became
progressively more painful! In the entry of 15 October 1954 we read:
Only Heaven
sees, it alone can evaluate my sacrifice. I cannot speak: at each word that I
pronounce it seems as if a jet of blood spurts to my lips.
It is only for the love of
Jesus and of souls that I make so great a sacrifice. To obey (Fr Umberto had
ordered to her to go on dictating the diary and to send it to him in Italy) when
and if we can, does not cost, but when it is achieved by such unutterable
suffering, it is an unheard of sacrifice!
The pains of
the body are so colossal, and those of the soul measure themselves by them.
O Heaven, O
Heaven, O life without life! S (15-10-54).
Her heroism in sacrifice will
continue for almost eleven months: the last diary entry carries the date, 2nd
September 1955!
By the end of 1946 the joints
of the arms and the vertebrae had dislocated themselves! Dr. Azevedo
decided to intervene: he prepared two supports in the form of an elongated S,
that he attached to the sides of the bed’s headboards; he tightly wrapped
Alexandrina’s arms and bound them on these supports in such a way that they held
her by passing under her arm-pits. Moreover he placed hard boards under her
mattress and wrapped her whole body around them.
Alexandrina was to remain like
this for nine long years until her death.
This happened exactly on 3rd
October, the anniversary of her first crucifixion.
(This anniversary day,)
without reflecting or linking anything, also happens to be the date on which my
poor body, swaddled, was placed on hard boards.
But, in
spite of this, I went on thirsting for more and more pain, more and more love. S
(4-10-46)
This bed became her bed of
thorns.
I want to be
a victim of Jesus and, because I want to be a victim, it is with the smile of
the soul, the smile of good will, that I continue to be a victim on my bed of
thorns. How I am tangled in them! How I am hindered in the smallest movement!
How much they wound me! S (10-7-49)
On top of this she was
frequently in a fever, which gave her the sensation of having her flesh
destroyed.
My poor body
continues to be a skeleton: skull, wounds, thorns, arrows, pain and blood,
sometimes this one, sometimes that.
What is my
pain? Only Jesus understands it. That is enough for me. S (12-9-47)
The
martyrdom is always the same, only with the increase of the ardours of the fever
and excruciating pains, almost insupportable pains. What an affliction! Only
Jesus sees it and knows and understands. S (4-11-49)
My body is scorched, inside and
out, sometimes it seems to burn in a true hell. I ask for relief, I ask for the
position to change, to be able to resist without desperation. In other parts of
my body the ice freezes me: fire and ice at the same time; cold, ice that aches,
that torments like fire. S
(12-3-54)
Of course, insomnia doesn’t fail
to follow!
I passed a
night vigil. I suffered very much; I could not pray. Only at one time or other I
could utter an ejaculation. But I remained always united to Jesus and I was
always His victim. S (7-11-53)
In my nights
of vigil I pray, I pray, I unite myself to my Loves, I offer to Them my tears,
but it does not help at all: all my efforts are in vain! S (18-3-55)
Spiritual sufferings
The spiritual sufferings can be
catalogued as two types: fights against Satan, though without more aggressions
towards her body after the end of 1937 (vide Ch 14), and temptations against the
faith, also provoked by Satan.
SPIRITUAL
FIGHTS AGAINST SATAN
The demon
was chained at my side. He wanted to get at me. I saw that he could not reach
me, but I felt as if he was tearing my body to pieces by biting. The insults
were plentiful. He said to me: Cursed one, you will sin, I will drive you to
desperation. S (20-12-46)
Satan concentrated on making her
suffer the fear of being deceived about her mystical life, and of committing the
sin of vanity by writing about it.
The demon tells me that I invent
my battles in order to have something to write about! My Jesus, I want to love
You, but I do not want to have to write about it! You know well that it is him
and not me. S (21-8-45)
— You manage
with your falseness to deceive almost all the people: you will condemn
yourself!
And to tell
the truth, in those moments, I felt that I was false, deceptive, malicious. S
(20-12-46)
But the most insistent note is
that of lust.
For some
days I felt that my body was an open house for anyone who wanted to enter it.
I suffered
much with this new suffering! (...)
The demon,
more enraged, came as a thief and I felt as if he took my heart.
— It is mine
- he said to me – let’s go and sin! — And he covered me with insults. - With
your heart in my hands I can make you sin when I want. Then, much more alive, I
felt this to be this dwelling that I spoke about above. As many as wanted
entered into it. I was the house of sin, and the same sin: I accepted
everything. My God, what a horror, so many sins, so many crimes! I fought very
much and the demon showed that he was very pleased because he had made me do
everything he wanted. But I said often to Jesus that I was His victim and that I
did not want to sin. S (23-7-45)
It was four
combats that I had with the demon; they had been combats of hell!
I had hands
for everything, except to bless myself with and to move the cursed one away from
me. My body was bathed in sweat, my heart a thundering machine. Yes, I managed
to call for Jesus and our blessed Heavenly Mother. But what I did not manage, or
it seemed to me, was to call them in time.
I liked to
be blind and deaf so that I could neither see nor hear the teachings of the
cursed one and so that I could not allow myself to be disturbed by what he said
against Jesus.
But, if
things were so that I could not fight nor suffer then neither could I be a
victim of my Lord. S (7-11-47)
The demon
tormented me with his strength and diabolical malice. In the first three
attacks he tormented me in the form of a man, but he introduced in me all human
malice. What a horror!
I sinned in
all points and senses. And he, much rested, left to the world his infernal look
and left it full of his malice.
If only I
knew how to tell of the poison that he instils in souls!
What a
horror! Oh, how he sins! S (11-10-46)
Sometimes Jesus gives her to
understand for what kinds of sin she is making reparation.
Our Lord
made me to understand, through the feelings and visions of the soul, for whom He
asked me to make reparation.
The first
two attacks had been for sins committed during worldly balls, sins practised
shamelessly!
The three
following had been for priests. O my Jesus, how much we ought to pray for them!
They are of the same clay that we are, poor men! They are subjected to great
falls. S (9-7-48)
Jesus comforted her, encouraged
her to continue, affirming that with such reparation she was saving souls.
This
explains the desperation of the demon, this is the reason why he tries to devour
you: he knows well how many souls you have delivered from his clutches. S
(14-9-51)
— The demon
has laid all his infernal anger on you. The damage that you have done him is
great: you do more harm to his satanic work, with your suffering, than all the
good done by humanity in general.
He is
raging, raging. He uses everything. He uses men to destroy my Cause. Never,
never are his infernal designs satisfied.
Suffer
everything, my daughter, suffer all your unutterable pain and torment.
Atone to Me,
atone to Me for all the desecrations and all the insincere confessions.
— Jesus, I
love You: I am your victim! S (19-3-54)
TEMPTATIONS
AGAINST FAITH
It seemed me
that a cloud descended on me, black, black, frightful. It wrapped itself all
around me. Everything is night, from earth to Heaven. Beneath me are crosses and
thorns; around me, surrounding me, crosses and thorns; on me, crosses and
thorns. Everything is night, everything is crosses, everything is thorns, pain
and blood: death in the world and death in eternity. S (29-3-45)
I feel as if
only myself and pain live in the world. I feel that everybody flees from me; I
feel that Jesus flees from me. I have pain for company, darkness for a
dwelling. Everything that is born in them dies. Horrible blindness, frightful
darkness! S (3-5-46)
I believe, I believe that you
are my Jesus, I believe even in darkness and pain: do not permit me to doubt! I
do not want to displease You. S (22-7-49) How many pains, how many sighs hidden
and suffocating! I am under the earth and it is this same earth that stifles my
sighs and hides my pains No cry of mine makes it to Heaven: no groan is heard
there, not a single tear is seen. What abandonment, my Jesus, what abandonment!
S (27-7-51)
It seems me
that I am tempted to despair of myself. I lie to all and I lie to myself. I
have temptations against the faith: it seems that I want to convince myself that
after this exile everything finishes, that nothing is improved by suffering.
I feel the fury of the demon
on me: he is raging against me. It seems that there is a strong iron grating
separating me from him. (Indeed, after the end of 1937, Jesus does not allow him
to touch her.) But my soul sees and feels that his strong teeth bite into these
iron bars as if he were biting into me. He fixes me his desperate and ferocious
eyes. I hear his howls and desperations. S (14-9-51)
In this
stormy immensity where only emptiness prevails, my soul conserves itself in
peace, except sometimes, in some moments of agitation, doubts about all of my
life, temptations against the faith that almost cause me to fall into despair.
Why did I come to the world? What is served by suffering like this, in a life
nailed to a bed?
These are not questions I want
to ask. I feel they are temptations of the demon, that they are him wanting to
rob me of peace. S
(20-6-52)
I am in a
stormy sea. I do not cease to fight with the waves. I feel tired, I feel that I
am fainting away, having to fight continually like this. I want to clutch at the
sand, or some thing that will provide security, but I do not find it: everything
fails me. I myself remain at the mercy of the waves. S (15-1-54)
She continued the fight between
the will to believe and the temptation to disbelieve. It was a tremendous
suffering!
I believe,
whether in pain or in joy, in abandonment or in comfort. I believe, in life and
in death. I am yours, Jesus, I am your victim! S (16-7-54)
I feel that
I am not doing anything in the world, after losing Jesus and our heavenly
Mother.
Since eternity does not
exist, or so (the demon) tries to persuade me: what am I doing here, without
enjoyment, always suffering? What for, what for?
“I believe,
Jesus, I believe! I believe that You exist.
What matters to me the
feeling of the lie (saying “I believe”), if You are the Truth, O Lord, if You
are You, and You are eternity?”
In this fight I disdained all
Gethsemane (when she relived the Passion). Nothing exists. There is nothing,
there has been nothing!
Thus I
climbed Calvary, without faith, without believing in eternity. And, such was the
temptation, wanting to commit suicide!
It seemed to me that I should
want to discontinue a life which had no life, in any way at all. (Jesus suffered
similar demonic attacks, not only at the beginning, in the desert, but also at
the end, in Gethsemane).
With what
cost I called on Jesus and our Heavenly Mother and repeated to Them my “I
believe”!
In the
darkness of agony and of death, I have wanted to repeat it, and I could not.
Jesus came.
He called out to me firmly and with sweetness:
— My
daughter, O my daughter, your reparation is for those without faith, for those
without God, for the unbelievers. S (15-10-54)
One month later Jesus reaffirmed that
He wanted this form of reparation, with its tenacious profession of faith. But
He also gave her His aid.
Repeat your
“I believe”. You must live the faith without faith, love without the feeling of
love.
All I want
of you is your “I believe!”, your adherence to the cross, your heroic
generosity, always heroic.
Come and
rest on my divine Heart. It is divine rest, it is comforting rest, it is life’s
rest. S (19-11-54)
Even while reliving the Passion
the fight continued. Here is a description of it with wonderful poetical power.
I believe, I
believe firmly, I have repeated as many times on the top of the mountain,
impaled on a spear, but in such a vertical line that I was not hanging more on
one side than on the other: to God or the demon; to eternity or the vacuum.
Thus
wounded, covered in blood, I could do nothing but go on repeating my “I believe,
I believe firmly!”
I believe,
even so my feelings are all liars.
Jesus came;
he said to me:
— Believe,
my daughter, believe, my beloved spouse, believe, tender flower of Paradise!
Believe that
I exist, believe that you are in the Truth, believe that all your life is my
life. Courage, courage! S (17-12-54)
The last year of her exile
arrived, yet that tremendous fight was intensified still more.
— O
Jesus, forgive me! I do
not have faith nor do I believe in You. Dear me, who will save me?
— It’s Me; I
save you, my daughter! You have inflexible faith, firmer than a rock.
Make
reparation for those who do not have it, for those who live without God.
Trust,
trust! Souls are saved by the millions, by the millions. Yes, my daughter! S
(25-3-55)
And thus I
go on walking on neither sea nor land, only with a false whisper, that always
urges me to cast myself into the abyss.
Save me,
Jesus! Save me, Celestial Mother! Comfort me in this world of uncertainties and
doubts. O pain, O pain, O agony and death! …
In this
painful and, so to speak, continuous fight, Jesus came and spoke to me:
— (...)
Courage, courage! You have faith, you have love and you give Me everything.
(...)
Go, live in
the faith, repeat your “I believe”. Suffer and love, suffer and love! S (1-4-55)
My soul
bleeds, my whole being bleeds in the darkness.
O my God,
speak to me about the soul, speak about what I so often seem not to have! How
many times a voice cries out to me – to the soul and to the body too: “Grasp,
grasp!” - but I can find neither one thing nor another to grasp. I grasp, grasp
at the darkness, at ignorance, at uselessness, at death! It is what I have, is
what I find in myself.
To cry out,
to cry out healthy and strong to Heaven, to Heaven that isn’t there, to an
eternity that does not exist! O my God, it is useless to cry out to anything. I
am in great agony.
I want, if
Jesus wants it, to be here for His glory and for the salvation of souls. S
(13-5-55)
Jesus warns
her of an ultimate increase of the martyrdom.
— My
daughter, it is not the feelings of faith and consolation that console me, but
rather this constant fight at the height of pain. It is the last phase, the
tremendous phase: the pinnacle of suffering will be facing the pinnacle of sin.
The world sins, the world sins! Have courage, you who are the light and the
lighthouse of the world. Make reparation so that my divine Heart be loved. Stay
my Father’s arm of justice, who insists that it fall on the earth. S (10-6-55)
My daughter,
climb, climb, courage! (...) Your phase, the last phase of your life cannot be
more painful. But thus it is when I choose a soul for the highest degree of
perfection, love, and union with me.
Trust: you
love Me and make Me loved. Your Heaven is near! S (8-7-55)
With a heroic firmness she
repeated her “I believe”
Cost what it
may, what bleeds, bleeds! Even if lying to myself, I must always repeat: I
believe in God, I believe in all the eternal truths, I believe that I have a
soul, a child of the God’s blood! S (5-8-55)
Always
fighting, always grasping, grasping without having anything to grasp, here I go
from fall to fall, from abyss to abyss towards the endless abysses of darkness,
death, uselessness.
And without
faith, my God, without faith! I always go on repeating in my soul: Everything
for your love, Jesus, and for souls! S (19-8-55)
And, finally, in the last diary,
she dictated:
In
heart-rending anguish I repeated my acts of faith:
I believe,
Jesus, I believe that your birth, your death, your Calvary were for me.
I believe,
Jesus, I believe!
My abysses
are so black and deep that only God could penetrate them.
Which is
just what Jesus did.
He went down
into my depths, with the tender rays of His light he brought up to the surface
my poor being and illuminated it:
- Come here,
my daughter, light and lighthouse of the world!
You that you
are darkness without equal, you are the light that shines, the lighthouse that
illuminates everything.
The darkness
is for you, the light is for souls.
Come here,
light of whom I am light, lighthouse of whom I am lighthouse!
Can I not
make you shine with My brightness?
Can I not
make you to be a lighthouse, just as I am the lighthouse?
In the same diary we read a last
afflicted appeal of Jesus:
— My
daughter, let Jesus cry out through your lips:
“O Church, O
Church, accept the voice of the Lord! Vigilance, vigilance!
O Church, my
beloved Church, pay attention, pay attention, do not sleep, do not rest!
Never has
the world sinned in such a way.
Never was
there such urgent need of reparation.” (...)
Have you not
said to Me many times that you wanted to consume yourself and to disappear in my
love? Courage, courage! I have done everything to the letter, everything that
you have said to Me.
— O
Jesus, look at my soul! Only You know how to look at it.
Listen to my
requests!
And the
world, the world! Jesus, forgive it, because it is yours! S (2-9-55)
With such an anguished plea,
which explodes from a heart bleeding with pain and burning with love, the diary
of our holy martyr closes.
The last phase
We have exhausted the direct
sources, the Letters to Fr Pinho and the Diary; let’s use the other sources: C
G, NoC.
About the sufferings, we have
two letters of Dr. Azevedo to Fr Pinho. One is of 10th January 1955:
Alexandrina is prostrated as
never before. She is reaching the top of her Calvary… It seems that everything
has evolved towards this climax. (NoC,
p. 299 port.)
The other is of 17th
October 1955, four days after her death.
In the last
months her pains were horrible.
Lately she been suffering
immensely, and it seems to me that her illness, her pains, were of supernatural
origin, that origin referred by Henri Bon, when speaks of the supernatural
diseases. (NoC, pp. 298-299, port.)
And a letter, to Fr Umberto,
from Doctor Irene de Azevedo, daughter of Dr. Azevedo (a dear friend who, in
place of Deolinda, had often written down what Alexandrina dictated for her
diaries); here are some lines:
We had the
sensation that in that room of pain something tremendously great and mysterious
was happening: that the last moments had arrived for a victim who had been asked
for a great reparation.
Standing
next to her, I tried to give to her a little consolation by wetting her dry
lips. I did not dare to speak to her, for fear of increasing her suffering (...)
She
insistently asked that God take her quickly to Heaven: it was the only prayer
worthy of her. (...) What an expression she had! Holy resignation to the will of
God, but suffering to the point of terror, such suffering that a soul can only
undergo with the grace and a great help of the Lord.
Since then I
have an idea of what the Passion and Death of the Lord would have been. (...)
Contemplating her most painful face, I seemed to hear the phrase of Jesus:
“Father, why have you abandoned me?” Everything was consummated. (C G, p. 694)
In September, the martyr
Alexandrina had the generosity of allowing Deolinda to participate in a
three-day spiritual retreat in Fatima. It was an heroic effort, because only
Deolinda knew the best way to attend to her during these latter times of
atrocious pain.
Alexandrina, who felt that she
was already near the end, wanted to give Deolinda, with the retreat’s infusion
of spirituality, the strength to support the great blow of her death. (C G p.
691)
In the beginning of “her” month,
she hears the announcement of her departure.
Today, 2nd
October, the day of the Holy Angels, I felt that someone had touched in my
shoulder and I heard Angels singing. I asked:
Who will
sing with the Angels? Our Lord answered:
You, you, you, soon, soon, soon.
(NoC, p. 299, port.)
In 1965 Deolinda told to Fr
Umberto as follows:
It happened,
if I am not mistaken, on 7th October 1955. I had work in the house,
watching the stonemasons. My sister called me saying:
— Deolinda,
you have run away from me! I answered her: - I went, but I’m coming back
straightaway!
I sat down
next to her, because it was already difficult to hear what she was saying, and
she gave me the money destined for the missions and the purse of the money for
the house. This was usual; I was always impressed with the way Alexandrina
always managed our meagre finances, as well as money for charities. (C G, p.
691, note 17)
The 12th
At 2am Alexandrina said to
Deolinda who was looking after her:
I am going
to tell to you something that I haven’t told you yet in order not to upset you.
And this is it: on 1st February, early in the morning, I heard a
voice say:
Make an act of resignation at
the coming of your beloved Father (Fr. Pinho). (…)
I did not
dictate this at the time so that you wouldn’t know. (C G, p. 691)
Later she
added:
As soon as
it is day, I want you to make three phone calls.
1. To the girl Irene Gomes,
asking her to come home with our mother and to bring all her clothes because she
will be staying as I am going to die (the mother was at the seaside taking a
cure).
2. To Fr Alberto Gomes (her
confessor), as a debt of gratitude on my part and, if he agrees, to repeat
publicly the act of resignation at the arrival of Fr Pinho.
Meanwhile
you will tell uncle Joaquin so that he goes to call Dr. Azevedo.
3. To Mrs. Ana Pimenta (a
friend and benefactor, who had expressed a wish to be present at Alexandrina’s
death).
During the morning she said
several times:
I desire
Heaven. I do not have the slightest regret at leaving this earth.
All the
darkness of the soul has finished (...)
It is sun.
It is life. It is everything. It is God!
Deolinda at
one point asked her: Do you want anything?
Heaven,
because I can no longer stay on earth.
I want to
receive the Sacrament of the Sick, while I am still lucid.
In an illumination on the
future, she exclaims:
One day, it
will be very beautiful here! O Jesus, your will be done, not mine!
Around 3pm the same day, in the
presence of her confessor, Dr. Azevedo, relatives and some close friends, she
made an act of acceptance of death.
Let’s look at the report made by
the priest who attended her at the moment of death, Msgr. Mendes do Carmo.
When all was
prepared in that Calvary-Room, she made her spontaneous Act of Resignation in
front of all. – O Jesus Love, O divine Spouse of my soul, I, who in life always
sought to give You the greatest glory, I want, at the hour of my death, to make
You an act of resignation upon the arrival of my dear Spiritual Father; and
thus, my beloved Jesus, if with this Act I give greater glory to the most Holy
Trinity, I submit myself joyfully to your eternal designs… only to beg from Your
mercy Your Kingdom of love, the conversion of the sinners, the salvation of the
dying and the release of souls from purgatory. My God, as I always consecrated
my life to You, I offer to You now its end, accepting with resignation the
death, along with its circumstances, that gives You greater glory.
Later, in a
clear voice, she asked for pardon, she thanked and forgave all…
Still later
she received, in an angelic way, the Sacrament that purifies all vestiges of
imperfections and guilt.
The room was
full of sobbing and Alexandrina, dying, said:
— Do
not cry, because I am going to Heaven.
And she
repeated:
Do not cry,
because I am going to Heaven! (C G, p. 824)
Here are some phrases that she
said at intervals:
— O
Jesus, I cannot stay longer on Earth.
O Jesus,
life costs; Heaven costs!
I suffered
everything in this life for souls.
I squeezed
myself in this bed until I had given my blood for souls.
I forgive
all… The torments were for my good.
O Jesus,
forgive the whole world! …
I thank
those who did good to me; I will pray for them in Heaven.
I am so glad to be going to
Heaven! (Smiling and looking at a point above).
To the doctor who during the
afternoon, wished her well before leaving, she said:
What clarity, what light! It
is all light (smiling).
The darkness
has disappeared. (C G, pp. 692-693)
The 13th
The 13 October 1955 was a
Thursday, a day especially loved by Alexandrina because on it Jesus instituted
the Eucharist. On a number of occasions she had expressed a desire to die on a
Thursday. Moreover, the 13th of each month is particularly loved by
the Portuguese people, because the 13th May recalls the first
apparition of Our Lady to the three Little Shepherds of Fatima, and the 13th
October, the last of the apparitions, with the famous phenomenon of the sun.
In Fatima, the great feast of
Our Lady of August is celebrated on 13th, rather than on the 15th.
About one month before her death, Alexandrina confided to Dr. João Costa, the
doctor of Balasar, her desire (we can even say “intuition”):
Doctor, I am going to die soon.
I have told Our Lady that it would please me to die on a 13th of the
month. I tell this to you and to no one else, because I do not want to upset my
frail mother, or my sister. (C G, p. 691, note 17)
At 6pm Alexandrina smiled, with
an angelic smile:
My God, my
God, I love You, I am wholly yours!
I would not
like to die at night-time. Will I die today? I would like to.
She asks Deolinda to give her
the crucifix and the image of the Heavenly Mother to kiss, and she kissed them
smiling.
Deolinda asked:
— For
whom do you smile?
— For
Heaven.
At 8 o’clock she received Holy
Communion (her last).
In the morning she received some
people, and still did her apostolate work:
— Good
bye, good bye until Heaven!
Do not sin!
The world is worth nothing! This says it all then.
Receive Holy
Communion often! Pray the Rosary every day!
At 11
o’clock she said to Dr. Azevedo: - It will be soon! He asked her if her “soons”
were as those of Jesus. Later he continued:
— Surely,
tomorrow at the 3 o’clock (it would be Friday, the hour of the ecstasy), Jesus
still wants to speak to you.
She managed
a faint smile.
At 11:25am
she said:
— I
am very happy because I am going to Heaven!
The doctor
added:
— In
Heaven pray much for us.
She
indicated that she would.
At 11:35am
she asked for the prayers for the dying to be recited.
At 7pm she
was still saying: - I am going to Heaven!
At 7:30pm
she exclaimed: - I am going to Heaven!
Deolinda
replied: - But not yet!
She
answered: - It is, is!
At 8:29pm
she died.
She had
stayed perfectly lucid until the last instant.
Exactly what Jesus had predicted
to her in December 1944 was confirmed:
It is in an ecstasy of love,
leaving from among pains, you will fly to Heaven.
S (29-12-44)
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