Escritos dez 2007 Eng

BLESSED ALEXANDRINA’S WRITINGS
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The Fr Mariano Pinho’s departure for Brazil

Two years ago the sponsors of Blessed Alexandrina’s Official Website also created Fr Mariano Pinho’s website http://causapadrepinho.home.sapo.pt/. Alexandrina’s colloquy of February 22, 1946, Friday, which we present this month, could appear in either because it concerns Fr Mariano Fr Pinho’s departure for Brazil, which happened two days before.

History, literature, theatre and painting often show us dramas and tragedies, but they treat mostly of events that were prominent. Perhaps, however, the more authentic dramas escape historians and artists, because they often take place in solitude, without any external display. Blessed Alexandrina’s great sufferings, and also those of Fr Pinho, were mostly lived interiorly. In the case of the Beata, if she hadn’t described them, who could imagine their magnitude? In the case of Fr Pinho, all we can do is imagine, and inevitably underestimate, them.

That departure took place after five years of separation and of pain, during which time much happened. For Fr Mariano Pinho the solitude of Macieira de Cambra was also a period of great and productive reflection: in 1944 he published the voluminous Regresso ao Lar (Back to the Home) and in 1948, when he was in Brazil, The Immaculate Heart of Mary at the Light of Fatima, much of which he had probably already written in Portugal. During those years the Beata lived her second mystic death (Fr Umberto), saw Dr Azevedo’s arrival, ended the reliving of the Passion with outward signs, saw the world consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, suffered the humiliation of being asked to hand over the letters that her director had sent her (undoubtedly at the instigation of those who wished her ill), was examined in Porto about her fast, suffered the fact and consequences of the Archdiocese of Braga’s declaration that there was nothing of the supernatural in her experiences, Fr Umberto arrived, the second world war finally came to end… and all mixed with great pain. Fr Pinho’s departure is one of the sufferings, and far from the least, which was waiting for her. Against the evidence of the facts, she believed that her director would not go into banishment, because she thought that that was what Jesus had promised.

Fr Mariano Pinho’s tomb in the Cemetery of Balasar

Let’s listen to the Beata:

"The day of the 20th can never be erased from my memory. The departure of my dear Father for Brazil! What Jesus asked of me! I hadn’t expected so much.

The book in which Bld Alexandrina read the Te-Deum was possibly the Ofício de Nossa Senhora. The Te-Deum, as shown here, can be found on page 31. The Magnificat, that she used often to pray, also features in it.

On the morning of that day, after Holy Communion, I repeatedly asked Jesus whether or not he would go, but He didn’t answer me. However, I maintained my confidence against all hope. Our Lord sent me someone to rouse my spirits and comfort me, and to prepare me for what was to happen. My soul was strong. I was calm and serene. But what I suffered! Imagination cannot grasp it, nor lips express it. What defeat in my soul!

When I went to pray, I did not know how to offer my prayers. Should I pray that Jesus would perform a miracle to prevent him from going? Or to thank Him for so many graces? Or that Padre Pinho might have a good journey?

Undecided and without knowing what to do, I handed them to Jesus. And with the strength of my confidence, though I do not know where it came from, I said: he hasn’t gone, he will not go.

Oh, how wrong I was!

The pain was lacerating. I said: I am like St Lawrence, roasting on all sides, but my fire is worse: it burns my spirit and tires my soul.

It was already evening. As the pain was unbearable, I tried to redouble my confidence. I said ejaculations, implored the help of Heaven and trusted only in the Lord that He would provide. I was like Abraham with his son Isaac, with the difference that I didn’t climb the mountain, but entered at sea, to take hold of my dear Father. Soon I knew that the steamer had already taken him out to sea.

How much I have to thank the Lord for helping me to accept everything with serenity and resignation! I had prayed so much, asked in so many prayers, sacrifices and other things, and in the end he still left.

O holy obedience! What will I do now?

To continue to trust and hope in the Lord, redouble my prayers, and eyes turned towards heaven, to wait with joy and to suffer all for love.

Yesterday morning, after Holy Communion, I said to Jesus:

I deliver myself to You in everything and promise to do everything possible not to concern myself further if this or that opposes your divine will; if it is yours, I accept it.

What I want, my Jesus, and I promise to make all the effort in this regard, is to do everything possible with the greatest perfection and to love You with all the love of which my heart is capable. You are the only One in whom I can hope.

In the afternoon, I learned the time and the details of my dear Father’s boarding the steamer. I wished to be strong, to hide my tears, but I did cry for a short time. I tried to stifle the sobs; nobody heard them, but the tears rolled down my face for some time, yet with serenity and peace. Furthermore there was a pain that seemed to have no end. I offered them to Jesus and for them I blessed and praised Him. And I said that, as I had promised, if my dear Father hadn’t gone to Brazil, my lips would not pronounce a word of welcome nor of satisfaction, so I also promised, if He helped me with His grace, not to say a word against those who forced him to go and have made me suffer so much. “On this point, my Jesus, I wish my lips to be closed, so that they can say nothing”. This was my Gethsemane and it was more than a little painful.

I felt myself there in Gethsemane and prostrated myself with the hard soil against my chest. I watered it with many tears, but tears of resignation.

In the morning the pain was in full swing. Without thinking of this, I had a vision of the soul.
Before me a very white hand repeatedly blessed me. I felt in my soul a union that left it stronger. After receiving my Jesus I gave Him but meagre thanks, because I didn’t have the strength for more. I had with me a book that I had asked for a few days before, with the Te Deum already marked, to read in thanksgiving once I learned that the dear Father had not left. I didn’t want to decide that it was not to be read as thanksgiving to our Lord for having consented on the order, which was executed. It seemed to me that in this way it would give more consolation to Jesus: to bless Him in pain as in joy.

And I trod my Calvary with tears, many tears, which in spirit I was giving to Jesus. I felt myself falling down many times without the strength to get up, and I felt nothing else of Jesus’s torments.

While I was plunged into pain and blindness, a blindness that has never seen or hopes to see, my Jesus came.
- My daughter, golden heart, heart of fire, pure soul, candid soul, soul of perfect purity, come to Me, come to My Heart to rest from so much pain, from so much bitterness; come to seek courage, comfort and confidence.

- My Jesus, my Jesus, You know so well that I only trust in You and not in myself, and how did You allow me to deceive myself or the demon to deceive me?

- Be quiet, calm down and listen me. I did not deceive you, you didn’t deceived yourself, the demon didn’t deceived you, because I did not allow that.

What I did I did not do to humiliate you, nor to humiliate those who you love, and I love, and who seek to do divine My will but, to render you more firm and content, I was forced to do. I had to proceed in this way so as not to punish with eternal punishment, as you have so often requested.

You are master of all sciences, doctor of the divine sciences. How much the world must learn from you!

I speak with full knowledge and wisdom. When I spoke to you of the Homeland, I didn’t deceive you because, for those who obey, in the world have no homeland, their only homeland is Heaven.

If you knew, my daughter, how much it cost to my Divine Heart, mad with love for you, not to tell you everything that was going to happen when I smiled and delayed my answer!

I gave you the courage and confidence throughout this time to resist, and now you are brave enough to handle such a blow.

I didn’t deceive you in not telling that you I would not ask you for the sacrifice of the departure of your Dear Father. I didn’t ask it at the time, I came to ask it later. And see how you gave me all?

I did not tell you that he would not go; I promised to release him, and this was the best way for his release.

You will see how I am going to give him to you more than ever. He didn’t go; he remained with you. What I join men cannot separate.

That vision that you had this morning of someone blessing you, it was him, who with his hand blessed you all the time while the steamer was putting out to sea.

Do you see how I give him to you and how he is united to you? I asked what I said to you about that to be kept quiet, and do you know why? So that men would not revolt and resist my graces, graces that to some, in this sense, I will never give them again. They persisted, they resisted though I did everything to dissuade them from acting so.

I do not want a new mark, a black mark, to fall on the Jesuits, my Jesuits whom I so loved and still love, because within it there are many who are dear to me.

Ugly mark, black mark that will not disappear while the world is the world nor later in eternity, and which does so much harm to souls.

Some outside the Company of Jesus helped to create this black mark and only the Company was tarnished. I did not want this, I did not want it, My daughter, I did everything so that they would not resist the grace.

When Jesus said this He cried.

- Don’t cry, my Jesus, leave the tears to me and accept them as evidence of love. Don’t let me be deceived. Forgive everyone. Be my strength.

- Go confident and joyful expectation that My divine promises will be carried out quickly and with great brilliance and great triumph.

Courage, courage and joy. Courage to those who surround you and look for what is Mine. Courage and love, courage with the certainty that Jesus don’t fail, that Jesus loves everybody madly.

Alexandrina de Balasar

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