Through you the world was consecrated to my Blessed Mother.
Jesus to the Bld Alexandrina (1954)

The Decree of the Bld Alexandrina’s Heroic Virtues states that “in the year 1936, (the Bld Alexandrina) asked the Pope  the Consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which Pius XII made on 31^st October 1942”.

Let’s see in a short overview the way that took to it.

I will do you great things through you

In the letter to Fr. Pinho of 27^th September 1934, Alexandrina wrote:

“My beloved Jesus told me that He would be my Director and my continuous, frequent, usual Master and your Reverence there by far; but that I had to obey to you first and then than to Him.

He also told me to tell your Reverence that my pilgrimage on earth would not last long, but that great things awaited me”.

On the first Saturday December 1934, Jesus insists on these “great things”, very clearly

“I will do great things through you”.

I want an act of Consecration to be made

The first time Jesus asks the Consecration is on 30^th July 1937. He orders:

“My daughter, I require you to tell your spiritual father that, in proof of the love that you bear for my most Holy Mother, I want an act of Consecration of the entire world to be made every year, on one of the days of her feasts, chosen by you – the Assumption, Purification or Annunciation – asking that the Virgin without stain of sin to shame and confound the impure ones, so that they return to the to the true path and cease to offend Me”.

Like I asked Holy Margaret Mary to be the world consecrated to my Divine Heart, so I ask you to be it consecrated to Her with a solemn feast”.

Fr Marian Pinho, Alexandrina’s first Spiritual Director, was at that time a remarkable Jesuit, who had embraced the task of promulgate in the country the Eucharistic Crusade for Children, for which he created a successful magazine, who collaborated in other magazine, the Messenger of the Sacred Heart, and more, who directed the main Jesuit magazine, Brotéria. His name was known all over the Portugal.  But the task he then received from Jesus was not a common one.

He felt himself even not entirely sure if that order came from Jesus or if it was only a pious mistake of Alexandrina. Therefore, he waited a year without making any diligence. But, then, the order came again and in circumstances that convinced him:

“Why are my orders not accomplished? Didn’t I give enough signals your Spiritual Father that is my Spirit who guides you?... I want the world to be consecrated to my Mother, Blessed Mary; this is the remedy for so many evils that threaten it!”

From now on begin the several diligences: letters to the Holy Father, examinations by ecclesiastical order and so on.  In 1938, Jesus gives a proof, his Passion physically relived by Alexandrina. This suffering stops as soon the consecration is made.

Let´s see these words of Jesus that Alexandrina heard on 25^th April 1938, but that don’t still concern the Passion:

 “I want penance and prayer to be made. It is you who are shortening the divine justice and you must suffer this until he consecrates it (the world)”.

On 4^th January 1941 Jesus relates to the Passion in these words:

“My daughter, ask the Holy Father to have compassion for your martyrdom (the Passion) and satisfy the divine desires of Jesus, which is to consecrate the world to my Blessed Mother”.

This way of reliving the Passion stopped after the consecration.

Our Lady of the Victory

Soon in 10/IX/36 Jesus shows his desire that his Mother be invoked as Lady of the Victory:

“I’ll say you as will be made the consecration of the world to the Mother of the men and my Blessed Mother. I love her so much!

The entire world will be in Rome by the Holy Father consecrated to her and later by the Fathers in every churches of the world under the title of Queen of the Heaven and of the Earth and Lady of the Victory…”

On 2^nd May 1940, Our Lord commands to say the Pope:

“If he wants that the world to be saved, that he rushes the hour of its Consecration to my Blessed Mother. That he places her in front of the battle and that proclaims her Queen of the Victory and the Messenger of the Peace”.

Here she is declared not Lady but Queen. But the title Lady of the Victory will come again.

In the prayer of the consecration Pope Pius XII used the title “Victress of all God’s battles” which, according Fr Marian Pinho, corresponds to Lady of the Victory[1].

Joy for the Consecration

It seems that since 22/5/1942 the Pope definitively took the decision on the consecration. Indeed, on that day Jesus says to Alexandrina:

“Glory, glory, glory to Jesus!

Honour, honour and glory to Mary!  

The heart of the Pope, the golden heart has decided to consecrate the world to the Heart of Mary!

What great happiness and joy to the world, to belong more than ever to the Mother of Jesus!

The whole world belongs to the divine Heart of Jesus; everything will belong to the Immaculate Heart of Mary”.

A week later Alexandrina prayed during an ecstasy as follows:

“Hail Mary, Mother of Jesus!

Honour, glory, triumph to your Immaculate Heart!

Hail Mary, Mother of Jesus, Mother of the whole Universe!  

Who will not want to belong to the Mother of Jesus, the owner of the Victory?

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

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

On the eve of the Consecration Jesus addresses to Alexandrina as follows:

“The Heaven, the Heaven full of glory! The Heaven full of triumph!

A lovely crown, more beautiful than the sun and the stars is prepared for the crazy one of Jesus.

Jesus is everything for His crucified one.

Jesus gives her everything to receive everything from her!”

The act of consecration

On 31^st October, at the conclusion of the Fatima jubilee[2] (25^th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady in Fatima, in 1917), the whole world could listen, on the radio, the voice of the Holy Father consecrating the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in  Portuguese!

As far as we can see, even the Catholic Authorities didn’t expect the Consecration.  The following day newspapers ignore it. All attention was concentrated on the Jubilee of the Apparitions and it was an honour for the country to hear the Pope speaking Portuguese… Besides, we must remember that Portugal was not in war.

 Only after some days did people begin to pay attention to the final words of the papal speech where the Act of the Consecration had been referred.

But there were people who noted it: Fr. Marian Pinho and Alexandrina. However, he was forbidden to write to Alexandrina, so he sends a short telegram from Fatima to Balasar…

Let’s read now the papal prayer:

“Queen of the Most Holy Rosary,

Help of the Christians,

Refuge of the human race,

Victress of all God’s battles,

we humbly prostrate ourselves before thy throne,

confident that we shall receive mercy, grace, and bountiful assistance and protection on the present calamity,

not through our own merits, but solely through the great goodness of thy maternal Heart.

To thee, to thy Immaculate Heart,

We, as Common Father of the great Christian Family,

as Vicar of Him to whom all power was given in heaven and on earth

and from whom We received the care of all souls redeemed by His Precious Blood,

— to thee, to thy Immaculate Heart, on this tragic hour of human history,

we confide, deliver and consecrate,

not only the Holy Church, the Mystic Body of Jesus,

now in such suffering and agony in so many places and sorely tried in so many ways,

but also the entire world torn by fierce strife,

consumed in a fire of hate, victim of its own wickedness.

May the sight of the widespread material and moral destruction,

of the sorrows and anguish of countless fathers and mothers,

husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, and innocent children,

of the great number of lives cut down in the flower of youth,

of the bodies mangled in horrible slaughter, and of tortured

and agonized souls in danger of being lost eternally,

move thee to compassion.

O Mother of Mercy,

obtain peace for us from God,

and above all provide for us those graces which prepare for, establish, and assure peace.

Queen of Peace,

pray for us and give to the world now at war the peace for which all people are longing, peace in the truth, justice, and charity of Christ.

Give peace to the warring nations and to the souls of men,

that in the tranquillity of order the kingdom of God may prevail.

Extend thy protection to the infidels

and to all those still in the shadow of death;

give them peace and grant that on them, too, may shine the sun of truth,

that they may unite with us in proclaiming before the one and only Saviour of the world:

“Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good will!”

Give peace to the peoples separated from Us by error or by schism,

and especially to those who profess such singular devotion to thee

and in whose homes an honoured place was ever accorded thy venerable icon

(today perhaps often kept hidden to await better days);

bring them back to the one fold of Christ under the one true Shepherd.

Obtain peace and complete freedom for the Holy Church of God;

stay the spreading flood of modern paganism;

enkindle in the faithful the love of purity, the practice of the Christian life, and an apostolic zeal,

so that the servants of God may increase in merit and in numbers.

Lastly, as the Church and the entire human race were consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus,

so that in reposing all hope in Him,

He might become for them the sign and pledge of victory and salvation:

we in like manner also consecrate ourselves forever to thee and to thy Immaculate Heart,

our Mother and Queen,

that thy love and patronage may hasten the triumph of the kingdom of God,

and that all nations, at peace with one another and with God,

may proclaim thee blessed and with thee may raise their voices to resound from pole to pole in the chant of the everlasting Magnificat of glory, love and gratitude to the Heart of Jesus,

where alone they can find truth, life and peace”.

Jesus’s and Alexandrina’s reaction

How did Alexandrina react? On 7^th November she wrote to her director:

“When I learned about the consecration of the world to our beloved heavenly Mother in a telegram, Jesus allowed me to have some passing moments of consolation.  

I was out of myself; I didn’t know how to thank Jesus and our heavenly Mother.  I raised my hands to Heaven and said: blessed be Jesus, blessed be our heavenly Mother!” 

Alexandrina’s diary of 7^th November begins with these words of Jesus: 

“Be happy, beloved daughter, be happy dear daughter, because the desires of Jesus are realized!

Be happy, because great blessings have come to this guilty earth!”

The WW2

The Consecration was made and it was a step forward leading to the end of the war. Let’s remember the words of 2^nd May 1940:

“If he (the Pope) wants the world to be saved, that he rushes the hour of its Consecration to my Blessed Mother. That he places in front of the battle and that proclaims her Queen of the Victory and the Messenger of the Peace”.

The time of the Consecration was that of the fights in North Africa that ended with the battle of El Alamein. It is very interesting to read these words of Winston Churchill about the importance of the moment:

“Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat”.

Through you (Alexandrina) was the world consecrated (1942) to my Blessed Mother

In Internet we read this comment on the Consecration we are speaking about[3]:

“The noted Mariologist Gabriel Roschini called the 1942 consecration of the human race to the Immaculate Heart of Mary the greatest honor, which anyone can imagine. It is the highest manifestation of the Marian cult. It opens new perspectives for salvation history”.

Twelve years later hears Jesus confirms what we saw on the Decree of Alexandrina’s Heroic Virtues:

“Through you I want this love (to the Sacred Heart and to the Immaculate Heart) to be ablaze in all humanity, the same way as through you the world was consecrated to my Blessed Mother. Dear spouse, let the love of our Hearts spread all over the world!”

When might it be possible a monument be erected in Balasar to commemorate such a great event?
 

Bibliography

COSTA, Alexandrina Maria (organized by Eugénie Signorile and translated into English by Leo Baron Madigan of Lumiar), For Love Alone!, http://alexandrinabalasar.free.fr/for_love_alone_index.htm

PINHO, P.e Mariano, No Calvário de Balasar, (second edition), Apostolado da Oração, Braga, 2005.