Chapter 11
THE MARTYRDOM OF THE PASSION
REMAINS IN THE SOUL
(1942-1955)
In 1942 a change occurred in the way Alexandrina relived the Passion.
The consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary was finally obtained, and the exterior manifestations of the Passion stopped, because this grace had been asked for when the consecration was achieved.
3rd April 1942 was Good Friday. As usual Alexandrina was waiting to relive the Passion from noon to 3 p.m.; to move from her bed and to re-enact those tragic scenes. But this didn’t happen. At half past 11 she heard Jesus say:
Don’t be afraid, my daughter, no longer will you be crucified (in the way you are used to). The crucifixion that you will now undergo is the most painful than can be imagined in history. I will take you with me to Heaven (He joins her to offer comfort).
Alexandrina herself speaks of the increase of the sufferings.
Jesus suspended my crucifixion; it seems that He suspended my life. (...) I do not have the suffering of the Cross, I do not feel myself on it, it is wholly hidden from me. But I have a yet heavier cross: my sufferings are greater. S (24-5-42)
In the Diocesan Process her sister Deolinda stated:
After 1942 the exterior manifestations of the Passion had finished, but she continued until her death to suffer the torments of the Passion interiorly and she continued the Friday ecstasies, also until death, and these I heard her refer to as “painful ecstasies”. (Summ, p. 223)
Moreover, the torments of the Passion were no longer limited to Fridays.
On 19 June of 1946 Alexandrina answered Fr Umberto, who had asked her about it:
Long ago I experienced these sufferings (relating to the Passion) during the three hours of Friday, from noon till 3 p.m.; the pains of the Passion were in the order that Jesus suffered them; but not now. The terror of these pains is with me any day: on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays or Fridays: at one time I will suffer this torment of the Passion, at another time, that. (PGA, p. 12)
If the consecration of the world had already been made, why did she still suffer in this way? Continuing to suffer the tragedy of the Passion in an intimate, but always very painful, way had a great purpose: to continue the co-redeeming mission, to reach an ever more perfect assimilation into the divine Victim, until arriving at the transforming union that we saw!
The hidden stigmata and wounds
Alexandrina, when she offered herself as a victim, had asked Jesus that nothing should appear exteriorly. And Jesus granted her this; so she felt the atrocious pains of the stigmata and the others wounds, but nothing appeared.
For all these days my body has been the amusement of the entire world.
I felt as if all humanity was delighted with making a martyr of me.
My head was crowned with piercing thorns: pain penetrated my brain, my eyes and ears; my body was beaten until it was torn into pieces; my hands, my feet, my heart had been opened with great wounds. And also I can say that this condition was constant. I was tired, and full of fear at the prospect of suffering in such a way. S (27-9-46)
I have felt always as if I had open wounds in my heart, hands and feet, that my body was lacerated all over, my head encircled and heavily crowned with the sharpest thorns: I have felt them and sometimes my soul has had the vision of a torrent of blood falling from it drenching my body and also the earth. If I have felt this as a reality every day, yesterday (Thursday) I felt it still more. S (11-7-47)
And our heavenly Mother, always as if on the same cross, sharing the same pain, the same martyrdom, and insane with love for the same end, the salvation of souls.
The swords of her most Holy Heart touched mine, they wounded me entirely. I felt as if the nails in the wounds (of Jesus) and the thorns in his head penetrated, wounded me continuously, and I had the impression that they moved both within and without. This martyrdom was very painful!
I have understood that it was not the suffering of some hours, but rather that it lasted as long as the world was the world! This was an understanding that Jesus gave me. S (10-9-48)
And do we today understand?!
The suffering increased to the point where she felt herself to be the object of the divine justice, while yet still a victim:
A dark Heaven, a Heaven of tremendous justice settled on me; it settled and it remained flashing: what a thunder! It exploded like bombs, became fire and inflamed the Earth.
Between the Earth and this Heaven of justice, jammed by them, the wounds are opened more and they bleed more copiously, the thorns in the head and the heart penetrate deeper, the swords and the spear do not stop wounding. S (10-10-47)
Little more than three months later, Jesus still asks for her to agree to an increase in suffering!
— Do you accept, dear spouse, as well as the suffering of the Cross, of the wounds and of the thorns, to have your heart and chest being eaten and as if by leprosy?
In this way I will not suffer and sinners will not be eaten for ever by the leprosy of sin[i]. Oh, my daughter, so many sins! How dreadful is the world!
— Forgive, Jesus, forgive always! Pass everything on to me, because I accept everything, My confidence is always and only in You (she answers with her usual generosity). S (30-1-48)
But the sufferings grow until a point that she believes that she cannot support them.
I raise my eyes to Heaven so that my looks say everything to the Lord. I cannot live here. I die already without living, if Jesus does not come to take me. S (15-6-51)
Jesus encourages her, assuring her that she will persevere until the end.
Courage, courage! Let your feet bleed mystically, your hands, your heart, your head, all your being. I have crucified you, because you accepted it. I prepared you for this heroic act, for this acceptance. You have corresponded. You have been faithful and you will be always faithful to your Lord. S (10-4-53)
Some relief
Jesus knew well when the resistance of His beloved victim has reached its limit and, when it was necessary, intervened to give her a little relief. Sometimes He sent her guardian Angel to place a balm on the wounds to alleviate the pain, sometimes He acted Himself. But let us observe how everything has a meaning that goes beyond material action.
Jesus seated me on his lap, pressed my head on his divine breast and took from his sacred wounds I not know what and, laying it on my hands and repeating the action with my feet, He said me:
— My daughter, draw balm from my wounds for yours, painful though hidden, very deep, so that your hands sow, through the painful wounds, my divine seed and so that your feet, that do not walk, through their open wounds hold back from sinful paths the souls that run towards perdition.
He used the same balm for my head and then took from His divine open Heart another balm and, lying it on mine, he added:
— I draw balm from the wounds of my sacred head for yours, to alleviate the pain of your thorns, so that, being stronger, you may be able, with this suffering, to draw out from souls those evil inclinations and sinful thoughts that offend me much so.
From my divine Heart I take loving balm, balm of fire, so that you love Me and make me loved; so that you light this fire, this love; so that you possess always the tenderness, the sweetness which is mine. Spend your life doing good, in imitation of me. He took from His lips a new balm and passed it to mine adding:
— This balm is to fortify your lips so that they can speak to souls about my love and advise them, with the light of the Holy Spirit, to reconcile themselves to me, to follow my law. (...)
Rest, sleep here your sleep of love and ask that I be loved. S (1-9-50)
The work of comfort cannot do without Our Heavenly Mother!
Our beloved Heavenly Mother caressed me and breathed a smile over all the wounds of my body. In doing this she made me feel, at the same time, that she was communicating her most holy love to me.
(She said to me):
— Make reparation, my daughter, to my Immaculate Heart, wounded by the same thorns that wound the Heart of Jesus. To make reparation to my Heart is to make reparation to his. Do everything he asks of you: soon you will have Heaven with all its glory as reward. (...).
In farewell, Jesus said:
— Courage, my daughter, give me your pain.
Whatever comes, I am always your Jesus, your force. Courage, courage! S (2-6-51)
[1] Every suffering which the victim undergoes corresponds with the sin for which she atones. Here, it is the sufferings of leprosy to correspond with impurity, elsewhere it is temptations against the faith for unbelievers, etc.
