Chapter 17
THE MARTYRDOM OF THE LAST DECADE
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)
