Chapter 18

Already, while she still lived on this earth, her apotheosis started to be revealed. It is enough to consider the multitude of visitors of the last years. But it was disclosed still more in the room where her body was prepared for burial, the room from whose window she had flung herself to protect her chastity.

She was dressed with a white habit, and placed in a coffin lined with white silk.

To her breast she held a white amaryllis offered by the Salesians of Mogofores. She seemed to be immersed in a cloud of white flowers:

“A white amaryllis between amaryllises” – a Religious commented on gazing at her body before burial. Indeed, how many times her beloved Jesus had called her “my pure, my white amaryllis”!

As soon as she died, the house was invaded by people. At midnight we went to bed, but we had almost no sleep because all through the night we could hear, without interruption, these words: “Calm, slowly!”

They were being uttered by the men who offered to regulate the coming and going of the multitude”. (C G, p. 695, note)

My cousins and I offered ourselves to watch the house the whole night, while my aunt and her daughter, Deolinda, had left the room. With the waves of people continually growing – many of them came from far away - we were worried in case the floor might cave in. At one point we had to run to bring trunks to prop up it”. (C G, p. 695, note).

The pilgrimage continued through the 14^th October. They were people of all social categories: doctors, lawyers, industrialists, traders, artists, besides the mass of the people.

It continued without interruption during the night, until 10 a.m. of 15^th, the hour the funeral procession departed for the parochial church. Forty priests were present at the funeral.

She was buried in a plain tomb, with her face directed toward the tabernacle, as she had desired. In her diary, for 6-3-1950, we can read:

I do not want my tomb to be grand, but I would like it to carry appealing words which attract souls and invite them to true repentance, to a true love of Jesus and His heavenly Mother. Ah, this is the only grand aspiration of my heart.

Her wish was honoured, but only at the beginning because later admiring and devout people formed a group to erect a little mortuary chapel which was inaugurated on 13^th October 1957, only two years after her death. But it did not stop there because in 1978 the coffin was transferred to the parochial church!

On 12^th January 1996 she was proclaimed Venerable and on 25^th April 2004, Blessed.

Four days after the death, Dr. Azevedo wrote to Fr Pinho giving him a short account of the details. Let us read some excerpts.

Alexandrina has died. It was a grace because the pains of these last months were terrible. (...) I don’t know how to tell you what happened during these last days, nor how much the Cause must have been advanced in the heart of certain Pharisees. (...) The night of the spirit disappeared on the penultimate day of her life. (...) The sacrifice that the Lord wanted from her and from us was great. But, Te Deum laudamus, for having taken to Heaven the dear Alexandrina. Alexandrina’s room will remain as it was (...)

Her last moments were, for the blind people and the ill-intentioned ones, an overpowering proof that here was a great saint.

Already, here on earth, her way to glory has started: the funeral was imposing. (...) and there is never a lack of visitors at her tomb. (C G, p. 695)

On 16^th October Fr Umberto arrived at Terrasini, in Sicily, for a cycle of conferences.

On the morning of the17^th he celebrated Holy Mass and, while in the sacristy removing the vestments, he saw a lady approaching who, with a humble attitude and speaking quietly, said to him:

While Your Reverence was celebrating Our Lady came and charged me to tell you that Alexandrina has died and is already in Heaven. I do not know who this Alexandrina is; Your Reverence will know it.

- Tell the Priest not be sad, because Alexandrina is with him. At these words of Our Lady I saw on the shoulders of your Reverence a white dove. At the end of the Mass, while Your Reverence was bending over the altar to give the blessing to the people, Our Lady placed her hand on your head with something that I could not distinguish well, and added:

“Sleep, sleep, son, my son, because a great work awaits you. Later everything disappeared” (vide Fr Umberto’s booklet Anima di vittima e di Apostola, pp. 5-7).

The “great work” was the preparation for the Informative Diocesan Process of Information, the burden of which was practically all on his shoulders. And, if Alexandrina was recognized as Venerable, and later Blessed, we are obliged to him for the work, for which we will never be able to thank him enough.

Her mission of saving souls continues of course from Heaven, from where she also obtains other graces.

To encourage her in her path of pain, Jesus had foreseen and told her many times of her future glory; glory not only in the sense of recognition on the part of men, (“In a little while you will be enrolled in the number of the Saints” - S, 13-6-52) but, above all, in the sense of enjoying the Beatific Vision and in continuing to benefit the brethren left on Earth. Here are some examples.

You are powerful, I made you powerful. But you will soon be still more powerful from Heaven: I will see that you perform wonders for joy of many; and for others you will serve as a contradiction. S (14-1-49)

After your death, for you, yes, and through you, many, many graces, many, many blessings, a deluge of graces and blessings will fall, fall day and night on the earth, on the guilty earth, on the sinners who have much offended their God and Creator. S (4-12-53)

I will make, beloved daughter, miracles to be performed, not only with the cure of souls here, but also when they touch your tomb, as they are not able of touch your body. I promise, my daughter, to grant you the graces of these sudden cures. S (27-12-46)

For the mission I gave you, for this most important mission, I promise that after your death, not only those sinners who invoke you with confidence, and at your tomb ask for the grace of conversion, be saved, but I also promise that you will come to attend many at death, to assist their passage into eternity.

How many graces will be granted to many, after you have gone to rest in the holy field! S (23-4-48)

And from there, how many graces, how many blessings, how many miracles the world will receive from you! Suffer, suffer! S (9-7-54)

After your death, your tomb, your sepulchre will speak intimately to thousands, to thousand of sinners the souls will go together from you, and through you, and, as now, will continue to be enriched. S (13-5-55)

The virtues of your life here on earth will shine, will scintillate as stars in the sky; they will spread their brightness to the entire world, to the world that is yours (He entrusted the salvation of it to her).

You are coming to Heaven, but your blessing, the fruitful dew of your love, will always fall on the earth while it exists. S (9-3-45)

As the prize of your suffering life on earth, I will give you all my blessings, graces, and love with the means of salvation so that all the Earth will be favoured by you until the end of time. S (19-11-54)

Alexandrina is a powerful mediatrix, because Jesus has promised that he will grant her anything she asks for:

My spouse, In Heaven I will deny you as many things as you denied Me on earth. You never had a ‘no’ for Jesus, you were always heroic in your suffering.

Your ‘yes’ was always ready for Jesus[1]. For this reason Jesus is ready to say to you in Heaven:

“Send to earth all the blessings and graces you wish, my beloved spouse; grant to souls everything they ask of you in my name, in the name of my blessed Mother, in the name of your martyrdom”. S (25-2-55)

Let us note the significance of those two imperatives: order, grant. Jesus does not say “I will order”, “I will grant”, because He wants to diffuse the graces through Alexandrina who asks Him for them, thus valuing the mediating work of this heroic victim-soul.

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NOTES

Fr Mariano Pinho, Jesuit, director of several magazines and a good orator, was often sent to various places to preach.

In 1930 Deolinda participated in a retreat for the Daughters of Mary, in Póvoa de Varzim, conducted by Fr Pinho. She was favourably impressed and confessed to him. Fr Pinho, who was often preaching or confessing in neighbouring parishes, advised Deolinda and agreed to become her confessor. She confided her desire to join the religious life; but Fr Pinho, knowing that she had an ill sister at home, saw immediately that her mission was to nurse her sister.

In 1933, Fr Pinho was invited by the parish priest of Balasar to preach during the week of the feast of the Sacred Heart. He got a girl to take him to Alexandrina’s house and during the rest of the week not a day went by that he didn’t visit her. (Information collected in 1980 by Fr Hector Callovi, vice-postulator of he Cause and contained in an Appendix of Fr Pasquale annexed to the Biography).

From the Autobiography: “On 16th August 1933, his reverence came to our parish to preach a triduum in honour of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and on that occasion I took him as my spiritual director” (A, p. 22)

The mother went guarantor for a debt incurred by her brother. When the time came he was unable to meet the payment. Alexandrina’s mother had to sell the little land they had, and also to mortgage their little house. This difficult situation continued until 1941, when a benefactor, through Fr Pinho, paid the debt.

Later she was to pass through a second mystical death (which started around 1944), more complex, deeper and more lasting, which took place mainly in the spiritual sphere (vide No Cal, Ch 30). This work – which was written simply to make Alexandrina known – did not touch on this phase of the Alexandrina’s spirituality, which belongs on a specifically mystical level.

At that time the liturgical feast of Saint Therese of Lisieux was on 3^rd October; later it was moved to the 1^st of the month. Alexandrina looked upon this saint as her spiritual sister. She will appear to her at other times, as we shall see.

It must be noted that Alexandrina is not possessive of this mission. Indeed, Fr Umberto Pasquale says: “When Alexandrina knew, through me, that Sister Lucia of Fatima was charged with asking for the consecration of Russia to the Heart of Mary, she said with relief: Good! That means that when you talk to the world about the consecration, my name will not appear.”

About the “Peregrinatio Mariae” in Italy, Fr Mario Mason, a Jesuit, who had taken part personally in the organization, left some writings about it. Let’s look at some excerpts from it:

In 1942 I saw, as in a dream, the statue of Our Lady going through all the country, as a missionary, and remaining two or three days, according to the importance of the centres. From May 1947 to October 1949, in Milan and surrounding dioceses it was received as if it was truly alive, as both Mother and Queen. All the organizational difficulties were overcome as if by enchantment.... and the flood of worshippers grew. The holy Cardinal Schuster himself was moved to say: «Here is the hand of God!»

This initiative passed from Milan to the whole of Italy. To prepare souls for the solemn act of the consecration of Italy to the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was made in Catania on 13th Setember1959 by Pope John XXIII, I proposed to the National Marian Committee that the statue of Our Lady of Fatima should pass though all the dioceses of Italy, by helicopter, for 150 days or more, without interruption: it was like a live Rosary of the Virgin among Her sons. All the regions competed to outdo each other with manifestations of love and deep piety. (...) the evocative scenes of welcome, the continuous pilgrimages and the vigils in all parts transformed the towns into so many shrines. (...) this caused me to live those 150 days in an anticipated vision of the Paradise. (...)

As a remembrance of that itinerary the National Temple of Mary, Mother and Queen, came into being in Mount Grisa, in Trieste, to unite and protect all the peoples of Europe and of the world (...)”.

Many had been “touched”. We remember how the Holy Padre Pio, leaning out of the window of his cell to look at the statue moving in the sky and, in anguish, asking for a cure... and was cured!

May the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ keep your soul unto eternal life.

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.

Fr Umberto will assist her until September 1948, later he will have to return to Italy, and she will send her diaries to him there. But the true, unique spiritual father is always Fr Pinho, whose return she asks for with increasing anguish, but in vain!

This image had been given to her by Fr. Pinho in the first years of his direction.

Alexandrina was never separated from it. Usually she had it next to her heart, putting it in charge of loving Jesus for her. During the phenomenon of the physical Passion she had it pressed in her fist in such a way that no human force was able to remove it. (...) After Alexandrina’s death, it was sent by Deolinda to Fr Pinho in Baía, in Brazil. It is not known who has it now. (C G, pp. 464-465)

She had substituted the crucifix that she always had for one that Fr. Pinho had given her. Later she had offered this (it is not known to whom) and had asked that they return the first one. Whoever it was had forgotten to return it and she did not ask it again so as not to cause a fuss. Surely, however, after this extraordinary fact, it had been returned to her.

“A Tide of people”. The people passed by Alexandrina, as a river... as happens, for example, before the Holy Shroud of Turin.

Another encounter with the Saint of Lisieux: both, without moving from their immediate surroundings, had engaged in missionary work which reached to the furtherest ends of the world.

The Little Flower shares with Alexandrina the same confidence that, in heaven, Jesus will not deny her anything because she, too, did not deny Him anything on earth.

[i] The Little Flower shares with Alexandrina the same confidence that, in heaven, Jesus will not deny her anything because she, too, did not deny Him anything on earth.

Alexandrina de Balasar

SÍTIO OFICIAL - OFFICIAL SITE - SITE OFFICIEL - SITE UFFICIALE - OFFIZIELLER SITE

LEAVING THIS EARTH

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