Invoking Mary

The invocations that Alexandrina addresses to Our Lady are present in almost all the prayers of supplication: she sees Her as an aid, as a mediatrix.

As an aid in loving:

O Mother of Jesus, give me your love so that with it I can love the Lord, who is yours and mine! S (15-12-44)

As an aid in the participation of Holy Mass:

(...) at the moment of the Sacred Communion I ask Her I that I might communicate as She would communicate, if She were receiving Jesus. S (13-07-51)

As an aid with Her example:

Mother of Jesus, Give me comfort to bear the cross Your way;

to bear the cross in this bitterness, darkness, and utter dryness. S (15-12-44)

When I suffer with the death that I feel in myself, I say: “My heavenly Mother is my life.”

When I do not have light nor strength to suffer, I repeat: “My heavenly Mother is the light, my heavenly Mother is the strength.”

When I feel that all my life is a fraud and that I lie to myself, I murmur: “It doesn’t matter to me, my heavenly Mother is not deceived, She is the truth.”

And in all things I go on repeating the same thing: I want what my heavenly Mother wants, I go where She goes. S (15-09-50)

As mediatrix:

My poor prayers are unable to reach Heaven. I want to make them precious and valuable, but I cannot.

I ask my beloved Mother Herself to talk to Jesus and offer everything to Him, to mention everything to Him, and to do my asking for me. C (07-11-40)

I will to ask (my heavenly Mother) to obtain from Jesus a pure and holy love, a love without limits to help us to bear the cross, the tribulations and anguish that Jesus sends us; to take them with joy and love, with blind confidence, and that in everything we do His most holy will.  (06-12-39)

Dear heavenly Mother, see if You can find in my nothingness some little bits (of suffering) that You can transform into flowers to offer my Jesus for me. C (01-06-39)

Heavenly Mother, heavenly Mother, ask your Jesus for light for your little daughter, ask for comfort for my soul! C (23-06-41)

Dear heavenly Mother, come to earth and take your little daughter in your most holy arms: I want to give to You my heart; only You can full it with your love so that I will be capable of loving Jesus.

Set me on fire with rays of love so strong that I will be able to set the world on fire.

Jesus is not loved! With my pain and your love, I will make Him be loved. I sure that in this way I will also love.

Heavenly Mother, heavenly Mother, how glorious it will be to see all hearts burning for Jesus in one single ray of love! C (15-01-40)

Heavenly Mother, dear heavenly Mother, teach to me to love Jesus! I love Him with your love, and love You with His. S (07-05-49)

Intercession

The Christian participates in the tribulations of all fellow Christians, suffers for their tribulations and intercedes for them:

I pray to You for all the afflicted, of every kind, that have approached me to intercede for them.

I pray to You for all those who recommend themselves to me and for those who want to recommend themselves.

I pray to You for the entire world, believers or disbelievers, also such as our President Salazar and our governors.

And now, my Jesus, I pray to You for the souls in Purgatory. S (14-04-50)

Also at the height of the mystical life (when she receives the Eucharist from the hand of her Guardian Angel) she does not concentrate on herself:

(...) my Highest Good, I am on fire, I am burning intensely, stronger and with more light. Blessed be your love and your mercy to me!

I press You to my heart and I ask you, my good Jesus, to embrace those that I love, to take all those around me and belong to me and all Your children, to yourself. Embrace all humanity, Jesus; forgive it, forgive it always! S (11-04-52)

Alexandrina’s main preoccupation is with spiritual dangers. Her mission is to save souls, and to inflame hearts with love of the Eucharist. Look how she prays for her family:

I pray to You for all those who are dear to me and for all my family: also for those who have strayed on the wrong path, convert them and those who are in Your grace, kindle the divine fire in them and burn them in Your love! S (14-04-50)

Alexandrina prays and offers her suffering for a beggar who has knocked at her door; he dies by falling into a river. In anguish, she asks Jesus:

— My Jesus, was the soul of that man who fell to the river saved?

— Yes, my daughter, it was at half past eleven in the evening that he appeared in my divine presence. How beautiful and charming it was; when he saw Me in front of him, even before I asked him to give an account of himself, he said to me:

— Forgive me, forgive me, my Jesus! You alone are my Lord.

I forgave to him and he was saved.

She had asked also for another soul. She asks:

— And the other also, my Jesus?

— Yes, my daughter, and still many more; and they are safe through you, through your sufferings.

Pray very much for them. I am full of compassion… S (26-04-46)

She also prays for the cure of sick people. To the prayer she adds sacrifices, and an increase of suffering.

Of course, she is not always heard and some die! Let us look at two examples of a cure.

For the serious illness of the wife of her doctor and friend, Azevedo, Alexandrina pledged herself totally:

I asked them to light the bulbs and the candles and for all of them to kneel.

I offered to Our Lord my body and my soul as a victim for the patient; I marshalled all Heaven towards this end.

And she asked:

Leave her, leave her, Jesus, to finish rearing her little sons; prove to me now the love that you have for me! S (24-12-48)

She was cured. She eventually died on 21^st February 1986.

At the end of 1949 Alexandrina’s Mother fell seriously ill. We can imagine the anguish, the fear that she might die! Moreover Alexandrina had scruples about not living “well”

this tragic moment:

But I do not suffer perfectly, do I, my Jesus?

You are sad because I cried?

Jesus answers:

No, my daughter, no! Also I cried and my blessed Mother cried. I know everything.

Later He added:

— Tell me one thing. If I asked you for your dear mother, would you not give her to me willingly?

— I give, I give, my Jesus; but I do not give her to you without tears, I cannot; this I do not promise.

(...) O Jesus, if it is not detrimental to the salvation of her soul, leave her some more time next to me. Give me more, more sufferings, overload me and alleviate her.

And, if it is not for the good of her soul, I want to lose everything, but may her soul be saved.

But what I want, o Jesus, is that you take her straight to Heaven; do not refuse me this *.

— Ask, ask, my daughter; nothing will be denied you, if it is not damaging to souls.

I promise you, when I call your mother to Me, to take her straight to Heaven, to my glory. S (02-12-49)

She died after Alexandrina, on 24^th January 1961.

(*) This pretension must not be seen as audacious. Let’s remember that S. Catherine of Siena, at the death of her father, made the same request to Jesus and, after a little insistence, received the grace. See: Raimondo da Capua, Santa Caterina de Siena. Ed. Cantagalli, Siena, 1952, pp. 279-280.