Perseverance in prayer,

even without strength, and in a blackout of Faith.

Alexandrina always remained close to God, even when she was completely without strength for vocal prayer and struggling with temptations against Faith.

It seemed to her that she was not able to pray for the intensity of her multiple sufferings, though in reality her whole being was consumed with prayer.

What my poor body has suffered during these days, only Jesus knows; the agonies and the tortures of the soul, only He can understand them.

This martyrdom of soul and body has hindered my ability to pray, to be able to meditate on the Passion of Jesus.

I imagined Him on the cross quickly and I only said:

What Jesus suffered Jesus for my love! He suffered so much that He died for me. And will I have courage to deny some few sufferings of soul or body?

Oh, no, my Jesus! With your grace I will not deny You anything: I am your victim, night and day. S (04-04-47)

I have scarcely prayed at all because of my sufferings, my painful martyrdom. I had almost completely forgotten about heavenly things: I have said to Jesus and to our Heavenly Mother that this does not represent a lessening of my love, but a willingness to suffer (we are in 1954). S (19-02-54)

My vocal prayer has been almost non-existent, but my spirit, in the midst of the flame of suffering, didn’t disunite itself from Jesus, did not leave suffering to offer the nothing of its nothingness to Him. S (24-02-50)

I passed a vigil night: I suffered very much; I could not pray.

Only sometimes I could manage an ejaculation. But I was always close to Jesus, and I was always His victim.

My heart was in pain and love anxieties. S (07-11-53)

Many times her soul expresses itself through the look:

O, how much suffers this poor body that nor tatter is!

I do not know and I cannot speak to my good Jesus and to the beloved Heavenly Mother: I listen to Them, with the aim that my look gives and asks for everything to Them. O, poor me! What a painful to live for the body and for the soul! S (06-04-51)

Tormented by the doubts on the Faith truths, with a very steady will, always reanimated by the fire of her love to Jesus, she persists on repeating her `I believe', even without certainty:

I have horrible temptations against the Faith: everything seems me lie.

“I believe in God Almighty Father. Jesus, I believe in You; Jesus, in You I trust!”

I am in a furious sea. The black waves where I fight arrive at the Sky. S (09-08-46)

- O Jesus, I do not see You, I do not feel You, but I want to trust that it is You.

- Faith colloquy, pain and love colloquy, my daughter: it was what Jesus has said to you. Yes, without the love, your madness of love, you could not be repairing victim, you could not suffer and thus live of Faith without feeling. Trust, trust. S (16-04-54; let us remember that Alexandrina is victim-soul)

My life is pain and darknesses, without interruption of one alone moment. (…)

All the other life (the spiritual) was erased, died; even the name of Jesus and our Heavenly Mother! Heaven, the blessed Homeland, everything was erased, everything disappeared. It seemed that these sweet names did not exist: Jesus, our Heavenly Mother, Heaven with the divine Trinity whom I loved so much, had died for me.

I felt this, but it did not stop me from crying out with my heart and soul: “Jesus, Heavenly Mother, save me, I am yours! O Heaven, O Heaven, come to my aid!”

I shouted like this in the height of my pain.

And without feeling or hearing anything of comfort and joy, I bent myself to receive the cross and, as always, I repeated: “Jesus, I am Your victim” S (16-08-46)

The affliction is such that it seems to me that all my being is destroyed.

Then I call for Jesus, for that Jesus whom I feel to have lost along with our Heavenly Mother, for that Jesus in whom I feel I do not believe.

Therefore, how many times, my God, has it seemed to me that I have lost the Faith and no longer believe the truths of the Holy Church, nor in eternal life! Even if I don’t believe in anything, I invoke the Heaven in its power. I go on repeating `I believe in eternal life!' S (14-01-55)

I continue to pass the nights in vigil; I pass some nights in which I sleep some minutes, if what I do can be called “sleep”.

I pray, I pray, I speak much with Heaven, without receiving comfort from it: all my praying does not appear to reach there.

All my life has been erased, as if in me there is nothing. Heaven is darkness, the earth is darkness and in me is darkness.

It is a combat, it is a fight to live without soul, to live without Faith.

O my God, my God, I do not have a guide nor a light to lead me. My abandonment reminds me of Yours.

The combat is hard. My feelings try to deny all things such as: God, the existence of the soul, and eternity.

I force myself to pray, as if all these things existed; and my anguish is infinite in giving myself to Jesus, in giving myself to souls. S (25-03-55)

But what the soul feels is not shared by the heart: she persists in grasping herself to the Faith, even if it seems to her that her martyrdom, and her fight against recalcitrant nature, are all in vain.

I believe, my God, I believe even if this my `I believe' of mine always seems a lie.

I repeated it many times today! Many times I called for Jesus and our Heavenly Mother:

Look at my heart and not at my feelings! The heart does not lie: everything is for You, for souls.

I believe, I believe! Save me, save me, Jesus! S (15-04-55)

I want to pray, to join myself to the Lord, and I cannot: I maintain this union as well as I can.

I offer Him all the thorns which, coming from this direction or that, find me and make me bleed.

But how, Lord, how to offer You anything when I am so useless? In darkness, in death and, above all, without Faith?

My God, what a horror! S (01-07-55, three months before her death).