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Blessed Alexandrina da Costa of Balazar

Below is a brief life story of Blessed Alexandrina Maria da Costa of Balazar but, if you click on the specifically chosen links on the right of the page there are a selection of societies, articles and websites relating to the life of Blessed Alexandrina where you can research further. All links are for an English speaking audience.

The aim is to increase knowledge of, and devotion to Alexandrina to those in  English speaking countries who so far are relatively unfamiliar with Blessed Alexandrina's life.

Life of Blessed Alexandrina Maria da Costa of Balazar

Alexandrina Maria was born in Balasar, Portugal on March 30, 1904. However, her story begins many years before the events that occured to Alexandrina. The Church of Balazar is dedicated to the Holy Cross. Erected in 1832, it commemorates the mysterious apparition that year of a cross made on the ground. In a report sent to the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Braga, the pastor of the parish testifies the happenings of that day: “I’m writing to make you aware of the happenings in the Parish of St. Eulalia de Balasar. During our latest celebration of the Feast of Corpus Christi, the faithful were coming towards the Church and noticed a cross of a lighter color formed on the ground. The morning dew was all over the area, except on the cross. I myself went and touched and moved around the ground where the cross was formed, but the same image reappeared in the same place. Later, I ordered water to be poured over the same area, but the cross reappeared again and it has remained ever since.” Many people came to see this phenomenon of the cross to venerate it with flowers and offerings. Till this day, the cross remains in the same place, and it continues to be a challenge to erase it.  This cross was a pre-figurement of what was about to happen in Balazar.

At age 14, in order to escape an attack by three men and to maintain her purity, she jumped from the window, but did not escape without suffering injury. The consequences were terrible, if not immediate. In fact, several years later, she became bedridden from a progressively increasing paralysis, from which she suffered for the remaining 30 years of her life. Yet, she did not despair, but entrusted herself to Jesus with these words: “As you are a prisoner in the tabernacle and I am a prisoner on my bed for doing Your will, so we can keep ourselves company". As a result, she began to live through ever more powerful mystical experiences, and from Friday, October 3, 1938 until March 24, 1942, for up to 182 times, she relived the sufferings of the Passion.

Beginning in 1942 until her death, Alexandrina was fed only by the Eucharist, and during a period of convalescence at the Foce del Douro Hospital near Oporto, for forty days and forty nights she was under supervision by several doctors in her absolute fast and her condition of anuria (absence of urine). After 10 long years of paralysis which she had offered as Eucharistic reparation for the conversion of sinners, on July 30, 1935, Jesus appeared to her saying: “I have put you in the world so that you may draw life only from Me, to bear witness to the world how precious the Eucharist is. [...] “The strongest chain that keeps souls in bondage with Satan is the flesh and the sins of impurity. Never has there been such a spread of vices, wickedness and crimes as there is today! Never has there been so much sin [...] The Eucharist - My Body and Blood - Behold, the Eucharist is the salvation of the world.” Mary also appeared to her on September 12, 1949, with the Rosary in her hand, saying to her “The world is in agony and is dying in sin. My desire is for prayer, my desire is for penance. I have protected with this, my Rosary, all those whom I love and the whole world.” On October 13, 1955, the anniversary of the last apparition of the Blessed Mother at Fatima, Alexandrina was heard exclaiming: “I am happy, for I am on my way to heaven.” She died at 7:30 in the evening on that very day.


On her tomb are the words she wished to be placed there: “Sinners, if the ashes of my body can be useful for your salvation, draw near to them, pass above them, and trample on them until they vanish. But sin no more; do not offend our Jesus any longer!” Alexandrina likewise relived the sorrows of Jesus’ Passion every Friday

The Jesuit Father Pinho kept track of Alexandrina, and it was thanks to him that many of her writings were submitted to the Pope.

This is a brief life story of Alexandrina but, if you click on the carefully chosen links on the right there is a selection of the best quality websites relating to Blessed Alexandrina where you can research further. All links are for an English speaking audience. The aim is to increase knowledge of, and devotion to Alexandrina to  English speaking countries, who so far are relatively unfamiliar with Blessed Alexandrina's life.

© 2006, Istituto San Clemente I Papa e Martire / Real Presence Eucharistic Education and Adoration Association