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Blessed Alexandrina Da Costa was born in Portugal in 1904. Her father died not long after her birth.
To help support the family, Alexandrina worked in the fields from a young age, doing very physical, difficult labor.
One day, an employee on the farm where Alexandrina worked attempted to assault her, but she was able to get away. She later said that holding her Rosary gave her the strength to escape.
Then, when Alexandrina was 12, she nearly died after contracting a severe infection. Despite her recovery, the long-term effects of this illness physically impacted her for the rest of her life.
When Alexandrina was fourteen, she spent time sewing with her sister and an apprentice. One day, three men demanded to be let into the building where they worked. Alexandrina looked out the window and recognized one of the men as the one who had attacked her years before.
She locked the main entrance, but the men snuck in through an emergency door, determined to assault the women. When they cornered Alexandrina, her only escape was to jump out a window. She chose to jump out, around thirteen feet to the ground, to preserve her purity.
Alexandrina survived the attack but suffered many irreversible injuries. The doctors told her that these injuries would eventually lead to paralysis.
For five years, Alexandrina, in much pain, was able to drag herself to Mass before becoming immobile and confined to her bed for nearly 30 years.
When she became paralyzed, Alexandrina repeatedly asked Mary for a miraculous healing, promising to be a missionary if she was healed.
Little by little, through fervent prayer and listening to God’s voice, she began to understand that Christ had given her a vocation as a victim soul who would unite her suffering to the cross for the conversion of souls.
Christ gave Alexandrina the grace of not only sharing in His cross through her paralysis, but also, every Friday, from October 1938 to March 1942, she would relive Jesus’ Passion with Him. Despite her paralysis, her body moved through the Stations of the Cross, and she experienced His spiritual and physical pain.
After these years of experiencing Jesus’ Passion, Alexandrina further united herself to Jesus by living only on the Eucharist from 1942 until she died in 1955. This miracle brought more suffering to Alexandrina, as she was subjected to cruel medical tests as doctors tried to determine how she was able to survive. She also suffered much misunderstanding from her fellow Catholics because of her mystical experiences.
But despite all of this, Alexandrina always radiated joy and peace, a peace that could only be found by living out God’s calling.
Alexandrina further lived out her vocation as a victim soul by, in 1944, joining the Union of Salesian Cooperators, where she began to offer her suffering for the salvation of souls and the sanctification of youth.
Before she died in 1955, Alexandrina’s last words were, “I am happy because I am going to Heaven”.
Lessons From Blessed Alexandrina Da Costa
It would have been easy and understandable for Alexandrina to give in to bitterness because of the many sufferings of her life. It would have been easy for her to believe that God didn’t have a plan for her life.
But Alexandrina did not choose bitterness, and she chose to believe that God had a plan for her life. When she did not receive the miraculous healing she asked for, she remained open to God having other plans.
This openness to God having other plans allowed Him to use her sufferings for the salvation of many. In the end, God fulfilled her desire to save souls, which had motivated her desire to become a missionary, albeit in a very different way than Alexandrina had hoped.
Like Alexandrina, when we face suffering, we have a choice: bitterness or believing that God can use it for good. Will we choose bitterness, or will we return again and again to prayer, even in the midst of pain and struggles with doubt, and listen for His plan?
When we choose to listen and to show up, even when it’s hard, we can experience the peace and joy that comes from being God’s instrument, even when our crosses are heavy.