03/30/2022 – Bl Alexandrina da Costa

Today is the birthday of Bl Alexandrina da Costa, called the fourth seer of Fatima. Though she was never able to travel the 233km to Fatima, she was so identified with its message of the Rosary, prayers for peace and reparation and conversion of sinners, she is linked closely with the apparitions.

Alexandriana was a robust baby and a strong child able to work in the fields from a young age. Alexandriana was also robust spiritually, raised with the family rosary and the devotions of a devote Catholic Portuguese home and parish of the time. She understood the love of Jesus and Mary and horror of sin even as a young teenager.

At 14, she and two other girls were attacked by men intent on molesting them. Alexandriana helped the other two girls to escape safely out the window. But faced with the men pounding at the door she could only jump out the window to protect her purity. The injury she sustained only months after the apparition at Fatima introduced her to a life of pain. With acceptance of Grace, her pain introduced her to the Fatima vocation.

She became a victim soul and for 30 years exemplified and taught Our Lady’s Fatima message: the rosary for peace, the consolation of Jesus, reparation for sin and the conversion of sinners and consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.It was through Alexandrina that Pope Pius XII addressing the “Queen of the Most Holy Rosary” consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1942.