Alexandrina.

Here's Alexanrina.

Well, it looks as though everyone here is going to have the opportunity to enjoy another snow day!!! No school. 

I'm hearing choruses of "Yessss!" from the children.

Lol, they love it; so do I.

Here's a more recent veil I've created; a little different. A little funky? 

I used "mystic purple" lace. Do you like?  

This one is named for Blessed Alexandrina de Balazar.

 I discovered Alexandrina a few years back after reading a TAN publication about 

the life of this "victim soul". 

Then later I discovered this big huge website here. 

If you haven't already, do check out the site. 

She is an amazing holy one.

 From Alexandrina Maria de Costa "For Love Alone" Almost an Autobiography.

 On the morning of 21st June 1832, the feast of Corpus Christi, the worshipers at the church in that part of Balasar called Calvary [where Alexandrina was to be born] were astonished and awed to find a great cross formed of two mounds of soil on the ground. The earth of this cross was of quite a different colour from that of the surrounding earth. They swept and threw water on it but this only served to darken the colour, which it still presents to pilgrims today.

The appearance of the cross is said to have been a foreshadowing of her birth. Alexandrina was born on 30th March 1904 in an area of Balasar called Gresufes, about 50 km from Oporto. Here is a picture of the interior of the church in which she was Baptized. 

On Holy Saturday 1918, Alexandrina was 14 years old. She was at home, sewing with her sister and her friend. Three men who intended to harm the girls violently forced their way into the home. In an effort to escape them, Alexandrina jumped from a window and into a kitchen-garden below (about 3,30 m) in an effort to save her purity.

 Alexandrina’s spine was irreversibly damaged, and her condition only worsened over time.
So was was bedridden by the age of twenty.  

Living in Portugal during the time of Fatima, Alexandrina's message was very similar to
the Fatima message: 

“Do penance, sin no more, pray the Rosary, receive the Eucharist”.  

Here in the photo above you can see a picture of little Jacinta of Fatima 

on the wall by Alexandrina's bed.

The late Holy Father Pope John Paul II spoke these words about Alexandrina at her beatification ceremony in 2004:-

 “ ‘Do you love me?’, Jesus asks Simon Peter, who replies: ‘Yes Lord, you know that I love you’. The life of Blessed Alexandrina Maria da Costa can be summarized in this dialogue of love. Permeated and burning with this anxiety of love, she wished to deny nothing to her Saviour. With a strong will, she accepted everything to demonstrate her love for him. A ‘spouse of blood’, she mystically relived Christ's passion and offered herself as a victim for sinners,

receiving strength from the Eucharist: this became her only source of nourishment for the final 13 years of her life.  

With the example of Blessed Alexandrina, expressed in the trilogy ‘suffer, love, make reparation’, Christians are able to discover the stimulus and motivation to make ‘noble’ all that is painful and sad in life through the greatest evidence of love: sacrificing one's life for the beloved.
Secret of holiness: love for Christ.”

Above, she relives the Stations of the Cross as she did every Friday.

William Bouguereau, The Flagellation of Our Lord, 1890

She received visits not only from heaven (Jesus and Mary, but also from Hell (Satan).

 Fr Pasquale, who stayed close to Alexandrina throughout these years, ordered Alexandrina's sister to keep a diary of her words and her mystical experiences.

Below, from a book by Kevin Rowles, Blessed Alexandrina, living Miracle of the Eucharist.

Although Alexandrina pleaded with Jesus to end these diabolic assaults, He explained that they were necessary in order to help save more souls.  Jesus said to her:-

“My daughter, suffering is the key to Heaven. I have endured so much to open Heaven to all mankind, but for many it was in vain. They say "I want to enjoy life, I have come into the world only for enjoyment." They say "Hell does not exist." I have died for them, and they say they did not ask me to do so. They have formed heresies against me. In order to save them, I select certain souls and lay the cross on their shoulders. Happy the soul who understands the value of suffering! My cross is sweet if carried for love of me ... I chose you from your mother's womb. I watch over you in your great difficulties. It was I who chose them for you, that I might have a victim to offer me much reparation. Lean on my Sacred Heart and find therein strength to suffer everything.”

  As in all things, Alexandrina humbly accepted this particular trial, even though it distressed her greatly.  On one occasion Fr Pinho asked her if she would rather undergo some other sort of suffering than have to face the diabolical attacks, to which she replied “No Father.  Pray rather that I do the Will of God in everything”.

Alexandrina died on 13 October 1955. 

Her last words: "I am happy, because I am going to Heaven".

                 

'Do not offend Jesus anymore!'

As a "testimony" to the mission to which God had called her, Alexandrina desired the following words written on her tombstone: "Sinners, if the dust of my body can be of help to save you, come close, walk over it, kick it around until it disappears. But never sin again: do not offend Jesus anymore! Sinners, how much I want to tell you.... Do not risk losing Jesus for all eternity, for he is so good. Enough with sin. Love Jesus, love him!".

Peter Paul Rubens,  Descent from the Cross.

The Stations of the Cross.

1.  Jesus is condemned to death.

2.  Jesus is given his cross.

3.  Jesus falls the first time.

4.  Jesus meets His Mother.

5.  Simon of Cyrene carries the cross.

6.  Veronica wipes the face of Jesus.

7.  Jesus falls the second time.

8.  Jesus meets the daughters of Jerusalem.

9.  Jesus falls the third time.

10. Jesus is stripped of His garments.

11. Crucifixion: Jesus is nailed to the cross.

12. Jesus dies on the cross.

13. Jesus' body is removed from the cross.

14. Jesus is laid in the tomb and covered in incense.

Below is a link to a website where you can purchase a booklet on Bl. Alexandria.

Blessed Alexandrina:
A Living Miracle of the Eucharist

By Kevin Rowles

http://www.newhope-ky.org/inspiringlives.html

Cecilia

We've had snow again this week. Not as much snow as the blizzard the day after Christmas, still I'd say it was a good 9 or 10 inches here yesterday.  Enough to keep everyone home from work and school. So we all found ourselves with a little bit of stolen time. I used mine to add a few new veils to my ever growing collection.

Here's one. It's named Cecilia. [These pictures are the updated Cecilia--Cecilia II] Do you like it?

 It seemed appropriate to use gold--to my mind anyway--because my husband and I  happen to have a gold relief of the saint in the living room here. 

Much of St. Cecelia's story is said to have been embellished over the years with pious legends. What is most important and true is that she gave her live for Christ.
Her story has been written in some of the classics,
including Geoffrey Chaucer. He tells her story in the "Second Nun's Tale" from  
The Canterbury Tales.


St. Cecilia was a consecrated virgin from a 2nd century noble Roman family. Never-the-less, her father gave in marriage to a pagan nobleman named Valerius. On her wedding day, Cecilia sang the Psalms in her heart, asking God to protect her virginity, even while living in the married state.

In the Raphael painting above, St. Cecilia is listening to the Heavenly Hymns. She's the patron saint of musicians and is almost always depicted with a musical instrument in her hands. Angels often tend to be a part of the theme in the paintings, too. St. Cecilia is the subject of countless masterpieces. 

On her wedding night Cecilia told Valerianus that she was "betrothed to an angel" and that he must not ask to violate her virginity. Valerianus, skeptical, requested to see this angel. Cecilia replied that he must first be Baptized by Pope Urbanus, who was hiding in the Catacombs. Upon returning to Cecilia after his Baptism, the angel appeared and crowned the couple with roses and lilies. The lilies were symbolic of their purity; the roses, of the martyrdom that was to come.

This piece here below is attributed possibly to Pietro da Cortuna.

 

Valerianus and subsequently his brother Tiburtius were moved to conversion and ultimately martyred for Christ. They refused to bend their knee to the Roman idols.  At the command of the wicked prefect, Turcius Almachius, a henchman named Maximus was appointed to swap off their heads. But when Maximus saw the souls of these brothers being received into Heaven, he too was converted and martyred. Then the three men were all buried by St. Cecelia in one tomb. 

 Cecilia was also condemned for refusing to offer sacrifices to Jupiter. She was to be suffocated to death in her own home, by the steam of her own bath. But her guardian angel protected her from the steam.

Astonished to hear the soldiers report that she'd survived the ordeal, the evil prefect ordered her decapitated. Three times the executioner attempted in vain to sever her head from her body. A forth stroke would have been illegal under Roman law. Her tormentor flew in terror, leaving the holy victim in a pool of blood. Cecilia had prayed that she might live for three more days in order to convert souls for Christ, and it is said that she had many visitors, and converted many souls during those last three days. Upon her death bed she asked that her house would become a church. And so it was, and Pope Urbanus buried her among bishops and the confessors in the Catacomb of Callistus. 

  Stefano Maderno's Statue of St. Cecilia (1610) is said to have been sculpted exactly as the saints incorruptible body was found in her tomb in the Catacombs long after her death, which is the position in which she had died. On one hand she had three fingers outstretched and on the other hand just one finger, denoting the doctrine of the one true God in three persons, the Blessed Trinity. Below, the tomb of St. Cecilia under the high altar in Rome. Her body is now in the crypt beneath the sanctuary, in the church built over her house which bears her name.

Cecilia is among the saints remembered by name in the Canon of the Mass.

P:  Nobis quoque peccatoribus     P:  To us sinners,  also,  Thy

famulis tuis,  de multitudine     servants,  who put our trust

miserationum tuarum               in the multitude of Thy

sperantibus,  partem aliquam      mercies, vouchsafe to grant

et societatem donare digneris,    some part and fellowship with

cum tuis sanctis Apostolis et     Thy holy apostles and martyrs;

Martyribus:  cum Joanne,          with John,  Stephen,

Stephano,  Matthia,  Barnaba,     Matthias, Barnabas,  Ignatius,

Ignatio,  Alexandro,              Alexander,  Marcellinus,

Marcellino,  Petro,               Peter,  Felicitas,  Perpetua,

Felicitate,  Perpetua,            Agatha,  Lucy,  Agnes,

Agatha,  Lucia,  Agnete,          Cecilia,  Anastasia,  and with

Caecilia,  Anastasia,  et         all Thy saints.  Into their

omnibus sanctis tuis:  intra      company do Thou,  we beseech

quorum nos consortium,  non       Thee,  admit us,  not weighing

aestimator meriti,  sed           our merits,  but freely

veniae,  quaesumus,  largitor     pardoning our offenses:

admitte.  Per Christum Dominum    through Christ our Lord.

nostrum.    

                    

Above, nineteenth century painter William Bouguereau's St. Cecilia.

Psalm 32
A psalm for David. 

Rejoice in the Lord, O ye just: praise becometh the upright. Give praise to the Lord on the harp; sing to him with the psaltery, the instrument of ten strings.Sing to him a new canticle, sing well unto him with a loud noise. For the word of the Lord is right, and all his works are done with faithfulness. He loveth mercy and judgment; the earth is full of the mercy of the Lord.