Blessed Alexandrina da Costa

I pride myself on knowing about Portuguese saints, as few of them as there are. So I was surprised that I had never before heard about this young, saintly woman from Portugal who was beatified in 2004.

Blessed Alexandrina da Costa was born in 1904 in the Portuguese town of Balasar, just north of Fatima. Just one year after the apparations of Fatima, she was home alone with her sister when three men broke down the front door. One of the men had tried to sexually assault her before, so young Alexandrina, in her haste to evade them, jumped out a second story window. As a result of the fall, she severely injured her spine and would remain bedridden for the rest of her life.

Rather than let the tragedy make her bitter, she offered her sufferings up to Christ for the conversion of the world. During this time, she cultivated a special devotion to the Eucharist and began receiving communion everyday.

Beginning in 1931, she began receiving ecstatic visions of Jesus. He told her that he wanted to use her to help spread the message of Fatima and to show the world the power of the his presence in the Eucharist. In October of 1938, she experienced visions of the Lord's passion every Friday until, on Good Friday of 1942, our Lord revealed to her that from that point on, she was to take no other nourishment than the Body and Blood of Christ. On that day, she began an absolute fast from all food for thirteen years.


During that time. she was admitted to the hospital for medical observation. The medical personnel confirmed that she did indeed ingest no food except holy communion. In that time she did not lose any weight, nor did any of her vital signs suffer because of her fast. Despite the skepticism of the doctors and staff members, they could find no medical explanation for the phenomenon.

She was a living example of Jesus' words to his disciples: "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never be hungry...." (Jn. 8: 35).

Blessed Alexandrina da Costa died on October 13, 1955. Through her prayers may we accept our sufferings in reparation for our sins and come to know the immense power of Christ's true presence in the Eucharist.