St. Anthony of Padua Church - Our Lady of the Rosary Feast Day Procession, 10/7/2016

"Do not forget that God is more powerful than all of the evil in the world...

The world is on the edge of catastrophe.  Cleanse your hearts through prayer.

The only way is through God."

~ Our Lady of Kibeho, 1981

Today - the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary - is a significant anniversary in the Catholic Church. Very few people, nowadays, know what this feast actually signifies - it was instituted by Pope St. Pius V (d. 1572) to honor Our Lady after a Catholic naval coalition defeated a much larger Islamic fleet during the Battle of Lepanto on October 7, 1571. The holy Pontiff, being well-aware of the disadvantages the Christian navy faced, called for the praying of the Holy Rosary by all of Europe to invoke our Holy Mother's intercession in bringing about victory for the Catholic forces.

"Love one other.  Forgive each other.  Make peace because if you do not

make it there will be no peace. Never turn to violence."

~ Our Lady of Cuapa, 1980

As history records, after a five hour battle the Catholic coalition proved victorious, thus, effectively preserving western Christian culture against Islamic domination. The feast was originally called the Feast of Our Lady of Victory but it was changed in the 20th Century to its present name.

Feast Day fellowship dinner at St. Anthony of Padua Church in Kailua.

[click on each photo to view larger images]

It all just goes to show how powerful the Holy Rosary is as a weapon; how through this hallowed prayer, the Holy Virgin has aided the Church (and the rest of the world) against dangers of all sorts throughout history. This is why whenever, and wherever Our Lady appears on earth, she almost always carries a rosary and/or encourages that we pray it as a way of ending evil or preventing it. As such, my parish decided to pay tribute on this Feast Day to five of Our Lady's church-approved apparitions, via another candlelight rosary procession. Over a hundred parishioners - parents and children - showed up for this event.

"I am the Queen of Heaven, who prays for the conversion of sinners,

and I wish you to do the same.”

~ Our Lady of Champion, 1859 

So tonight was a somewhat different procession for us - we did something unconventional during our Rosary Prayer. Instead of meditating on the traditional Rosary Mysteries, we substituted five of Our Lady's apparitions: Champion, Wisconsin (USA); Fatima (Portugal); Banneux (Belgium); Cuapa (Nicaragua); and Kibeho, Rwanda (central Africa). Our procession included stops at five special "Pilgrimage Stations" where female students from St. Anthony School became living representations of the Marian apparitions we featured.

The "Living Pilgrimage Stations"

(compare the images of Our Lady's apparitions with their corresponding living representations)

 

Above (L to R): The 1st and 2nd Stations (Our Lady of Champion & Fatima)

Below (L to R): The 3rd, 4th, and 5th Stations (Our Lady of Banneux, Cuapa, & Kibeho)

At each station, we encouraged our participants to imagine themselves on pilgrimage to the particular miraculous site where we narrated the history of the apparition; summarized Our Lady's message; and offered the Our Father and decade of Hail Marys to follow in response to a directive the Virgin delivered. All of the girls who portrayed the Blessed Mother did a great job in their respective roles and a couple of them were so convincing, it left many of the participants deeply impressed and spiritually moved (I had goosebumps!).  It was all BEAUTIFUL and AWESOME!

Procession participants gathered and praying at two of the Pilgrimage Stations.

At the end of the procession. the festivities continued with a potluck dinner in our parish hall, where lighthearted conversation and fellowship flowed. People discussed their positive experience of the procession, as well as just caught up with their fellow parishioners who they hadn't seen in the past week.

Video: Our parishioners ending our procession in the main

church building with a hymn to Our Lady.

In closing, this is the 4th consecutive year our parish has held a Rosary Procession... and I must say - this one was one of the best, given the novelty of our living Marian apparitions! May Our Lady's different messages relayed tonight at our Pilgrimage Stations take root in the hearts of our parishioners and bear abundant good fruits in our lives.  God bless us all.

"Do not offend the Lord our God any more, because He is already so much offended."

~ Our Lady of Fatima, 1917

First Saturday Parish Rosary at St. Anthony of Padua Church, 10/1/2016

6 years of Prayers, Saints, and Blessings! This month's meeting marked another milestone for our parish's First Saturday Rosary Devotion - it was the 6th Anniversary of our coming together consistently to pray for World Peace. Most of the regulars were in attendance, and today was all about the importance of the Rosary Devotion, given that October is the month of the Holy Rosary.

   

Pictured above, my pilgrim statue of Our

Lady of Fatima.  On the display altar with

Our Lady's statue was a smaller one of Bl.

Alexandrina and a 2nd Class Relic from

the Beata's clothing.

First off, I left my Rosa Mystica pilgrim statue at home today and opted to have my lovely Fatima statue make a rare appearance instead. Mary identified herself as the "Lady of the Rosary" in her final appearance at Fatima, Portugal, on October 13th, 1917, so it was fitting that this statue was our group's main devotional focal point for this month.

In addition, the featured Saint of the Month was Bl. Alexandrina Maria Da Costa, a Mystic and Victim-Soul who is often referred to as the "fourth seer of Fatima" because of the intense devotion she had to Our Lady of Fatima and her propagation of the Fatima Message to all who came to see her in the Portuguese village of Balasar. 

Golden escarchas that manifested
on the palm of my right hand.

A 2nd Class Relic from Alexandrina's dress was also made available for the edification of our prayer participants today. The people were in awe as I relayed the incredible story of Bl. Alexandrina's life and the miracles Jesus worked through her. In the end, I emphasized that the ultimate message we should take away from this holy woman's example is two-fold: Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist... and the message of Fatima continues to be relevant in our current times; that we urgently need to put Our Lady's request into practice to bring Peace into our lives and the rest of the world.

Lastly, there was a rare manifestation of escarchas. They appeared on my right hand and in the pew during the Mass in the main church. Perhaps it was Jesus and Mary's way of congratulating us on our anniversary... or maybe their way of punctuating the month's theme of the Rosary... or perhaps it was for both reasons. Whatever the case, I took the sign of the escarchas as a most welcome blessing to cap off the evening.

Hopefully, God be willing, our First Saturday Rosary will continue for another year with more positive fruits for our parish. For now, the next meeting will be held on November 5th, beginning at 4:25pm with the introduction of another Saint of the Month.  All are invited to participate.

Saint of the Month - October 2016: Blessed Alexandrina Maria Da Costa

Bl. Alexandrina Maria Da Costa

The Fourth Seer of Fatima

Memorial: October 13th

Bl. Alexandrina was, undoubtedly, one of the most remarkable mystics ever to grace the Catholic Church.  She was a victim-soul in the highest degree - a genuinely holy stigmatic - which most certainly means her life was replete with extraordinary events and charisms, too many to narrate in one blog.  None the less, this short biography should suffice to give the reader a glimpse of just how truly virtuous and amazing this valiant woman was.

Born on March 30, 1904, Alexandrina Maria da Costa came into this world in the rural town of Balasar, Portugal.  While still a small child, her father cruelly abandoned his family, which consisted of Alexandrina; her mother, Maria Ana; and an older sister named Deolinda.  To make ends meet, Maria Ana took to working on a farm to support herself and her two girls ... and it wasn't long after that the youngsters, themselves, had to join their mother as hired help to assist with the family income.  Fortunately, biographers report that Alexandrina had a strong and healthy constitution, which made her capable when it came to the demanding physical labor on the farms. 

Despite their hard lot in life, the Da Costa family was a close knit one; sustained by the love they had for each other, and the innate faith they had in God.  Maria Ana, by her worthy religious example, instilled in her daughters a deep piety. Alexandrina, particularly, despite being a headstrong and vivacious child, was unusually pious.  Early on she enjoyed frequenting Balasar's parish church of St. Eulalia in order to exercise her keen devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.  It was a trait that continued for the rest of her life.

Love for the Eucharist & devotion
to Our Lady of Fatima were central
to Alexandrina's spirituality

When Alexandrina and Deolinda hit their early teens, both learned how to sew and began supplementing their household income as seamstresses, working out of the attic in their home.  There, a fateful event took place that drastically impacted their family for the rest of their lives; Alexandrina was 14-years-old at the time.  As the story goes, on Holy Saturday, 1918, while sewing with another girl, three men broke into the Da Costa home with the intent of molesting the adolescents.  One of the men was actually Alexandrina's former employer, and despite their efforts to bar the attic door, the men (who were intoxicated) forced their way in and began their assault on the three children.  Alexandrina found herself trapped against a window but rather than giving in to the men's perverse intentions, she heroically jumped through the glass pane and landed 13 feet unto the ground below!

The pain was excruciating, but when Alexandrina heard the frightened screams of the other girls, she grabbed a large piece of wood and bravely charged back into the attic to defend her sister and friend.  Yelling and wildly swinging her crude weapon at the men, Alexandrina managed to drive the attackers away before collapsing from pain and exhaustion.  As it turned out, she had irreparably injured her spine during her fall and, as a result, suffered increasing pain and progressive paralysis until she was completely immobile and bedridden by 1925. 

Initially, going from a once robust teen to a helpless paralytic was a hard pill to swallow for Alexandrina.  To add to her pains was the concern she had for her hardworking mother and Deolinda, who became her caretaker.  So she pleaded and bargained with God and the Blessed Virgin to cure her; even promising to live austerely and join a missionary congregation if she was healed.  When no cure arrived, the invalid was left depressed and on the verge of desperation.  It was during this dark period in her life that she became aware of Our Lady's 1917 apparitions in Fatima and, although her medical condition made it impossible to visit the miraculous site, Alexandrina took the Fatima message to heart.  She was moved to accept her lot in life and, taking it a step further, offered herself to God as a victim for sinners.  She wrote about her sacrifice in the following words: 

  "Without knowing quite how, I offered myself to Our Lord as a victim, and from this I went on to ask for a love of suffering.  Our Lord granted me everything, that is, all the graces, so that today I wouldn't exchange my illness for the whole world."

Her enthusiastic promotion of the Fatima Devotion and the recently deceased child-seers - Jacinta and Francisco Marto - was another lifelong trait she was known for, so much so, that she is often referred to as the "fourth seer" of Fatima.

Alexandrina, in one of her many
ecstasies during which she spoke with
Jesus, Our Lady, Angels & Saints.

With Alexandrina's self-oblation came a new outlook on life and she embraced her suffering with heroic fortitude.  Her increasing desire to suffer for the conversion of sinners was a catalyst that eventually led to many private revelations and apparitions from Jesus and Mary, beginning in 1931 when the Lord said to her, "Love, suffer, and make reparation".  Other mystical phenomena followed, with the most notable being weekly participation in the Passion of Christ; a perpetual fast during which she survived on the Eucharist; bilocation; physical harassment from the devil, who Alexandrina enraged by her efforts to rescue souls from him.  Of these diabolic attacks, she once narrated: 

  "The devil, finding he was making no headway by tormenting my conscience and making vile suggestions, began to hurl me from the bed, sometimes at night and sometimes during the day.  In the beginning I concealed these attacks from my family with the exception of Deolinda.  But as the violence of the evil one increased, I felt obliged to tell my mother and the girl we had at home."

The weekly Passion Ecstasies began on Friday, October 3, 1938 and the last one occurred just before Holy Week 1942.  During these special occasions of reparational suffering, Alexandrina mysteriously regained the use of her paralyzed limbs and moved about in her small room, reenacting the different stages of the Passion in union with our Lord.  At the end of each ecstasy she would speak with Jesus for a time, before returning to her usual state of paralysis.  In all, Alexandrina endured approximately 180 Passion Ecstasies in a nearly four year period. 

Two scenes from Alexandrina's weekly

Passion Ecstasies.  In the left she suffers

Pilot's unjust condemnation of Jesus; the

right photo shows the Crucifixion.

As for the phenomenon of perpetually fasting, this began on Good Friday 1942 the week after the Passion Ecstasies ceased, and it lasted until her death thirteen years later.  The fast began after Jesus stated the following words to Alexandrina: 

  "You will not take food again on earth. Your food will be my Flesh; your blood will be my Divine Blood, your life will be my Life.  You receive it from me when I unite my Heart to your heart.  Do not fear, my daughter.  You will not be crucified any more as in the past ... and now a new trial awaits you, which will be the most painful of all but in the end I will carry you to Heaven, and the Holy Mother will accompany you."

With this new wonder in Alexandrina's life, Jesus confirmed, in a concrete manner, the Catholic Church's sublime teaching concerning his True Presence in the Eucharist, which the invalid received as her sole nourishment every day.  The veracity of the fast was confirmed in 1943 after Alexandrina was taken to a hospital in nearby Porto, were she was strictly observed for 40 days.  In the end, the supervising doctor, Dr. Araujo, published a favorable medical finding in the following words:

  "It is absolutely certain that during forty days of being bedridden in hospital, the sick woman did not eat or drink . . . and we believe such phenomenon could have happened during the past months, perhaps the past 13 months . . . leaving us perplexed."

Alexandrina's tomb in the parish church
of Balasar, Portugal.

Alexandrina returned home, vindicated, and spent the remaining years in continued prayer and sacrifice.  News of her spread throughout Europe and pilgrims flocked to her home for spiritual help and counsel.  Her advice was always the same - convert and return to God; live the message of Fatima; practice the 5 First Saturdays Devotion.

The "Victim of Balasar" died at the age of 51 on October 13, 1955.  The date was providential in itself since it commemorated the final apparition of Our Lady in Fatima, whose message Alexandrina advocated so passionately in her personal ministry.  Needless to say, her funeral was a triumph with thousands attending to mourn the passing of this great soul.

Just twelve short years after her death, Alexandrina's Cause for Canonization was officially initiated by her diocese and it successfully led to her Beatification on April 25, 2004.  One more approved miracle is still needed for this Portuguese heroine to be declared a Saint; may the good Lord see fit to soon grant his Church this gift.

A Reflection

  "... 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."  ~ Words of Bl. Alexandrina

A Short Prayer

  Dear Bl. Alexandrina, obtain for us the grace of a sincere and lasting conversion, for the love of God and for the sake of our own good; that we may not sadly lose Jesus for all eternity, but rather, come to happily join you in Paradise in contemplation of His immense love and goodness.  Amen.