Author: ANTONINO

– Brought to you by Fr. Bernardino Andrade (bernardinodandrade@gmail.com)

The Bishop who ordained me almost 53 years ago, whose name was Francis, said something that impacted me deeply. Actually it brought me closer to Jesus or maybe it brought Jesus closer to me. It was about Jesus’ language. He said that if we compared the language of Jesus with the language of St. Paul, it was like comparing a fourth grade student with a University professor.

Related with this side of Jesus, I had a colleague in the Seminary (who is still in ministry), who collected the nouns most used by Jesus. His name is Fr. José Pereira. He was fascinated (so was I) to realize that all the words Jesus used to teach His deepest messages were very very simple that even the most illiterate people could understand. It was like: wheat, bread, fish, water, birds, flowers, sky, trees, food and so on. Nobody needs to go to school to understand these words and what they mean.

This is what came to my mind when I was reading today’s Gospel (V Sunday of Lent B, John 12: 20-33) and found Jesus saying: «unless a wheat grain falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies it yields a rich harvest». Then I found interesting that the bread I eat daily is no more than the result of a «dead grain» of «dead wheat». The same about potatoes, corn, apples, and all the food I encounter on my table. All of them are the result of a dead seed. And if by any chance the seed refuses to die it is good for nothing.

Especially during this time of Lent I need to deeply meditate about my life and if I want to be «food» and «medicine» to the world. If I want to be a follower of Jesus to build the Kingdom of the Father, I have to be like the grain of wheat. I need to die to myself and let Jesus live in me. I need to stop looking for my personal success, and become just an instrument in the hands of my favorite Carpenter called Jesus.

Love and Peace
Fr. Bernardino Andrade

– Brought to you by Fr. Bernardino Andrade
(bernardinodandrade@gmail.com)

From today’s Gospel: «In the temple, Jesus found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple…», Jo. 2, 14-15)

THE ABUSES THAT INFURIATED JESUS

1) The merchants selling animals and the money changers had converted the Court of the Gentiles into a noisy market making it impossible for the Gentiles to worship Yahweh.

2) The merchants sold the animals and birds for sacrifice at unjust and exorbitant prices (18 to 20 times the regular price outside the Temple).

3) The animal-inspectors, bribed by the merchants, disqualified even the healthy animals brought by poor shepherds and farmers for sacrifice. This was an unjust extortion at the expense of poor and humble pilgrims, who were practically blackmailed into buying animals and birds from the Temple booths. Jesus considered this a glaring social injustice aggravated by the fact that it was perpetrated in the name of religion.

4) The Temple authorities, by sharing the profit made by merchants and money-changers, converted it into a “hideout of thieves” (Mark & Luke).

5) Roman coins, bearing the images of pagan gods and the emperor, were forbidden as offering in the Temple. The money-changers, who exchanged the Temple coin (Galilean shekel) with Roman coins, demanded 1/6 of the value of the coin as their commission, even from the poor people who had to pay one and a half days of their daily wage as their annual Temple tax.

6) What especially enraged Jesus was not that a fee was being charged, but that the amount being charged to the poor was exorbitant and, hence, unjust. What was happening was a great social injustice done in the name of religion. In fact, the money-changers were street-level representatives of a corrupt Temple banking system which had become an instrument of injustice, fleecing the poor to benefit the powerful.

By chasing the money-changers and merchants from the Temple, Jesus was questioning the validity of the entire sacrificial system itself — of Israel’s ability to atone for its sins, be forgiven and stand in right relationship with God.

“Jesus’ symbolic attack on the Temple would (in His culture) have had a meaning not unlike that of the terrorists who flew planes into the World Trade Centre – symbolically attacking a building that was widely seen as the “nerve center” of an entire network of political, economic and religious power. In addition to its key religious functions, the Temple had also taken on political and economic roles in Judaea. Apparently, its Treasury was used by many wealthy Jewish people as the “central bank of Jerusalem,” where they stored their wealth, considering it safe from theft or pillaging.” (Dr. Murray Watson).

Love and Peace
Fr. Bernardino Andrade

– Brought to you by Fr. Bernardino Andrade (bernardinodandrade@gmail.com)

On February 11th the Catholic Church celebrated the World Day of the Sick and by coincidence the Gospel told the story of Jesus healing a leper.

In the time of Jesus there was not a more horrifying illness than leprosy. It was not just a body painfully being decomposed in life but especially the condition of being ostracized, excluded and outcast. Their loneliness was unbearable, but lepers, their family and friends had no choice according to the cruel rules of the time of Jesus.

They were accused, judged and condemned for being «sinners». According to their laws, leprosy was a punishment from God for their sins. They «deserved» to be excluded. They were «unclean». And if any person touched them, that person would become unclean. Jesus, who was a rebel against inhuman laws, in the process of healing the leper, touched him, and consequently became unclean.

During Mass on the World Day of the Sick, we reflected about today’s lepers: the «unclean» and the «untouchable» of our society. And we identified some of them like the homosexuals, the poor, the homeless, the prostitutes, the beggars and so on.

Since I started saying Mass in English at Penha de França I have been «condemned» to encounter, every Sunday, a homeless man called “Antonio”, begging for money. I never liked that and I still don’t like it. Instead of Antonio extending his hand begging for money I would prefer to see Carla dressed as a folkloric ballerina offering flowers to the tourists who attend Mass at Penha de France. It doesn’t look good, especially for the tourists.

Somebody said that «In today’s society, image is not the most important thing. Image is the only important thing». His presence «ruins» our image of «good and clean» Portuguese People.

The problem is that Jesus didn’t ask for my opinion. What he tells me is that

«Whatever you do to the least of my brothers you do it unto me» (Math. 25:40).

This is not negotiable. Then I started seeing Jesus in the person of Antonio. That’s why, before giving him some money, I always hug him. He knows that, that’s why when he sees me, before extending his hand to receive money, he extends his arms to hug me with his wonderful smile.

To experience the uncomfortable message of Jesus, at the end of the Mass two Sunday’s ago, I asked Manny and his wife Tracy to invite and escort Antonio to join me close to the altar and bless him. And blessing Antonio (a homeless and a beggar), we also blessed all the «lepers», the «untouchable» and the «unclean» of today’s society.

We blessed him and I hugged him, and I promised that any «leper» who decides to come to our church we are going to extend a red carpet to welcome him or her. They are our masters. They make us more human. That’s why I expect one day to see in every newsletter and in every news board of any Christian church this slogan: COME AS YOU ARE.

Love and Peace,
Fr. Bernardino Andrade

– Brought to you by Fr. Bernardino Andrade (bernardinodandrade@gmail.com)

In the New Testament there is no disease regarded with more terror and pity than leprosy. When Jesus sent out the twelve, He commanded them: «Heal the sick, cleanse lepers». Leprosy was a very special disease among all other diseases. The most painful, the most humiliating and the most repugnant. No other disease reduces a human being for so many years to so hideous a wreck.

Lepers had to live separate from society. They could not attend the religious services in the synagogue, could not enter the temple, could not approach anybody… There were so many rules that were supposed to keep them outcasts and treated like outcasts. They were «unclean». They could not touch or be touched. Any person who touched them would become unclean.

In the Gospel of Mark, chapter 1, a leper came to Jesus and asked Jesus to heal him. If Jesus wanted to heal him it would be so easy to say «be healed». But Jesus proposedly broke the law. The «Gospel says that Jesus «stretch-out his hand and touched him». This was the moment that I am pretty sure that all people present gasped and asked him: «Are you crazy, Jesus? Do you know what you are? You just became unclean. Like the leper».

I am pretty sure that people started talking with each other saying things like «I thought he was smarter. Now he is unclean like the leper who is a sinner. If that leper was not a sinner for sure he wouldn’t get leprosy. Jesus, who looks such a nice person and a smart person revealed his ignorance and his stupidity. He voluntarily became unclean like the leper. This is crazy».

What a confusion. I would’ve loved to be in the middle of that confusion. I would’ve loved to become unclean for the same reason. For touching the untouchable. And I think we all are called to touch the untouchable and become unclean. But on my part I am too coward to act like Jesus and take the risks Jesus took. When people say that Jesus died innocent I always feel this strange reaction. «No! He was not innocent. He broke many laws and one of them was to touch the untouchable. According to the law he was a criminal and for that reason they felt he deserved to die like a criminal».

I wish I could die for the reasons Jesus died. But I am too coward to get involved in the things Jesus was involved in. I prefer to be «entertained» by a religious service on Sunday, take part in a few processions, pray a few rosaries than to be involved in the work and project of an «insane» Jesus who says that we are all children of the same father, that we are brothers and sisters and that the world belongs to every human being. I am smarter than Jesus. I know better. I am not that crazy.

2 – Who are today’s lepers? Who are the untouchable?

They are around us. They live in our streets. They worship at our churches. These include homosexuals, AIDS victims, the homeless, alcoholics, drug-addicts, and marginalized groups – the divorced, the unmarried-single mothers, priests who left the priesthood, migrant workers and the mentally ill. God’s loving and motherly hand must reach out to them through us.

Jesus wants us to touch their lives even at the risk of becoming unclean. Having a cup of coffee with a homosexual you take the risk of being labeled like one of them. You take the risk of being alienated like them. You take the risk of, like Jesus, becoming unclean. Having a cup of coffee with a homeless person you take the risk of being labeled like a person of low class.

You take the risk of being ridiculed even by your friends. You take the risk of becoming ostracized by people in your church and getting a bad reputation. You take the risk of becoming unclean. But Jesus is a fascinating person. I invite all of you to join me and to feel like Jesus, to dream like Jesus, to talk like Jesus, to heal like Jesus and to follow Jesus until the last consequences. To follow Jesus is not always easy but it is always safe.

Today when we celebrate the World Day of the Sick, I would like to give a special blessing to one of those «lepers» who stands every Sunday, begging, at the door of our Chapel before Mass. I plan to ask him inside for a special blessing. I don’t know if he will accept. He is António (true name) and, for many years, he has belonged to the group of the homeless. He never sleeps in the same bench or the same drive way, or under the same tree. But I believe that he begs always in the same places, especially at the door of Penha de França Chapel. He knows where the good people are. In general they are the church goers.

Love and Peace and Laughter,
Fr. Bernardino Andrade