Author: ANTONINO

FROM MY HEART TO YOUR HEART – Natalia’s First Communion

At the English service on the 9th April, we were happy to celebrate the first communion of a little girl called Natália. This is Father Bernadino’s letter to her as contained in the weekly newsletter.

– Brought to you by Fr. Bernardino Andrade

Dear Natália

Welcome to the banquet of Jesus. Congratulations! Today you are making your First Holy Communion. We all feel very privileged that you have chosen us, the members of the Community of Penha de França Chapel, to be part of this very Sacred Meal. I feel very privileged to have been walking with you on your exciting faith journey.

I baptized you on March 15, 2009. I baptized your two brothers, Manolito and Pedrito. Your parents Manolo and Carolina took very seriously their commitment with the person of Jesus and His project that is «to bring good news to the poor» (Lk. 4: 18).

For the last few years, through the project «People Helping People», it is your family that has been paying the house rent of an extremely poor and large family. Your father is in the list of volunteers who give car lifts to the needy. Your grandmother Arlinda, very often, has surprised us with her generous donations to the poor. This is Gospel. This is Good News. This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ according to the Borrero’s and Catanho’s Family. With St. Paul you can say: «It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me» (Gal. 2: 20). And because Jesus lives in you, the Fruits of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5: 22-23), will always be your way of life.

Let me remind you the nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit in a very special way.
Natalia is LOVE; Natalia is JOY; Natalia is PEACE; Natalia is PATIENCE; Natalia is KINDNESS; Natalia is GENEROSITY; Natalia is FAITHFULNESS; Natalia is GENTLENESS; Natalia is SELF-CONTROL.
There is no law against such things (Gal. 5: 22-23).

Congratulations, Natalia! Jesus loves you and so do we.

Fr. Bernardino Andrade

FROM MY HEART TO YOUR HEART – If you can learn from your children, you are smart

– Brought to you by Fr. Bernardino Andrade

Having been a pastor in California for 12 years made me learn a lot from my parishioners. And many of my columns written for my Sunday newsletter were made of stories from them, stories which had the biggest impact on me. Today I share with you one which was published in January 2000, called “If you can learn from your children, you are smart”.

A few weeks ago I was introducing a parishioner to Clyde Hawkins. During the short conversation it was revealed that this wonderful man had stopped drinking because his little daughter had asked him to. And I believe the best reason to do or not to do something is when we do it for love and not just because it is right.

Clyde in all his wisdom commented, “If you can learn from your children it is because you are a smart man.”

Days later I received from Carl Ross the following message.

Good morning, Father,

The other night my daughter and I were making fun of my son Eric. You know, harmless stuff, just having fun with him.

Well, Eric did not think it was funny and he said to us, “You know, you are making the Devil happy. He’s smiling right now because you are saying bad things about me. Why don’t you say good things about me so God will smile?”

My daughter Angelica said, “You can’t see God, you don’t know if He is smiling or not.”

Then Eric replied, “I know I can’t see God, but I can feel Him in my heart.”

Wow! What I beautiful and powerful message my son just made and he’s only six years old, I thought to myself. I kept staring at him like he was an angel.

I thought this would put a smile on your face. Children are truly a gift from God. Peace be with you.

Carl

Dear Carl

Surely it put a smile on my face. Thank you and I agree with you and Clyde, “When you can learn from your children, you are a smart man”.

Love and Peace,
Fr. Bernardino Andrade

Scripture Readings 9th April 2017, Palm Sunday, Year A

Isaiah 50:4-7; Psalm 21; Philippians 2:6-11; Matthew 26:14 – 27:66

Second Isaiah was writing during the exile of the Israelites in Babylon after Jerusalem was destroyed. The people are discouraged, in despair, and tempted to give up their faith in God. In the ‘servant-song’ Isaiah offers consolation, recommending non-resistance and trust in the Lord.

Today Isaiah’s words express both our horror at the way Our Lord was treated, and our admiration for his example of patient non-retaliation. Trusting confidently in his Father, he “sets his face like flint”, even though it is covered with spittle. The Psalm continues this mood, but ends with praise.

The hymn in Philippians rejoices that – unlike Adam – Jesus did not seek to be equal to God. But God raised him to glory and gave him the name ‘Lord’. Jesus on the Cross invites us to imitate his humility.

Matthew’s Passion, with its lively dialogue, shows Jesus aware of what is to happen – and allowing it. After the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, bitterness between Jews and Matthew’s Jewish-Christian community led Matthew to blame the Jews for Jesus’ death. Jesus died just before Passover, when Jews celebrated their freedom from slavery. Soldiers, Jewish leaders, the inscription on the Cross, all ironically give Jesus his true title of ‘King of the Jews’, the Messiah, who overcomes death. Jesus’ obedience to God’s plan gives the Cross meaning.

Psalm Response: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Isaiah 50:4-7; Psalm 21; Philippians 2:6-11; Matthew 26:14 – 27:66

FROM MY HEART TO YOUR HEART – The Church: A Hotel or a Journey?

– Brought to you by Fr. Bernardino Andrade

ARE YOU SAVED?

One of the many privileges I had during my ministry in California was my frequent contacts with members and leaders of different religious denominations. Even if we were aware of our differences, more than that, we were aware of the so many things that unite us.

This happened one day during a spiritual retreat with Protestant Pastors:
During a meal, this lady asked me: «Are you saved?»
My answer was:
«Oh no! God still has lots of work to do to save me. No I am not saved yet».

Maybe this is one of some of the differences between Catholics and a few Evangelical church denominations. Many people see the Church as a hotel. «I am converted: I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I arrived. I am saved». This is like if I arrived to a hotel. Now I can unpack, take my shoes off and relax. I arrived.

The Church sees herself as a journey. A journey, with ups and downs, like the Hebrew people who are walking throughout the desert always with the temptations to return to the old life. Yes. They were slaves. Their suffering was unbearable, but they also remembered some of the many good things that they had left behind. They had some pleasures that they were not able to enjoy in their journey to freedom.

I remember a man telling me, long time ago: «I like to sin. I enjoy sinning. But then I feel so empty. I feel so sad. I feel so frustrated with myself». On that day he came for Confession where finally he felt peace.

LENT IS A JOURNEY

Lenten Journey

On the first Sunday of Lent (Year A), we are invited to join Jesus in the desert.

On the second Sunday of Lent we are invited to go up to the mountain and be transfigured with Jesus. We are invited to transform or change our way of thinking, talking and acting. We are invited to have with Jesus a mountain top experience.

On the third Sunday of Lent we are invited to approach Jesus at the well like the Samaritan woman. One thinks what was that woman looking for in those six men? Finally she met a seventh man who also needed her because he was thirsty. She had been drinking «dead water» full of mosquitoes, garbage and poison. Finally she found in this man called Jesus the «living water».

On the fourth Sunday of Lent a blind man is cured and sees light for the first time.

On the fifth Sunday of Lent the Church presents the Resurrection of Lazarus. We celebrate life. Then we celebrate Palm Sunday.

Finally the Paschal Mystery that includes Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday together with Easter Sunday make just one celebration.

Now… have a nice trip! Have a nice journey!

Love and Peace,
Fr. Bernardino Andrade

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Scripture Readings 2nd April 2017, 5th Sunday of Lent, Year A

Ezekiel 37:12-14; Psalm 129; Romans 8:8-11; John 11:1-45

Ezekiel was a priest exiled with the Jews to Babylon in 597 BC. The Jews had lost their king, land, and Temple, and all seemed lost for them as a nation. Ezekiel’s messages during the exile were encouraging, giving hope that the nation would rise and live again, like a field full of dry bones coming to life. But this will be the Lord’s doing, for the sake of his name, which they have profaned by their idolatry.

Writing to the Jewish Christians in Rome, Paul has been puzzling over our human condition: “I do not do the good that I want, but I do the evil that I hate”. Mortal flesh is weak. “But God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh” so that the Son’s Spirit might give us the strength to live according to His Spirit. Paul’s conclusion: with Christ’s Spirit in us we are given life reconciled with God both now and in bodily resurrection after death.

These foretastes of resurrection prepare us for John’s description of the Raising of Lazarus, the third of the three beautiful dramatic Lenten readings from John, which need to be read in full. Perhaps we should sit and ponder how difficult it is to believe, and how difficult it was for Martha to open the tomb?

Psalm Response: With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption.

FROM MY HEART TO YOUR HEART – Fast Coffee, Fast Food, Fast Conversion!

– Brought to you by Fr. Bernardino Andrade

When Comedian Yakov Smirnoff first came to the United States from Russia he was not prepared for the incredible variety of instant products available in American grocery stores. He says: «On my first shopping trip, I saw powdered milk; you just add water, and you get milk. Then I saw powdered orange juice; you just add water, and you get orange juice. And then I saw baby powder, and I thought to my self, ‘What a country!’»

Smirnoff was joking, but we make these assumptions about Christian Transformation – that people change instantly from sinners to saints. Catholics call it transformation through repentance and renewal of life, deriving strength through the word of God and the Sacraments to cooperate with God’s grace for doing acts of charity. Some other Christian denominations call it Sanctification of the believer. Whatever you call it, most denominations expect some quick fix for sin.

According to this belief, when someone gives his or her life to Christ, accepting Him as Lord and personal Savior, and confesses his or her sins to Him, there is an immediate, substantive, in-depth, miraculous change in habits, attitudes, and character. Can we go to Church as if we are going to the grocery store to get Powdered Christian?

I had a wonderful friend in California who was a real saint. Reverend Bill was the Pastor of a huge Baptist Church. One day when we were sharing our lives and experiences with each other, he said that he was enjoying reading the books of Henry Nouwen, a Belgian Catholic priest who impacted tremendously the spirituality of the 20th century, especially with his book «The Return of the Prodigal Son». Rev. Bill was enjoying and was getting a lot from his writings. But he was a little surprised with a little difference between Nouwen’s spirituality and the Protestant spirituality. Nouwen repeated very often the word «conversion» to happen during a spiritual journey of a Christian.

According to him conversion happens in the moment we choose Jesus as our personal Savior, and since then we live accordingly. Then I remembered St. Paul in his letter to the Romans (Rom 7:14) when he says: «What I want to do, that I do not do; but what I hate, that I do». He was always struggling between sin, temptation and his conversion. Louis Evely says that the most difficult people to convert are Christians to Christ. Father Aires Gameiro told me recently that the followers of Jesus are always in the ABC (we are all like beginners… like ABC are the first letters of the alphabet). This is the meaning of conversion.

The truth is that Disciples of Christ are not born by adding water to Christian powder. There is no such powder, and disciples of Jesus Christ are not instantly born. They are slowly raised through many trials, suffering, and temptations and by their active cooperation with the grace of God, expressed through works of charity.

Love and Peace
Fr. Bernardino Andrade

Scripture Readings 26th March 2017, 4th Sunday of Lent, Year A


1 Samuel 16:1,6-7,10-13; Psalm 22; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41

Before our first reading King Saul had disobeyed God’s instructions by allowing animals from his defeated enemy to be sacrificed to the Lord. He put more faith in ceremony and ritual than he did in the Lord. Samuel told Saul obedience is more important than holocausts, and that the Lord has rejected Saul as king of Israel. The Lord sends Samuel to Bethlehem to anoint one of the sons of Jesse as king.

Paul’s great letter about the Church to the Ephesians is centred on the Church as Christ’s body, with a mission to make God’s plan of salvation known throughout the world. Christians must “be like children of light, for the effects of the light are seen in goodness, right living and truth”. Discovering what the Lord wants of us exposes by contrast the “futile works of darkness”.

The dramatic Lenten readings from John’s gospel continue with the healing of the man born blind. At first the man does not seem to care who has healed him. His parents distance themselves out of fear, echoing the growing separation between Jews and Christians by John’s time. But for John, just seeing is not enough, the light of faith is essential. So Jesus seeks the man out and gradually leads him to full belief, and to worship him.

Psalm Response: The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.

1 Samuel 16:1,6-7,10-13; Psalm 22; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41

FROM MY HEART TO YOUR HEART – What Am I Giving Up For Lent?

– Brought to you by Fr. Bernardino Andrade

A Catholic priest working in an inner city was walking down an alley one evening on his way home when a young man came down the alley behind him and poked a knife against his back. “Give me your money,” the young man said. The priest opened his jacket and reached into an inner pocket to remove his wallet, exposing his clerical collar. “Oh, I’m sorry, Father,” said the young man, “I didn’t see your collar. I don’t want your money.” Trembling from the scare, the priest removed a cigar from his shirt pocket and offered it to the young man. “Here,” he said. “Have a cigar.” “Oh, no, I can’t do that,” the young man replied, “I gave them up for Lent.”

What am I going to give up for lent?

It can be a cigar, it can be sugar, it can be meat, it can be fish, it can be alcohol, it can be drugs. The list is endless. But the most important thing is to change my way of thinking and my way of life. The most important thing is to fall in love with Jesus and his project of bringing good news to the poor.

Love and Peace,
Fr. Bernardino Andrade
March 12th, 2017 (bernardinodandrade@gmail.com)

Scripture Readings 10th March 2017, 3rd Sunday of Lent, Year A

Exodus 17:3-7; Psalm 94; Romans 5:1-2,5-8; John 4:5-42

The Israelites escaped from Egypt probably under Ramses II about 1300 BC. They wandered in the wilderness of Sinai, fed daily by God with quail and manna. But they continued grumbling, losing faith that “God was with them”. The places were named “Massah”, “test”, and “Meribah”, “quarrelling”. But God still looks after his people, giving them water. They are not punished now, as it is before they accept the Covenant God made with Moses on Sinai. But none of this generation will enter the promised land.

Paul tells the Romans that God loves and forgives us, just as he continued caring for the ungrateful Israelites. God proved his love in that Christ died for us, gaining pardon for all humanity. So we can be at rights with God and have peace because faith gives us access to this grace.

We hear the first 3 gospels over 3 years, but we hear parts of John’s gospel every year during Lent and Easter. Today Jesus encounters the Samaritan woman at the well. John carefully moves the characters on and off stage as the woman gradually comes towards faith in Jesus. Then, while still unsure, she goes and brings the rest of the Samaritans in her town to hear this man, wondering “Could he possibly be the Messiah?”

Psalm Response: O that today you would listen to his voice! “Harden not your hearts”.

FROM MY HEART TO YOUR HEART – Monica, an Angel who teaches healing

– Brought to you by Fr. Bernardino Andrade

clean_heart
Monica is a 7 years old angel but when somebody asks her, Monica prefers to say that “I am almost 8”.
When Monica comes to Mass with Mom and Dad, if she is not seated very close to me on the steps of the altar I know that she is dressed in a white robe in the Acolyte’s chair. She is serving Mass. I have seen Monica worried, sad and in different moods. But I have never seen Monica without a shy and beautiful smile.

Not long ago an incident happened and it brought lots of pain to Mom and Dad. Things like this are normal in loving and healthy couples like Monica’s parents. Both went through a few “dark nights”, tears, confusion and pain that was affecting their level of communication that is one of the essential ingredients in any couple and in any relationship. Monica was worried, of course. Any child who sees his/her parents in pain and confusion goes through the experience of someone who is in a tall building that is being affected by an earthquake.

One Sunday, during Mass, when she left the altar during the Greeting of Peace to give her parents the kiss of Peace, the first thing she asked her Daddy was if he had joined hands with Mom during the Our Father.

Finally, Mom and Dad did what any healthy and mature couple does. They decided to talk to someone. This someone can be a counselor, a priest or simply a trusted friend. Secrets can be very destructive. Because I have the privilege of being their pastor and their friend I was the one who had the privilege of being chosen and being part of their painful journey.

Both have recovered their smile, their trust and their hope. However, I think that I had very little to do with this outcome. I think the biggest role belonged to Monica. She knew that Mom and Dad were coming to see me and she knew why. When Mom was saying good-bye, Monica looked in her eyes with a very beautiful but sad face and said:

– “Mom… please, clean out your heart”.

During our meeting the mother told me and Dad what Monica had said to her. We both reacted at the same time like two actors in a play:

– “Did she say that”? Then lots of healing tears were shed, caused by this angel’s words.
“Clean out your heart”.

Thank you Monica. I can’t imagine any priest or psychologist, or psychiatrist, or doctor in the world who could have offered better healing advice or better healing medicine. Hopefully, during this Season of Lent our main prayer will be:

“Lord clean out my heart that I may be renewed”.

Love and Peace,
Fr. Bernardino Andrade
March 5, 2017

PS. This story was written in Oakley, California, almost 15 years ago.