(bernardinodandrade@gmail.com)
It happened 35 years ago, during the month of August. Actually it was August 15. I remember not because I have a good memory, but because it was the day when the church celebrates the Feast of the Assumption of Mary. Another thing I remember very well was that it was during the peak of the Summer’s heat.
I was standing at the altar celebrating the Eucharist. In my home Parish it is the Feast of «Nossa Senhora do Monte» (Our Lady of the Mountain). I was facing the people. The Church was packed. Many people were standing. Among the standing people there was Gina holding her four-year-old daughter, Irene, in her arms. I assumed that no matter the child’s weight, she was not a light weight for Gina.
At a certain point of the Mass I saw Gina lifting her daughter to the level of her face, and she deposited a very gentle kiss on her sleeping daughter’s forehead. Very naturally. Very normally. Very gently. Then she kept looking at the altar.
I confess that this was a little epiphany for me.
In that moment I thought: «That sleeping child will never know that her mother kissed her today. She will never know how much her mother would always find ways to express her love for her, even when she is asleep».
Yes. It was an epiphany for me. Besides the Bible, mothers have always been for me the best teachers about God’s love and my relationship with God. I fell into contemplation and started thinking and I still think that Irene was asleep and she would never know that her mother kissed her in that moment. It was a gentle and secret kiss.
I believe that the majority of expressions of love that mothers have for their children go unnoticed. During that day I fell into deep contemplation thinking of how many times God kisses me during the day and during the night without being noticed by me. Then I discovered that God is a permanent surprise. He always holds me in His arms and always kisses me, performing so many miracles in my life even when I don’t notice it. God is a permanent surprise. The only thing I ask God in this moment is that He will help me to be open to his gentle and secret kisses. To his gentle and secret surprises.
Love and Peace
Fr. Bernardino Andrade
PS. The mother kissing her daughter, in this picture, is Irene, the one who was kissed by her mother 35 years ago. Now she is 39. She is my cousin. Irene is doing to her one-and-a-half month old daughter what her mother did to her 35 years ago. In my story I said that Irene would never know that she was kissed by her mother on that very hot day when both of them were perspiring in Church. Now she knows because I told her many years ago. The baby is called Lara Virginia, after her grandmother who died recently.