Part 1
Yes! It happened on June 12, 1965. It was 53 years ago this week! In a sports field, in the city of Quelimane, Diocese of Quelimane, Mozambique (Africa), the Bishop D. Francisco Nunes Teixeira, who always maintained with me a father and son relationship, imposed his hands on me and on two other young African men (Vasco and Benjamim), anointed our hands and told us that we were ordained priests forever.
Since then I have embarked on a fascinating and passionate journey. I felt like when God called Abraham, telling him: «Go… to the land I will show you» (Gen. 12:1). No maps, no GPS, no travel checks, no hotel reservations, no Insurance plans. He just said «Go». And Abraham went.
He just said «Go». And I went without knowing the roads and not knowing where I was going to. Abraham just knew one thing: Abraham knew Whom he was walking with. I knew just one thing: I knew Whom I was walking with. I was walking with God, Who is my Father and my Mother and my Abba, and Who was guiding me and had a special plan for me.
The youngest of eleven children, I was born in Madeira Island, in Ponta do Sol, on November 29th, 1937. I came from a place where very few children attended school. Most of the adults were illiterate, including my parents and my oldest brothers. It was a poor farming community. Most of the children had no shoes to go to school or to walk around. But we didn’t know that we were poor because all of us had the same way of life. Some rules and traditions like family meals, daily Rosary and Sunday Mass were not negotiable. The children had no toys but we knew games and how to play together.
The only Christmas gift I had in my childhood was an orange. I don’t remember where it came from. Also I don’t remember if I ate that orange. It looked so yellow, so beautiful, so attractive that I spent my Christmas day showing it to my friends who were surprised to see such a beautiful Christmas Gift. I never had a dream of continuing my studies after my four years of primary school. I didn’t even know why I had to go to school when I «knew» that I would have no choice in my life but digging the land, watering the plants and everything my parents and my brothers and sisters were doing.
Then all of sudden something happened. One day, without any plans, I was in my kitchen in the company of my mother and my sister, Agostinha. I don’t remember what I was doing. I was 12 years old and had finished my four years of my primary school and I was very happy that I didn’t have to go to school again.
My philosophy was that I didn’t need studies to milk a cow (my father had just one cow to milk, and one cow to work), to plant potatoes, beans, corn, sugar cane and so on. But that day my sister asked me a very unexpected question.
She just asked: – «Bernardino, wouldn’t you like to be a priest»? Without thinking, my answer was «Yes». I don’t know why she asked me that strange question and I still don’t know why I gave her that quick and strange answer. I was just 12 years old.
[One day, in America, a news reporter asked me: «But when you were 12 years old, what did you understand about priesthood? » My answer was: «Now I am almost 70 years old and I still do not understand. Priesthood is a mystery that is being revealed to me daily, through prayer, through my ministry to the world and especially to my service to the poorest of the poor. »]
My mother started inquiring about the requirements to enter the Seminary and on October 15, 1950 my father and my mother took me to the Seminary of Funchal. It was an agonizing transition. I was just a child and Ponta do Sol, because of lack of communications, was so far away from Funchal.
——- (to be continued in next week’s issue)
Love and Peace,
Fr. Bernardino Andrade