WHAT PUNK ROCKERS TAUGHT ME ABOUT BAPTISM
One day, I was taking a walk through one of the streets of the city of San Francisco (California). With me there were two friends from Portugal. One was Fr. Aires Gameiro, at that time professor of Psychology in the Catholic University of Lisbon, and presently living in Funchal, and the other one was Jorge (at the time an immigrant from Portugal, living in San Francisco). We were just enjoying our walk, and talking about people, about ideas and about things.
At a certain moment we saw a group of young people, doing nothing, just talking and laughing together, dressed in a strange way, with strange colours and strange hair styles, also in different and strange colours. I was told that they were a group of «Punk Rockers». I thought that I was, and I think I am, very open to diversity and to surprises, but I confess that I was not open to see what I considered to be such an ugly scene. They were not doing anything wrong. They were just making an «ugly-looking» scene. If one of them hugged me I would feel the need to take a shower.
Then I said «I wish I had a friend punk rocker.» My intention was not to change him or to convert him or her, but to ask what they found attractive about that way of living and that way of dressing. Because to me, that looked so ugly and even repugnant to see those boys and girls like that. They were not doing anything wrong. They were just dressing and acting like a bunch of idiots wasting their time. How could they find that attractive, when to me they looked so repellent? This was the question I would have liked to ask.
That’s when Fr. Gameiro told me: «They are not there because they find it attractive. They are there to fulfil their need of belonging». Then he added that «the basic need of the human being is the need to belong. Most of them don’t belong to a family anymore. They don’t belong to a church anymore. But they still feel this terrible need burning them from inside out. They need to belong. And when they see any young person dressed like that they know that they belong to them.
THAT’S WHY I AM SO MISERABLE
He was what they call «a dangerous guy». One day, when this car was passing by, surrounded by body guards and in a caravan carrying «Very Important People» he pulled out a gun, killed the Mayor of the city and wounded another man». It was not difficult to catch the killer and arrest him. During one of the interrogatories he was asked: «What church do you belong to?». His answer was: «I don’t belong to anything. I don’t belong to anybody, that’s why I am so miserable».
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THE BAPTISM OF THE LORD
Today, January 13, 2019, the Catholic Church celebrates the Festivity of the Baptism of the Lord. Celebrating the Baptism of the Lord we are celebrating our own Baptism. Since I had this experience with the punk rockers I started calling BAPTISM, THE SACRAMENT OF BELONGING.
With our Baptism we start belonging to the Body of Christ. We start belonging to the family of God. We start belonging to one another. We are important to one another. We need one another.
Some Bible scholars think that the Church started at the Calvary when Jesus, hanging on the cross, said: «John! Take care of my mother. Mother take care of John». Life is about relationships. Church is about relationships. We are baptized to be part of the family of God and to take care of one another. Life is about belonging. Church is about belonging. Belonging is about taking care of one another.
Fr. Bernardino Andrade