– Brought to you by Fr. Bernardino Andrade (bernardinodandrade@gmail.com)
1
We plant little flowers that can become gorgeous gardens. We plant small trees that can be transformed into powerful and majestic sequoias, redwoods or oaks. We sow very small grains of wheat that can be transformed into baskets of bread able to feed thousands of people. I think that one of our main missions in our families should be to plant good and healthy ideas and dreams in our children’s brains. If we don’t do it, TV programs, confused friends, politicians, angry teachers… will do the job for us.
A few months ago a young child told me that he was an atheist. I don’t even think that he knows what the word atheist means. But what I think is that some «cute» teacher said that word in school and he thought that it would be «cute» to repeat the same thing. And the worst part was that he was not joking.
I don’t remember if I ever thought about being a priest but I still remember the day and the place (the kitchen of my parents’ house) when my sister Agostinha asked me: «Bernardino, wouldn’t you like to be a priest? ». And I said yes. I was 12 years old.
I am almost 80 and I have been a priest for 52 years. I don’t know if I have been a good priest but one thing I know: I have been a very happy priest. I never stop thanking God for my sister, Agostinha, who planted that seed in my brain that soon traveled to my heart and my life.
2
The venerable servant of God, Canon Cottolengo, when but a boy of five years, was measuring with a cord, one room after another. His mother, rather confused, asked him what he was trying to do.
“Dear mother,” was the reply, “I want to see how many beds can be placed in this house: when I am grown up I should like to fill the whole house with sick people.”
A tear of emotion glistened in his mother’s eyes.
In 1832 he founded at Turin the ‘Little Asylum of Divine Providence’, and today it is world famous. It shelters 5000 men and embraces within its precincts a church, a number of houses, terraces and courtyards.
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Please don’t be afraid of planting good dreams in your children’s brains. That’s what Jesus does with us and sometimes He is successful.
Love and Peace,
Fr. Bernardino Andrade