FROM MY HEART TO YOUR HEART by Fr. Bernardino Andrade
(bernardinodandrade@gmail.com)
My sister, Agostinha, was thirteen years older than I. In descending order, she was the fifth of eleven brothers and sisters. I was the youngest. I don’t know if she ever attended school but I know that she could read and write a little bit. Her husband had emigrated to Brazil, then Venezuela, and finally to Aruba where he spent about thirty years. Besides being my brother in law, he was also my godfather.
I finished my four years of primary school when I was 12 years old. No more school ahead. The poor were not allowed to dream and to plan their lives. They just followed in the footsteps of their families and neighbours. I belonged to a poor farming family where nobody had a job to make money. Like all the neighbours, family worked on the farm to feed the family. No running water, no electricity, no toys and no time to play.
Farming in Madeira Island was a very tough job. The entire mountainous island is made up of very small pieces of land sustained by small man-made rocky walls with rocky steps. Everything was carried by the people on their shoulders. I don’t remember of thinking about my future. Like most of the children, my future was already destined. My future and the future of all the other boys and girls, was supposed to be farming the small pieces of land and possibly emigrate to another country like everybody else. I remember questioning myself about going to school. But anyway my parents sent me to school and no questions asked. However, “secondary school” and “university” were words that would never cross the minds of country children or their parents. That would be just for a small elite who worked for the government.
I was 12 years old. I still remember the place. My mother, my sister Agostinha and I were in our kitchen when my sister surprised me with a surprising and unimaginable question: «Bernardino, wouldn’t you like to be a priest?». My answer was simply «Yes». My mother started looking around for information, and on October 15th, 1950, I entered the Minor Seminary in Funchal. What still surprises me the most is that I didn’t go to the Seminary to study my vocation. I went to the Seminary to be a priest. I was ordained in the Diocese of Quelimane, Mozambique on June 12, 1965 and celebrated my first Mass in my home Parish (Madeira Island) on July 4th of the same year. This happened 55 years ago. One day an American journalist interviewed me and asked me: «But when you were 12 years old what did you understand about being a priest?». My answer was: «I am sixty nine years old and I still do not understand».. Priesthood is a mystery that God has been slowly revealing to me through my ministry, especially through the Sacraments and through my relationship with the poorest of the poor. I don’t know if I have been a good priest but what I know is that I have been a very happy priest.
My sister, Agostinha, besides being my heroine who planted the seed of my vocation into my heart was also my mentor. Very often she, like my father and my mother, took advantage of my holidays to come to me for Confession. She always reminded me to be poor and live for the poor. That was the kind of life she lived. Where there was suffering, she was there. I always tried to walk in her footsteps, knowing that they were the footsteps of Jesus.
Fr. Bernardino Andrade 19-07-2020