Articles from Old Newspapers & Magazines (‘O HERALDO’)

Articles from Old Newspapers & Magazines and Translated Articles on MSGR. HERCULANO GONSALVES from Portuguese to English

O HERALDO

24th March 1950

{Thanks to the translator, Mr. Oswaldo Velho, (Biblo) Velho Building, Panjim, Goa.}

MONS. HERCULANO GONSALVES Covered with the blessings and the tears of hundreds of orphans as well as their parents whom he supported and protected while alive (during his lifetime), in a funeral cortege of impressive solemnity, from the St. Alex Orphanage to the Calangute Church, to the strains of the funeral marches performed or played by a band, interspersed with/by sobs and laments of the people in the cortege and after the final rites sung by about 50 priests, the mortal remains of Mons. Herculano Gonçalves were lowered to the grave, the day before yesterday in the Calangute cemetery. The parish of Calangute where the funeral took place received countless condolence messages (telegrams), among others, from the Municipal Councils of Bardez, Salcete and Panjim. At the entrance of the cemetery eulogies were delivered about the saintly priest by Mr. Tome Pinto, retired Director of Accounts, on behalf of the parish of Calangute, where the illustrious deceased did the major part of his work; Rev. Fr. Aleuino da Costa, Vicar of Parra, on behalf of Salcete taluka from where the deceased hailed/ was a native; on behalf of the Little Flower, English medium school, Rev. Fr. Filipe Mendonça, Director of the Arpora College and lastly/last by Mr. Amadeu Prazeres da Costa, who in his homily said: “Death is a dreadful fantasy. There is no death. The soul is the beam of eternal light, the body is the molecule of the universal matter.” The truth, enclosed in these words of Camilo Castelo Branco (famous Portuguese writer), whom death paid a voluntary/willing tribute, after he underwent the whole range/gamut of torture of a troubled soul becomes today more evident than ever before, at this moment when we have just buried under four feet of mud, the precious mortal remains of a man, whose heart till yesterday was beating with life and who was called /whose name was Mons. Herculano Gonçalves. In fact (by all intents and purposes), in this pious act that we are performing in the midst of tears that sorrowfully spout from our eyes, with chests weighed down by an indescribable emotion, with our minds clouded by incoherent thoughts, we have done nothing more than to restore to the universal matter its molecule which had organized itself as a separate entity/existence and which completed its cycle of evolution. Dust reverted to dust. However, this dust had life and that spark of eternal light which, as long as it burned in the body which today begins to disintegrate itself, shone with intense brightness, ever more luminous, this spark is perennial and eternal: The soul is a beacon of bright light, the body nothing but mud. Even after the mud rots, the beacon of light continues to shine. Remove the body – and you are left with a tongue of flame. Remove the soul – and you are left with a piece of clay. Thus, if this holds true of every human being, if death is but a fantasy and the mourning that weighs down on our chests and the tears that cover our eyes when we are faced with death are no more than a result of a lack of understanding of the meaning/significance of death – we are bound to face the death of Mons. Herculano Gonçalves as a resurrection. Man dies and his body integrates with or in the matter of the Universe and his spirit stays/remains immortal or attains immortality. Mons. Herculano Gonçalves has died and, besides it happening to him, what happens to all other men – besides his body being reintegrated in the universe of matter and his soul flying straight to the mansion of the just, so as to receive the palm of glory at the throne of the Creator – Mons. Herculano Gonçalves, at the moment when he died, at the moment at which that generous and good heart beat for the last time, at that very moment, it was reborn – reborn indeed to earthly/universal life. It was reborn in the hearts of each one of his fellow countrymen, reborn in each of the homes, whether humble or wealthy, throughout our land. At this moment when he was covered with mud, at this moment when he disappeared from sight, his presence is felt by each one of us more than ever before, because his presence is needed so much. His presence will be felt through generations, in each and every home, as long as some catastrophe does not wipe out from the face of the earth the works he left behind. It was said of Julius Caesar that his greatness was measured by the vacuum he left behind. The void that Mons. Herculano Gonçalves today created in our land cannot be filled, and this is why, because this void will remain forever, we will feel the need for him and we will feel the need for his presence. We will not feel the mere absence of a priest – he was a giant among priests, a true ornament and glory of our clergy, due to his virtues and his wisdom. However, there are many priests, selfless and full of dignity. It is not also as a person who would get things done that his memory will live one – there are many deeds done by people, which are valued more by the noise they made when these deeds were “trumpeted” as famous, rather than by its intrinsic worthiness. Mons. Herculano Gonçalves will live on not merely as a memory, albeit sweet, but will remain as a living presence, as a real and palpable being, as a necessity. He will live on in each and every of our homes, as a family member, as invisible as Providence, hovering over our day to day tasks, because he, while alive, perhaps never entered any house, never tried to impose his presence always hiding behind his work, never tried to seek fame, glory and gratitude from the multitudes, never sought publicity from the media – a priest who in spite of occupying the highest positions in the ecclesiastic hierarchy, was perhaps one of the rare Monsignors who never wore red; a man who has done so many projects, founder of schools and convents, was perhaps the only initiator of projects whose name never featured in newspapers, raiser of fabulous amounts of funds to finance and maintain his projects, was perhaps the only promoter who never felt the need to publish the lists of donors. An exceptional person who belonged to that elite class of men who appear once in a while, amidst this humanity blinded by selfishness and evil passions, to illuminate the tortuous journey with the beacon of light of his pure virtue; it is as a man, by what man has as instinctive for the preservation of the species, by the sublime maternal instinct in his soul that he will live in our homes: Oh my mother, my mother! Oh my mother, my beloved: One who has a mother has everything, One who does not have a mother has nothing. It is in these bitter-sweet words of sublime and pathetic poetry, which the children chant in a soulful song, that is synthesised the life of this man, of this Priest who today went to repose in the cemetery and who, for the first time in our land attained in himself the consubstantiality of Father and Mother. This is why today, although disappearance from our sight, we all feel him inside our home. I feel him in my home in the presence of my children, all the fathers and the mothers of my land feel him in the presence of their children, because if death comes to take us away while they, our children are young, we have the consoling certainty that our children will not be abandoned, because in our homes watching over our children is the helpful presence of one who during his lifetime, for the first time in our land, was the providence of the orphans. Mothers of my land! Fathers of my land! Do cry today, yes, do cry today! Do not cry for his sake but for yours and for your children’s. Do cry orphan boys and girls, not for his sake, but for your sakes! And you have wiped away your tears, oh mothers of my land, go in silence and light a lamp in your homes to this guardian angel that hovers in them, to Mons. Herculano Gonçalves who for you and for your children has not died, who is there in your homes, who is dispersed in each stone and each roof tile of the orphanages he built, like a father and a mother of our land. The soul is a beacon of bright light, the body nothing but mud. Even after the mud rots, the beacon of light continues to shine. Remove the body – and your you are left with a tongue of flame. Remove the soul – and you are left with a piece of clay. It is to this sublime soul that I have come to pay my final homage today – not as a journalist, not as the editor of “O Heraldo”, neither due to the bonds of affinity that bind me to this parish where his mortal remains are laid to rest, but only as a father among the many thousands of fathers from my land, to add my voice to the tortured voices of the hundreds of orphans of my land, among whom – who knows! perhaps will tomorrow be my own children, to tell Mons. Herculano Gonçalves, the father of orphans, quoting the poet: Go, Saint, may all the angels receive you. Narrate to them the secrets That you heard over here; And when you catch sight of the seat of the Lord, Pray to him for us As you always prayed during your life time.