My name is Adler Trinidade and it is with great joy in my heart that I share some of the graces I am experiencing at this time. This 2019, by the grace of God, I will be ordained a priest1 on December 23.
God wanted to choose me to manifest His love and mercy in me. And having experienced so much love, I could do no other than repay it with myself, being an instrument of this immense love. Here too I want to remember this beautiful call that the Lord has made to me.
“My son, go back to your house”
Since I was a child, I thought of becoming a priest. I was born in Salvador, but I grew up in Rio de Janeiro. I was born into a Catholic family. I went to mass every Sunday. I learned to recite the rosary and cultivated a Christian life. I have an aunt, a missionary in Africa, who every time she came to Brazil, visited and prayed with us, awakening in me an even greater desire to know God and share in His graces.
When I was a teenager, I became detached from the Church, from God, and left home twice to live a worldly life. I knew about the holidays, the drugs, and I came to delude myself that on this road I could be happy. For almost six years, I had an empty life. Then, in a moment of deep loneliness, I heard a strong voice saying to me, “My son, go back to your house. Your mother loves you. I created you so that you would love me and serve me!” At this point, everything changed.
“Whoever loves does not know how to calculate”
I obeyed that voice. I went back to my mother’s house and I could actually experience how much my mother loved me. I remembered my history and her effort to grow spiritually, alone and on the income of a teacher struggling to provide for me and my sister. As Saint Teresa says: “Whoever loves does not know how to calculate” and I saw this in my mother. Her love for me made me realize that the source of this love was God. God is love!
I began to participate in a prayer group for young people and I discovered even more that immense love which God has always had for me. I went to retreats and meetings. I met the Shalom Community in Rio in 2003 and I felt a strong desire to give my life as a missionary. I entered the Community of Life and, after the formative period, I asked to begin my studies to become a priest.
“You are a priest forever”
My childhood desire had not vanished from my heart: I moved to live in Fortaleza in 2006, when I began my studies. I finished this entire formative journey in 2014 and now, with God’s grace, I am on my way to fulfilling God’s promise: “The Lord has sworn and does not repent: “You are a priest forever […]”. (Sal 109)
Adler Trindade
Translation: Jhoanna Climacosa
1Currently the Community has 70 seminarians (23 students of philosophy, 20 students of theology and 27 in pastoral formation), 25 priests and 13 deacons of the Community of Life, 23 priests of the Covenant Community.