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Marcha en solidaridad con el Padre Carlos Cajade Solidarity March for Father Carlos Cajade Solidaritätsmarsch für Pfarrer Cajade |
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Su obra continua... His work goes on... Sein Werk geht weiter... |
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P. Carlos Cajade con „sus chicos“ Father Carlos Cajade with “his children” Pfarrer Carlos Cajade mit “seinen Kindern” Fotos: Obra del Padre Cajade © 2006 |
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ARGENTINA, Jorgito Moviglia. He was a man with tangled beard and hair, a pot belly and a family-sized heart. Life was his great love, and friends were his great weakness. His passions were the guitar and a good piece of meat. His weaknesses, those he gave his life for, were his young boys…
Carlos Cajde, Carlitos, or "The Priest" (as the young boys called him), was a man with thousands of ideas in his mind and many dreams in his heart. He left nothing undone. He built up and tore down, walked, struggled, won, lost, loved, sang; HE LIVED. Dreams, ideals, strength, warmth, honesty, self-giving, solidarity, friendship, faithfulness, simplicity, revolution -- all of these are the traits that were reflected in his person. He never wanted to be someone else; rather, he was himself with an authenticity that had to be admired.
He was raised in Villa Arguello. He liked soccer. He was the family man, the one who liked barbeques and the simplicity of daily life. In his words, in his reflections, and in every step he took he demonstrated who he was. There were always smiles for the children, and always justice and dignity for those who were excluded…
He was a priest who established not just an attachment with the God of the poor but was willing to follow that God, giving his life for those he loved. Nothing was impossible for him, for he lived a love that is much deeper than a feeling.
His faith was in the Church of the "People", the one he founded in the midst of his people. His Church was that of attachments, family, friendship, work; and of bread, of love…
He gave his all while he lived. He gave confidence to the poor, for he taught them that hope was something that no one could take away from them. He marched, not sat at a desk; he acted, not talked; he lived in God and in each man that crossed his path.
A life founded on love
The Priest lived a life founded on love. It all began one Christmas Eve when three little angels, disguised as children, entered his life almost without permission, and he entered their lives never to leave them. He struggled for the street children, saving the lost little ones. A militant of life, a man who understood what it meant to be alive…
Perhaps he was too just for this world of injustices and inequalities. Perhaps he was too honest for this world of corruption and oppression. Perhaps he was too much of a dreamer for this world of unequal realities. Perhaps his great capacity to love could not accept seeing that his desire for a kind and just humanity was vanishing. He did all he could and should, for the poor that he loved.
He is now probably somewhere up to his old tricks…talking with some Saint, moralizing to some repentant politician, and loving Mary even more. He is probably walking with Father Kentenich, playing soccer with the children, drinking some "mates" (herbal tea), enjoying a good barbeque, listening to one of Sabina’s songs, and playing some other songs on the guitar -- living and loving, and living in order to love, surrounded by the children just as he liked. I think that God needed someone like him up there with Him. That is why He took Father Carlos away, until we meet again…
I see you in the eyes of the children
The truth is that we miss him. It is difficult not to think about him for his life was too large and wonderful. I think that the best way to remember him is to continue helping him to fulfill his dream, a dream I believe that is mine and of many others: of having a country be a home with a large family; a country with leaders who are fathers, brothers and friends; a country with a future, a present, and a past, with both work and workers; a country of solidarity and justice; a country that is about bread and not bullets; a country with a true God, not one that is a caricature of God.
In our Argentina we see him in the street children, and we strive to see in our lives that man who taught us how to live and dream, and how to make our dreams a reality.
In the eyes of the children I see you, Carlitos, with the same smile and fire that nourishes the passion for a life for which one is willing to die, like you did. From here I send my great love and a warm embrace, CARLITOS! Ah…I forgot. But see if you can fix some things up there, too; and now that you are closer to Mary, give us a hand so we can fulfill our obligation to you, and help us to fulfill our dream…
Translation: Celina M. Garza, Harlingen, TX, USA / Ruth Bruckbauer, Milwaukee, WI, USA
See: "Our beloved Father Carlitos" First anniversary of death of Father Carlos Cajade, founder of the Home of the Mother Thrice Admirable," a shelter for street children