It's Carnival, long live the feast of the flesh!

Dear Professor Carmen Ferreira Barbosa, Porto, Portugal

I send you heartfelt tribute on the news that you will be participating in Carnival in Campo Grande, MS, your hometown. Even better, the bloco (carnival group) you'll be in is called Frankestemer, meaning the demolisher, the destroyer of rights and of Brazil.

This made me think and reflect on the importance of Carnival, both in terms of its immense joy and its critical, contextual perspective.

I prefer Carnival to the alienating and boring services and masses of churches that are enemies of life and the people. Their participants confuse emotionalism, deafening noise, and miracles with spirituality and divine presence. 

I praise Carnival more, with its intense joy of the people, than the cold spiritualities of the Pharisees, always ready for moralistic and fundamentalist warfare, which sour and kill relationships.

Drawing from the Gospel of Luke (chapter 15) as a source of humanity, I always choose the prodigal son and his extravagant feasts over the bitterness and frown of the older brother, a Pharisee, armed with stones and sticks, more inclined to invoke his little rules to expel than to welcome his brother.

I find the joy of the woman who almost tore her house down to find the lost coin more appealing than the joy of those who lock doors and windows to hide the theft of millions, wrested by force and fire from the blood of others' labor.

I am much more enthusiastic about the hardworking shepherd in the parable, who is able to leave his 99 sheep for a moment to save and rescue them from the abyss into which they have fallen. This is the model of human beings who do not use the people under their leadership and care as bargaining chips. Upon finding the lost sheep, the hardworking shepherd returns with a carnival-like joy, because everything is truly worthwhile when no one is lost or broken because of the petty interests of a few.

I am grateful to life, dear Carminha, for choosing the path of humanity from the time you were in the seminary, and not that of those who seek bitter and alienated spiritualities.

I've never been to Carnival. What a shame. I commend you for participating in this Brazilian festival that unites cultures and gets everyone moving.

Yes, it stirs the flesh of the oppressed workers, threatened by the pharisaical barbarity that threatens us under the heavy and suffocating exploitation of the terrorist pension reform and the demolition of workers' sacred rights.

I am thrilled by the cultural meat festival that unites all of Brazil in a celebration of joy without discrimination.

I give cheers to the feast of flesh, of colors impressively combined in art.

Art expresses the essence of artists who are sensitive to life and to the extremes that distance people.

Even while working here, I celebrate the art of the beautiful women who jump and display the beauty that unites everyone, without the rotten, sexist malice of the Pharisees.

The sounds of meat made into drums and varied instrumental compositions give sound to the life of our people.

Black skin, as it jumps, manifests the constant cry for freedom and the celebration of those who do not accept slavery of any kind.

Carnival is the festival of the flesh and creativity. Oh, how much invention, how much art, I mention again, of the pride and courage of our people.

Those who participate in Carnival become immersed in an ocean of carnal celebration where everyone is a brother and sister.

The Carnival of 2017 is a special celebration, with exceptional appeal. Even under a coup carried out by a gang of Pharisees in the service of those who consider themselves masters of the world, those who wage wars that tear flesh apart, our people vibrate and celebrate life with deep cultural roots, a life that only we Brazilians know.

The idea of ​​your Frankenstein bloc is the most sacred sentiment of the people who rejoice while criticizing the wickedness they committed against us with this wretched coup, which has saddened and killed millions of bodies, which cease to be flesh and become statistics of the crisis invented by manipulation.

So, darling, jump around joyfully in communion with other Brazilian carnival groups that are roaring their drums in joy and, at the same time, denouncing "Temer out," the scoundrel and destroyer!

I wanted to jump too, but my physical health limits me for now. But I'll jump there in my thoughts. You can believe that.

Dom Helder Câmara was right when he spoke on his radio program "A Look at the City," referring to Carnival: "Carnival is popular joy. I would even say, one of the rare joys that still remain for my beloved people. Is there much sin during Carnival? I don't know what weighs more before God: the excesses, here and there, committed by revelers, or the hypocrisy and lack of charity on the part of those who consider themselves better and holier for not participating in Carnival. Celebrate, my beloved people! My dearest people. It's true that on Ash Wednesday the struggle begins again, but at least a little dream has been brought into the harsh reality of life!"

Jump, Carminha, jump, my people. Protest against the coup, my Brazilian brothers and sisters.

Out with Temer!

Do Prophetic Letters Blog