Last week, during the Confirmation ceremony at the Church of São José da Lagoa, while Clara Magalhães sang alongside her catechists, I found myself thinking about the difference between mission and vocation. Missions start and end. The task is accomplished, the cycle closes, everyone goes their own way. Vocation, no. A vocation is that which insists, which remains, even when everything around it changes — or collapses.
Clara has just celebrated her 50th anniversary as a catechist. A golden jubilee which talks much less about religion and much more about civics, citizenship, commitment to others. Of a faith that is practiced every day, in big little gestures, in generous everyday details that support a community from within. The first class she gave was when she was only 9 years old and still living with her parents, in São Paulo. Her mother, the unforgettable Maricy Trussardi, recognized in the young girl (third of her 10 children) a unique ability to transmit Christian teachings. The location was an abandoned train car, which was on the grounds of a daycare he looked after. Maricy. Clara never got off that train again. Over the course of this half-century, it is estimated that more than 10,000 people have taken his courses to prepare to receive the sacraments of first communion and confirmation.
What makes your classes so special? Your life outside of them. Consistency with what you teach. Almost every day, Clara can be seen in hospitals visiting the sick, at vigils to console the bereaved, in institutions to detect and resolve needs. For example, for almost 30 years she has been vice-president and teacher of Casa da Criança, an organization that serves 330 minors, who call her Tia Clarinha. Its presence cries out precisely at times when the world usually disappears. Sometimes I even suspect that there can only be one Clara: either Maricy hid the fact that she was having triplets, or she created clones generated by spiritual intelligence. In addition to her nine brothers, two children, grandchildren, 300 nephews and perhaps 8,976 godchildren spread around the world, she still works at Agnus Dei, a brand that is half jewelry, half religious goods store, but which functions in practice as an informal spiritual office in Rio de Janeiro. You enter as a customer and leave as a pilgrim.
Maricy said she chose the name Clara because she believed she would bring light to the world during difficult times. Life tried to test the prophecy early on: she married very young, moved to Rio and faced the suicide of her sister-in-law and father-in-law, in addition to the horse riding accident that left her husband, businessman Thomaz Magalhães, paraplegic, while her children were still young. Thanks to his wife’s dedication (and stubbornness), the businessman not only rediscovered his will to live, but also reinvented himself as an athlete and speaker, turning the experience into a platform to advocate for inclusion and the rights of people with disabilities. “I never asked myself ‘why me?’” Clara once said. “But ‘what good is that for me?'”.
The other day a friend caught my attention: “Have you noticed that the less a person does in life, the less time he has? Idle people don’t have time for anything.” Clara obviously has time for everything. Never arrive late. He is always available. With everything she has experienced, she keeps a firm and open smile, beautiful, happy, enthusiastic. It is a force of nature – and what is nature, after all, if not the best everyday translation of God? During these 50 years, she chose the best catechesis: that of example.
In honor of all the women who, in all faiths and places of prayer – temples, churches, terreiros, synagogues – make their beliefs a lesson in citizenship, I have chosen to tell the story of this Clara in particular. Because when it shines a light in someone’s life, it’s like lighting up a little Christmas for the whole year.
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