October 28, 2024
The first and only time I went to northern Brazil was for a field trip to the city of Salvador, in the state of Bahia, with other students from the Brazil Middlebury Schools Abroad program. It was around noon, and the sun burned everyone and everything in its path. I was immensely grateful to be on this trip but even more grateful for any breeze that provided momentary relief from the heat. As I looked toward the horizon, I could see the warmth of the air. We reached our stop on top of a hill overlooking the city. A grand basilica stood before us, and its gates adorned with thousands, if not millions, of colorful ribbons swaying in the wind.
Immediately, I was overcome with curiosity, and to my luck, our local van driver handed each of us a ribbon in our favorite color. He explained that the ribbons are called “Fitas do Senhor do Bonfim” and everyone who visits ties their fita around the gate and makes three knots. One representing one wish. He continued telling us that these wishes will only come true once the fita naturally wears away and falls off on its own. They are symbols of good luck and faith, and can be found all over Brazil, but this is the place, the Igreja Nosso Senhor do Bonfim, also known as the Church of our Lord of the Good End, is where the tradition was born.
The fitas embodied what Salvador meant to me. To understand this, one must recognize that Salvador is not just another Brazilian city. It is commonly referred to as the alma do Brasil, or the soul of Brazil. This is completely true, it is a spiritual center, and a place where everyone is welcoming and warm. A place where the past never truly disappears because Salvador was the first capital of colonial Brazil, where Portuguese colonizers built an empire with millions of enslaved Africans. This made it the hub of Afro-Brazilian culture, it built a city of dual faith, Catholicism and Candomblé.
Candomblé and its deities, called orixás, are felt all throughout the city. This religion that is African, Brazilian, Catholic but distinctly its own is embodied at the Church of Senhor do Bonfim. Even though it is a Catholic shrine, the people of Salvador made it their own, merging its meaning with that of Oxalá, the Candomblé orixá of wisdom and peace. Allowing people to leave their wishes in the hands of this faith that is shaped by resistance, survival, and the forced meeting of two worlds.
We were able to enter the church, and even though we were a group of twelve, I entered the colorful gates of the Basílica do Senhor do Bonfim alone. I stepped past the entrance and I let the weight of history settle over me. In Brazil, a majority Catholic country, I already had felt as though I had been practicing this religion more than in the United States but in an unconventional way. I had visited churches and genuinely prayed, but this time something was different. I really took my time to breathe in the experience, noticing the people gathered, the meaning of this place for all of Brazil, and what it represented. In a literal way, I felt as light as a feather when I exited.
When I went outside, I struck up a conversation with our van driver, a local of Salvador. I asked him if any popes had ever visited this church due to the power I felt from this church as I could actually feel its significance. To my surprise, he spoke of Pope John Paul II. Not only the fact that he had visited but that he had the honor to have been in his presence twice. Once as a child and again years later, as his bodyguard. He described how, despite everyone’s warnings, the Pope insisted on visiting Salvador’s favelas, leaving his car to interact with the real people of Brazil. Everyone had advised him not to go and he went anyway.
This place and story completely revolutionized my feelings of spiritual belonging. I had grown up hearing John Paul II’s name spoken with reverence in my own home. In Polish culture, since the Pope is Polish, he is more than just a religious figure because he is a presence that shaped the country’s history. My parents came of age beneath his influence, looking to him as a guiding light. My father saw him in his hometown, and even when my parents left Poland, they carried his spiritual presence with them. When my parents were in Israel, they both saw him for the last time. They prayed for guidance, for protection, for assurance that the path they had chosen was the right one. And that path led to me.
So, as I reentered this church, being the first of my ancestors to ever step foot in South America, I felt at peace as these thoughts settled over me. I felt as though I was floating along the correct path and as I closed my eyes it was clear to me that I had never been in a place where faith felt so tangible. It was almost like a movement, a rhythm, like unconditional love. It was peace, and ever since I visited that sacred space, I have been trying to discover what is my own faith, and what is it that I believe.
Before leaving, I approached the gate. I went to the metal bars that are covered in thousands of ribbons and I understood the weight of each wish that was tied to the gate before I tied my own. I know that something of this place, this moment, will never truly leave me. I wrapped my red fita around the entrance, and I took a few moments to make sure each knot held a wish that was greater than myself. And when I left Salvador, I left with three wishes and a newfound sense of spirituality. Now, I only await for my fita to slip away.
This video is from a beach in Rio Vermelho, Salvador, where people of the Candomblé faith participate in a ceremony for Iemanjá, the goddess of water.
