Luiz Cláudio da Silva (photo) is a volunteer worker at the Dr Bezerra de Menezes Spiritist Centre in his hometown, Santo André, in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. He is very well known in the Spiritist Movement for his efforts towards the dissemination of the Gospel in the Home, having attended many events focusing on that cause, as he explains in the following interview. 

How did you become a Spiritist? 

I was born into a Spiritist family. 

Which aspect of Spiritism strikes you the most?

It’s the fact that it brings information and enlightenment to so many people without the aim of converting them. That gives people freedom to choose the pathway they want to follow, explaining clearly that they will be responsible for the consequences of their acts. 

Where does your passion for the Gospel in the Home come from? Could you sum up for us the Gospel in the Home and in the Heart Campaign.

My specific interest in the Gospel in the Home began in 1994, when I realised that there was no project to disseminate it in many events that I had taken part of. After careful research, and always counting with the help of the Spiritual Benefactors, I began to work on ways to prepare a campaign to disseminate the Gospel in the Home, ensuring the respect to the core values and principles of Spiritism. My first opportunity to speak about the project was during a regional Spiritist meeting in the city of Ribeirão Preto in 2008. I was then invited to lead the project across the state of São Paulo. I worked for ten years along with José Luiz Antônio Balieiro, who was then the president of the state Spiritist body. We suspended some of our activities during the coronavirus pandemic, but carried on with the talks and interviews through live internet broadcasts. 

The Gospel in the Home is not only about a weekly family meeting. It opens the door for the consideration of other issues, such as spiritual attachment and mediumship in childhood. What would you like to say about that?

Our project, through the Gospel in the Home and in the Heart campaign, also encourages the participation of children and young people in the weekly family meetings. I think Spiritist Centres should focus a bit more on that aspect, by advising parents on how to engage their children in the Gospel in the Home, through children's books etc. Children must take part in the Gospel in the Home before and after their birth. Children need that weekly meeting in the family, followed by the youth groups at Spiritist Centres, healing sessions, the energised water and, more than anything, the love of their parents. That is the best gift any child wants from their parents. 
An obvious and yet important question: what is the importance of doing the Gospel in the Home?

A weekly family meeting is aimed at studying the Spiritist Teaching in the light of the Gospel of Christ and under the moral protection of prayer. If we proceed that way, we will be opening the doors of our hearts and our homes to the Spiritual Benefactors, so they are able to enter and provide much needed assistance to all of us.     
What is the main benefit you have obtained from this project? 

The main benefit has certainly been the joy of hearing the accounts of so many people about how the atmosphere in their homes changed after they began doing the Gospel in the Home and in the Heart. That’s priceless. The reward is much bigger than the upsets caused by all the obstacles that we have found along the way and so many ‘no’s’ that we've heard. It’s important to stress that the Gospel must be implemented not only in our homes, but also in our hearts. 

What is your best memory from all these years working on this project?

Once I was working in the dissemination of the Gospel in the Home and in the Heart behind a stand where several books were displayed, next to banners. The books contained general guidelines and there were also children’s books there. A mother came to me then and asked me what she needed to do in order to do the Gospel in the Home with a 19-month child. We had a chat and then I took her to another stand of a children’s book publisher, which had released books written for children of exactly that age. It was a moment of joy and I confess I struggled to hide my emotions. At that moment I realised that the Gospel in the Home and in the Heart is much more important than we imagine.