Antônio Gomes Da Silva was born in Ceará, on April 30th of 1885, where he married Ms. Maria Nazaré and had five children. After living in Belém do Pará he moved in 1921 to Rio Branco -- Acre, where he worked in the rubber plantation market and later on in the cultivation of the land.

Becoming a widower he married again, this time with Dona Maria, having of this marriage another four children. He met Mestre Raimundo Irineu Serra in 1938, receiving from him a great benefit for his shaky health. Antônio Gomes joined the doctrine together with his whole family.

As narrates Jairo Carioca's personal account:

Brazil was still under the dictatorship regime of Getúlio Vargas. In the state of Acre ships still would bring entire families of north easterners that were running away from the drought, seeking a better quality of life in the region. “In one of those ships, narrates Ms. Zulmira Gomes, daddy brought us here. We suffered a lot during the ship journey until here but we arrived with faith in God. Here, after a wile, daddy was very sick, feeling a very strong mind perturbation and I was tired to look all around on the search for his cure. *Compadre Zé das Neves asked if I didn’t know the session of a tall black guy that was doing healings in Vila Ivonete. I said no. He insisted until he convinced me to go there. I presented myself to Mestre, he looked at the state of my father and made an appointment for the next Wednesday as the beginning of his healing work. But he walked out of there better at the same day (she smiles), and with three healing sessions he was cured. Then my father said he would never abandon that (spiritual) work,” narrates Ms. Zulmira Gomes.

In this way the Gomes family presented themselves to the session of Raimundo Irineu Serra. This story Ms. Zulmira liked a lot to narrate. Sometimes, whenever I would go visit her in *Alto Santo, I would get impressed with her memory capability. On a very advanced age and well tired of the suffering routine lived until then, Ms Zulmira would never get tired to speak of the past. With a dry branch in hand (to cast away flies), always that a newcomer would arrive in Alto Santo, there she was narrating the unforgettable moments lived by Mestre’s side.

She narrates the end of the first formation cycle of the doctrine. Mestre Irineu, which was already giving the first steps in the institutionalization of his works, relied on a considerable group of followers. Of the new family, besides Antônio Gomes da Silva, the patriarch, his children Leôncio Gomes, Raimundo Gomes, Adália Gomes, José Gomes and Ms. Zulmira Gomes also started to attend the sessions. Ms. Zulmira, married to Mr. Sebastião Goncalves, took his children Raimundo Gonçalves, João Gomes, Benedita Gomes, Eloisa Gomes, and Peregrina Gomes to the mission. This family strengthened the edification of the doctrine like Antônio Gomes himself who started to receive a rich and instructive hinário where he narrates: “Mestre worked, was seeing himself almost alone, and asked of Jesus Christ to open his path."
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*compadre - a colloquial way of saying ‘God Father’.
*Alto Santo - Holy Summit - due to the land that was higher then the surrounding area. A popular name given to the last headquarters of Mestre Irineu’s mission. This name was incorporated later in time in face of the healings carried out in the fraternity.

His son, Leôncio Gomes, was the one who replaced Mestre Irineu in the direction of the works, after his passage, in 1971. Antônio Gomes Da Silva died in August 14th of 1946.

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Mr. Antônio Gomes was the brother who first received a mazurka in the doctrine. He (Antônio Gomes) was who taught the brothers and sisters to dance the mazurkas that were being received by others. Antônio Gomes also was who, in the eve of the works, went to the houses of the brothers and sisters who had an edge with one another, asking for peace in between them. He had the incumbency of appeasing the brothers and sisters who were with conjugal problems, in other words, he was known at that time as the messenger of peace; Divine Love.

Mrs. Adália Gomes, wife of Mr. Francisco Grangeiro, since the age of eight years old received from her father, Antônio Gomes, the task of caretaking his hinário, today known as “Divine Love”. Mrs. Adália reminds of the works since when they were brought by Mestre Irineu from Brasiléia to Vila Ivonete.

Guido Carioca

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