Coming down the steps on a September day in 1979, John Paul went down on his knees and kissed the ground at Dublin airport. It was a powerful moment of witness. In this gesture, he recognised the land, more than that, he bowed to the sacredness of the land he had chosen to visit. Other than a visit to Poland, it was his first visit outside Rome and was to be the first of many to countries all over the world. This gesture of kissing the ground remained a central part of all his visits. Indeed, there is footage of him, feeble now and tired and unable to kneel on the ground, being brought a bowl of earth that he might kiss it and acknowledge, as he did in Dublin that day, the soil beneath our feet.
As a child I remember attending a funeral in Connemara. I don’t remember much of the ceremony, but I have a clear recollection of the burial. The grave was filled in while we were still there and the Rosary was prayed, in Irish I imagine. When the grave was filled, the men who had taken turns filling it in, flattened the surface and then rolled out a long “sod” of grass. It was, for all the world, like a roll of carpet and they rolled it back into place over the filled in grave, patted it down and left it, as they had found it. Though young, it’s a vivid memory for me and I think I understood it for what it was, a sign of reverence of the earth. There was something said that when a man’s life is over, he should leave the world as he found it, no worse because of his presence. Respect.
Moses, in today’s reading, is told to take off his shoes for the ground on which he walks is “holy ground”. Respect.
Reflecting again on Trócaire’s Lenten Campaign this year, we are reminded of land-rights. Grass is grass and earth is earth wherever it is found, and rights are rights. There remains much injustice in our world. Much of Trócaire’s work seems to be linked with being on the side of right rather than might. The people working for Trócaire abroad are, in most cases, local people who have no stomach for oppression and want to make a difference in their own place. Respect.
Visiting Honduras a few years ago, I had the chance to witness some of this work and was surprised because prior to that, I thought of Trócaire’s workers in terms of being Irish Missionaries of sorts. I felt I would be meeting Irish men and women, miles away from home, working in difficult and dangerous situations. While I did meet some, what I learned was that Trócaire seeks to connect with like-minded people, native to the countries to which it brings aid, because these are the people who know the story best. Imagine a problem in Ireland and people coming from another country to fix that problem for us, only to return to their own country when the work was done. Yes, there might be a “fix” but the presence of the worker, the one who knows best the story, is central and crucial. The work done by Trócaire here in Ireland and abroad is crucial and the ability of people on our “ground” to recognise those best placed to make a difference is a key factor in the work being done and supported by us at parish level.
When John Paul kissed the ground of Ireland, he made a statement around respect. He knew that he would be here for a limited amount of time but wanted the people of Ireland, like Moses, to recognise the holiness of the ground on which they walked and, like the man buried in Connemara, to leave the world a better place, but in no way damaged, because we lived.
Respect!