A dear friend of mine who defines himself an atheist firmly says that we are and we are only earth that walks. He says that, scientifically, the earth is transformed into crops that are eaten and transformed into flesh, our flesh, in essence, into our bodies. How many “walking earths” go up and down the Holy Land every year? Pilgrims come from all over the world!
I often thought of these words when I travelled down the road that goes from Jerusalem to Bethlehem with the pilgrimage of the Indian Catholic community in the Holy Land on 11th December last, on the first stage of their path of preparation for Christmas. Joseph and Mary travelled down the same road two thousand years ago awaiting the birth of Jesus: they were also “walking earths” of Galilee. I was with them, an Italian in the midst of Indians, walking on an earth where none of us was born or grew up. We were different “walking earths” in a land that was not our own, just like the Three Magi, who also came from distant lands.
Father Jaya, the OFM chaplain who looks after this community, continued to repeat that ours was a path of physical, mental and spiritual preparation. I personally felt the physical preparation greatly on that first stage, especially the next day, when my legs began to remind me of the walk of the day before, much of which was in the rain and carrying all my photographic equipment. More than Jesus and Mary, I felt like the donkey who accompanied them. Before that immense mystery that was two thousand years old and which makes you raise your eyes to the leavens, I was thinking of the “earth that walks”. For a very brief moment, crossing the checkpoint, we were “walking earths” that united the two sides: Israel and Palestine.
These are the thoughts of a donkey that under its burden and the effort looks down at the earth, with its slow and clumsy gait.
The second stage of this community’s preparation was the pilgrimage from the Shepherds’ Field to the Grotto of the Nativity on 18th December. The shorter route allowed many more families to take part and there were almost a thousand of us. The shepherds, the poorest in society and the least considered, were the first to receive the Joyful Announcement from the Angels. It is impossible not to think about the many immigrants around me, about their lives and their difficulties. They have come here to work and to live in a social context which is often hostile to their faith. Some of them told me that they prayed in the bathrooms of the houses where they work as their employers do not want to see Christian symbols.
We, all the different “walking earths”, understood together, in this beloved yet difficult land, that what was about to happen in a few weeks’ time was above all something New for those in difficulty. It was as though someone said to us “Stand up, rise up from the earth”. I felt, like the donkey that I am, weighted down by effort, that I had to life my head and try to look upwards from the earth. The joyous presence of children was an immense message of hope. A different tomorrow is possible and these children are the sign of this, like the Child that would shortly be born.
Today I am here in Jaffa to celebrate Christmas Eve Mass with the Indian community. I am here with my family, my wife and my children with this community that now is also a little mine.
We are a long way from the centre of the event that this evening the whole world is looking at. All the spotlights are on Bethlehem. We are there in the church of St. Anthony in Jaffa: there are lots of workers, families and children, The same scene will be repeated in goodness knows how many churches all over the world. And yet it is a Christmas that is different from the others. There are more than fifteen hundred worshippers in front of the church, The celebration is outside the church as it cannot hold everybody. Many are dressed in traditional Indian clothes, often mothers holding their children, who are beautiful in these colourful robes. The donkey that is in me lifts its head from the ground and is looking around. Father Arogia Swami OFM is celebrating the Mass assisted by Father Praveen Dsovza OFM and, of course, Father Jaya. In the homily in Konkani, which Father Jaya translates for me, Father Arogia invites the assembly to a conversion of incarnation: just as the Word of God becomes flesh in the Child, we who hear the Word should also make it become alive in us, giving it flesh in our everyday lives.
It is impossible not to think of the toil of the many families here. We are celebrating the birth of a small and helpless child, who needs the care of his young mother. We are celebrating the birth of a child whose father often travelled for work and whose family had migrated to Egypt. We are here to remember that all these hardships have a meaning, the path has a direction. We are in Jaffa, which forms a whole with Tel Aviv, the leisure capital of Israel, the city that never sleeps, celebrating something in a completely different atmosphere. Here we are in a city where all these Indian workers like in the humblest places, their Nazareth.
We are here, very close to the sea which you can smell very clearly and which reminds me that just across this water there is my land, Italy. It is moving when the priests, towards the end of the celebration, take the child amongst the people who queue up to kiss it, to kiss the Emanuel. I look at the devotion of this multitude of people, which is expressed in their ritual gestures, with admiration. I am impressed by the plentiful Offertory and by the cutting of the “Christmas cake”. Father Jaya explains to me that today is the birthday of Jesus and all the children born in the Holy Land are blessed and the smallest, only a few weeks old, is with his mother in cutting the cake. At the end of the Mass a sort of auction for the poor will be held and the cake bought for 4000 NIS which will help the families in greatest hardship.
We keep a vigil, we are waiting for midnight, we are waiting for the light. No,. My dear friend, who define yourself an atheist, we are not only earth that walks, we are much more than that. What are we? Don’t ask me, I’m only a donkey! But I feel that there is something more, I can see it in these people. Midnight comes and once again the Saviour comes into the world and brings the Light.
It is exactly this Light that makes the donkey heavily raise its head and, admiringly, contemplates something that it cannot describe here, in these few lines. We are earth that walks, but our destiny is heaven! Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas.
Marco Gavasso
I often thought of these words when I travelled down the road that goes from Jerusalem to Bethlehem with the pilgrimage of the Indian Catholic community in the Holy Land on 11th December last, on the first stage of their path of preparation for Christmas. Joseph and Mary travelled down the same road two thousand years ago awaiting the birth of Jesus: they were also “walking earths” of Galilee. I was with them, an Italian in the midst of Indians, walking on an earth where none of us was born or grew up. We were different “walking earths” in a land that was not our own, just like the Three Magi, who also came from distant lands.
Father Jaya, the OFM chaplain who looks after this community, continued to repeat that ours was a path of physical, mental and spiritual preparation. I personally felt the physical preparation greatly on that first stage, especially the next day, when my legs began to remind me of the walk of the day before, much of which was in the rain and carrying all my photographic equipment. More than Jesus and Mary, I felt like the donkey who accompanied them. Before that immense mystery that was two thousand years old and which makes you raise your eyes to the leavens, I was thinking of the “earth that walks”. For a very brief moment, crossing the checkpoint, we were “walking earths” that united the two sides: Israel and Palestine.
These are the thoughts of a donkey that under its burden and the effort looks down at the earth, with its slow and clumsy gait.
The second stage of this community’s preparation was the pilgrimage from the Shepherds’ Field to the Grotto of the Nativity on 18th December. The shorter route allowed many more families to take part and there were almost a thousand of us. The shepherds, the poorest in society and the least considered, were the first to receive the Joyful Announcement from the Angels. It is impossible not to think about the many immigrants around me, about their lives and their difficulties. They have come here to work and to live in a social context which is often hostile to their faith. Some of them told me that they prayed in the bathrooms of the houses where they work as their employers do not want to see Christian symbols.
We, all the different “walking earths”, understood together, in this beloved yet difficult land, that what was about to happen in a few weeks’ time was above all something New for those in difficulty. It was as though someone said to us “Stand up, rise up from the earth”. I felt, like the donkey that I am, weighted down by effort, that I had to life my head and try to look upwards from the earth. The joyous presence of children was an immense message of hope. A different tomorrow is possible and these children are the sign of this, like the Child that would shortly be born.
Today I am here in Jaffa to celebrate Christmas Eve Mass with the Indian community. I am here with my family, my wife and my children with this community that now is also a little mine.
We are a long way from the centre of the event that this evening the whole world is looking at. All the spotlights are on Bethlehem. We are there in the church of St. Anthony in Jaffa: there are lots of workers, families and children, The same scene will be repeated in goodness knows how many churches all over the world. And yet it is a Christmas that is different from the others. There are more than fifteen hundred worshippers in front of the church, The celebration is outside the church as it cannot hold everybody. Many are dressed in traditional Indian clothes, often mothers holding their children, who are beautiful in these colourful robes. The donkey that is in me lifts its head from the ground and is looking around. Father Arogia Swami OFM is celebrating the Mass assisted by Father Praveen Dsovza OFM and, of course, Father Jaya. In the homily in Konkani, which Father Jaya translates for me, Father Arogia invites the assembly to a conversion of incarnation: just as the Word of God becomes flesh in the Child, we who hear the Word should also make it become alive in us, giving it flesh in our everyday lives.
It is impossible not to think of the toil of the many families here. We are celebrating the birth of a small and helpless child, who needs the care of his young mother. We are celebrating the birth of a child whose father often travelled for work and whose family had migrated to Egypt. We are here to remember that all these hardships have a meaning, the path has a direction. We are in Jaffa, which forms a whole with Tel Aviv, the leisure capital of Israel, the city that never sleeps, celebrating something in a completely different atmosphere. Here we are in a city where all these Indian workers like in the humblest places, their Nazareth.
We are here, very close to the sea which you can smell very clearly and which reminds me that just across this water there is my land, Italy. It is moving when the priests, towards the end of the celebration, take the child amongst the people who queue up to kiss it, to kiss the Emanuel. I look at the devotion of this multitude of people, which is expressed in their ritual gestures, with admiration. I am impressed by the plentiful Offertory and by the cutting of the “Christmas cake”. Father Jaya explains to me that today is the birthday of Jesus and all the children born in the Holy Land are blessed and the smallest, only a few weeks old, is with his mother in cutting the cake. At the end of the Mass a sort of auction for the poor will be held and the cake bought for 4000 NIS which will help the families in greatest hardship.
We keep a vigil, we are waiting for midnight, we are waiting for the light. No,. My dear friend, who define yourself an atheist, we are not only earth that walks, we are much more than that. What are we? Don’t ask me, I’m only a donkey! But I feel that there is something more, I can see it in these people. Midnight comes and once again the Saviour comes into the world and brings the Light.
It is exactly this Light that makes the donkey heavily raise its head and, admiringly, contemplates something that it cannot describe here, in these few lines. We are earth that walks, but our destiny is heaven! Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas.
Marco Gavasso