89: From watching to being present: one person's response to today's Holy Land

Episode 89: In Part 2 of the conversation with Mike, he explains how he decided to go from Liverpool to see the Holy Land for himself at a time when there were very few visitors. His experience is brought to life through his vivid descriptions, his reflections on the incarnation, and his reports of good conversations with Palestinian Christians, Jewish and Muslim people. Deciding not to 'look away,' Mike is finding ways for Christian people to support our brothers and sisters in the place where Jesus lived, died and rose from the dead.

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Holy Land Co-ordination and 50 Faces of the Holy Land

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Transcript

You're listening to All Kinds of Catholic with me, Theresa Alessandro.  My conversations with different Catholics will give you glimpses into some of the ways we're living our faith today.  Pope Leo, quoting St Augustine, reminds us, Let us live well and the times will be good.  We are the times.  I hope you feel encouraged and affirmed and sometimes challenged as I am in these conversations.  Join our podcast community, get news and background information about the conversations and share your thoughts if you want to. You can get the newsletter and each episode straight to your inbox by going to allkindsofcatholic.substack.com and clicking on subscribe. It's free. That web address is in the episode notes too and I'd love you to draw closer to our community. Thank you. 

Quick reminder listeners, check out our in-person gathering Saturday the 21st of March. It'll be really lovely to meet you in person and together with some of our listeners and some of our guests together, let's talk about these conversations in more detail. I'll be making a live episode of the podcast that you'll be able to be in the audience for. We'll have a simple lunch and we'll have some prayer together. It will be really lovely to meet you there. I know not everyone can make it to Leicester, but if you can, please do. And I hope the whole breadth of the church will be represented amongst the people that are able to be there on the day. There's a link in the episode notes with all the information. 

Listeners, thanks for joining part two of the conversation with Mike. And this time we're focussing on his experience of responding to the terrible situation in the Holy Land. Tell us about what drew you to wonder about the Holy Land.  It's very much in the news, the terrible situation there the last couple of years. But what is it that really spoke to you about that situation? 

I've always been interested in that part of the world. Fascinated by it as a kid, as a grown up as well. The more I get into it, the more you find out, the more you realise, not just about the political situation, but the history, the geography, the whole thing. And then October the 7th happened the terrible atrocities that occurred then. We may have been on holiday around about that time. And I was with my daughters, and I was watching this and we were looking and I was surprised by, my daughters knew a little bit more than I did about some of the situations already. Obviously I suspected things were going to be very bad and they were. It just got worse and worse and worse as I'm sure everybody who's listening knows. I don't need to get into the politics of it or what was horrific about it or what has been or still is. But what I did notice more and more was that I was finding it difficult to carry on engaging with it. And I got to a stage where I thought I'm going to either have to look away and never look back, never get back into this or try and make something positive, try and do something - just try and do something.  Some active action rather than passively watching this and getting more and more angry, upset, Because another thing that was in my mind, it was my children. And I was thinking, there may well come a day when either they or their children, my grandchildren will come to me and say, how much did you know about was going on there? And then the second question would be, and what did you do? What did you actually do? Because I remember thinking that with my own grandparents and I know exactly what they did during the war and it was brilliant. I don't want to draw too many analogies with that. It's not like that at all, but I remember thinking I'm spending all this time. It's getting increasingly negative. Then I went to a prayer meeting with my daughter. I went to a prayer meeting in the church of my childhood back down in Bellevue in Liverpool in Our Lady of the Assumption. Made a big, big impression and changed a lot. It was a positive evening. It was a good evening. We were praying for Gaza, but there was a couple of people there who were talking. It was an ecumenical service and they were having a service that was linked to 50 Faces of the Holy Land, which is run by the Holy Land Coordination. I’m sure some of your listeners will know about it. It was like people of every ethnicity, faith, et cetera, who lived within that part of the world. And I was just walking around the church after the meeting and looking at these and you realise just how  varied and how rich the culture is there. And it can be so easy to look at what was going on on the television and just think of it in stark and horrific terms really. And dehumanise the people in your mind because even though it was important, if all you're seeing is violence and all you're seeing is trauma, it seems the mind can only take so much and you start, it starts to lose some of its weight. That night, it was a positive and we were praying. A priest who is from the local area,  he also works in the Holy Land, with the Latin Patriarchate to Jerusalem. He was speaking and he'd been in Gaza. I was thinking, what could anybody do here? I also knew, and he was saying, that in the West Bank and in the rest of, in Israel proper, even, there were problems; problems for the Christian population, Palestinian Christians. And it's quite an interesting thing because it takes a little bit for me to get my head around. They've been there since like, since Pentecost. They didn't arrive; they weren't converted. Now their numbers have diminished so significantly due to a variety of reasons that it looks as though their presence within the West Bank, within Bethlehem, within East Jerusalem, it looks as though their presence is limited.  

It certainly is an amazing thing to get your head around that these are people whose ancestors maybe can be traced right back to the time of Jesus being in this place and  the early church. The apostles going out in fear to try and spread the gospel. It's painful to think about what life is like at the moment for Palestinian Christians.

I decided that it would be a good idea for people to return as pilgrims to  Bethlehem, and  Jerusalem and to Nazareth because one positive is in trying to  improve the economy for these communities that are suffering, Palestinian Christian communities that are leaving in large numbers and are finding life difficult. One of the reasons is because there are no pilgrims. For 2000 years, that's been a huge part of their raison d'etre. That's what they've done. They've helped pilgrims. They've kept the places open. They need people to return. And I think lots of people would agree who know the area; they are essential to any future just and lasting peace because they bridge a gap between communities. They are traditionally and forever nonviolent. But at the same time, they also provide a social capital that is far in excess of their numbers. Say 1 % of the West Bank, 1.5 % of the West Bank are Palestinian Christians. Whereas I was reading the other day it was 37 % of all education, social care, health is run by church-related organisations. A lot of them are Catholic, even in areas where there are no Catholics, even in areas where there are no Christians.

I just want to add in here listeners that a lot of what Mike is saying resonates really well with what our bishops were saying during January when they returned from the Holy Land, from this year's Holy Land Coordination visit. All the information about that is in a link in the episode notes too and also about the 50 Faces of the Holy Land exhibition that Mike mentioned. 

There's a group called the Salt of the Earth and I was thinking about salt and yeast and how even just a tiny amount of the body of Christ within that area still makes a huge difference both to the lives of the people but also to any future chance I believe of a just and lasting peace. Palestinian Christians are living proof that there can be cohabitation and there has been for 2,000 years. 

OK Mike, it sounds like we're getting to where your prayers and reflection actually spurred you on to do something now. 

I went. I thought, I'm going. It's one thing me saying this, it's another thing doing it. It was January the 14th, 2025. I arranged everything and I got there. And I arrived, the taxi from the airport dropped me off just outside the Lion's Gate of Jerusalem, which from there is the east side of the Old City. And from there I could see across to the Mount of Olives, across the Kidron Valley to the Mount of Olives on a starlit night. It was beautiful. And then I turned from there and entered the Old City through the Lion's Gate right onto the Via Dolorosa. And it was deserted. I was the only person there. It was an eerie experience. It was a strange and beautiful experience. In my lifetime, the first time I've ever been, first time in the old city, first time in the Middle East. And I was walking through and I found where I was meant to be staying, which was the Ecce Homo convent  and Pilgrim House on the Via Dolorosa. Big shout out to them because I cannot tell you just how brilliant it was to stay there. I knocked on the door, again, very deserted, the whole place. I was the only pilgrim in there.  And they showed me up to my room, which was on like a terrace on the top floor. And I walked out. And from there, I could see just across the whole of the city to the dome of the rock. It was beautiful. It was late by then, went to bed, woke up to the sound of the call to prayer. And then I spent time in Jerusalem. I was so lucky because there was nobody there. Many of the shops had just closed, but some of them were open. And so the people were keen, not just for me to spend money, obviously, but to talk, just to talk. And I did. With Jewish people, with Muslim people, with Christian people. And we talked and talked a lot, talking about a variety of things. Each day I would go to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, to the tomb where Christ was buried. In the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, part of it is Golgotha and part of it is  you go down and that's where the tomb is.  And from the historical and the archaeological evidence, it looks like that is definitely where it was. That's what it was. That in itself is such a fabulous experience, but also there is 2000 years of history there. You know, there are Armenians who live there. There are Greek Orthodox, there are Eastern Orthodox, there are Roman Catholics. There are descendants of the Crusaders and the Franciscans and everybody is there. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre itself is such a diverse and a little bit mad place, I have to say, but in the best possible way. It's so fascinating and interesting. 

I'm really appreciating, Mike, how you're describing this. I'm sure for listeners who have been lucky enough to visit the Holy Land, it's bringing back some memories for them too. And for those of us who haven't been, it's giving us a glimpse into some of the things we might experience.

I went to Bethlehem as well. And when I went to Bethlehem, I went more as a doctor than as a pilgrim, but I was a pilgrim as well. I met somebody who was willing to take me to the refugee camps in Bethlehem, to Aida and Al-Azhar. That was an experience. I wasn't really mentally prepared for that. I didn't know what I was really going into or what I was expecting. But the one thing which does stick in my mind is just the sheer number of kids. Just huge numbers of kids and it was dangerous and dark, a depressing place. But these kids were, as kids always are, were beautiful and fun. I was a novelty because you nobody was going anymore. And not many people go there anyway. And when I mentioned that I was from Liverpool, the first thing they would say is Mo Salah, Mo Salah because he's an Egyptian Arabic football player who's excellent. It was good. It was uplifting to be there as well as incredibly scary and worrying because I'm thinking what's going to happen to them. 

Absolutely. Absolutely. 

I went from there back into the town and to Manger Square. I was talking with people there in the Peace Centre restaurant on Manger Square. And I realised that I'd missed the last bus getting back to Jerusalem because I hadn't planned things at all well. And I didn't realise about the checkpoint. Even as a foreigner, it's easy to get through, but it's not just as easy as you would think. I can't get a taxi there because the taxis aren't allowed through. So I was thinking, What am going to do here? The manager of the restaurant got in touch with a friend of his who had Israeli plates on his car because he works in construction. And he took me back into Jerusalem. It'd been a big day. And I went across the Kidron Valley to Gethsemane at dusk. And I stayed there for a while in Gethsemane. And I was praying. Then as the moon came up, I went back across the Kidron through the Lions Gate again and walked down the Via Dolorosa again. And it was then that it struck me, This is it. This is where He was. This is the land of the Incarnation. This is where it started and it's a historical, actual event that occurred. Obviously I knew that anyway, but then to be there is, it makes it real in a different way. One other thing about the whole experience, which was probably the biggest thing of all was at the tomb itself. I had a lot of time where usually you can only go in and go out. But I was able to stay a bit longer. I was meditating on John's Gospel, the resurrection narrative, when Mary comes from Bethany, which is over the Mount of Olives, while it's still dark, and she goes to the tomb to the body of Jesus. First of all, I was thinking, she's a woman on her own who's seen this man who she loved tortured to death in the most horrible way, and she alone is going back. The men weren't. They were too scared, and I was thinking about what sort of person she must be. That was an amazing thing to me. I was talking to my daughters about Jesus and women in the Gospel. But she alone did it and it was dark and I was thinking, That's scary. I was thinking about that when she was at the tomb and I was thinking, the bit which always puzzled me, she didn't recognise Jesus when she saw Him. And she said, Please tell me where they’ve put Him. And He says one word to her and the word is her name. And then she says, Rabboni. Just that moment I can see in my mind, I can see what it's like. There's just that sheer joy and tears and it'd be amazing. Cause when I was at the tomb, I was thinking, Ah, yeah, because what will have happened is she was there in the dawn. She must have turned round as the sun was coming up and she must have seen him walking towards her. And it'd be difficult to tell, as well as the fact that he is also now this new creation. And it became even more real meditating on the people I've lost. He's risen. And so will you be. And you can live. What's the word. It's like, go live dangerously, love dangerously because the game is won. The game is already won for you. I mean, it may hurt. You may be in pain. Bad things may happen, but it's all done. It's finished. If they could only realise it. If you could only, if I could only realise it. I did for a moment. And it was - it's heavenly. It's brilliant. I wouldn't say that it's going to be everybody's experience of Jerusalem. I wouldn't say that it's going to be everybody's experience of the Holy Sepulchre.  And I think it was particularly just, I was in that mindset anyway, because I'd been meditating on it. But the Patriarch in Jerusalem, he calls it like the eighth sacrament and then people call it the fifth gospel. And I thought that this was hyperbole. I was thinking, No, actually it is, it is another aspect of the faith. A nephew of mine was pointing out to me all the saints, many of whom I admire, like Ignatius, who the first thing they did after  their conversion was to go to the Holy Land. 

I was thinking when I was reflecting on getting ready for this episode that I remember hearing something about the gift of the Holy Spirit, fortitude. A Dominican sister was saying that fortitude is acting with courage. And I was just thinking about it in relation to you wanting to do something. Even though this is such a difficult time, you went to the Holy Land, you visited the refugee camps around Bethlehem and you talked to people from all different backgrounds while you were there. You know, there's a great deal of courage in there and some action too, but that's not the end of it even. You know, you have a new plan for how you're going to take this work forward and we'll hear about that. And just to introduce that, I also was thinking about, I think it was a retired diplomat was saying one time about work for peace. And he said, The most important thing is don't try and wait until the conditions are right to build peace because the conditions will never be right. You have to just make a start. And I think there's something about the work that you're just beginning on that is about making a start, even though the conditions are not right. But you have nevertheless begun something. So tell us about that.

I can see from the outside, like, would look -  It wasn't at all dangerous. One of the things that I was thinking when I would get more frustrated, I would say, I'm going to volunteer and go to Gaza. I haven’t got the courage to do that. And also I haven't got the courage to actually face my kids and my wife. So I was thinking, Don't even think about that. That's courage. But the rest of it, there was no problem. It was safe and friendly. I got detained at the airport going over there, but when I say detained, people took my passport and I was questioned, not in any unfriendly manner. And then when I was there, I was amazed at just how friendly and safe and really cheerful to see me, the people were. People of all different ethnicities there. I spent time with Meir Shirim, which is the Orthodox Jewish area where people speak Yiddish and they were talking to me. It was such a fascinating thing. But what you mentioned there was like, it's the idea of taking action because once you stagnate into a mindset of negativity, there's some sort of action necessary to get out of it. The other thing that dawned on me and has dawned on me before is this: the thing which makes Christianity different from any other religion is presence. It's the incarnation. It's the physical. He came to us. We should understand, of all people, should understand the importance  of being present, the importance of physical presence, of actually going and being and standing with and eating with and talking with and praying with somebody who is, who needs you. Those people, they need us.  They don't ever tire of saying, we need you. We need you to come back. Without you, we will not be able to survive. If anywhere needs the body of Christ, if anybody needs physical manifestation of Christ's body - there probably are other places, but this is the one which is so obvious to my mind. This is double irony of it is also the land where Christ is born and lived and died and rose from the dead and they need us to be there with them.

I can hear strong emotions there, Mike, linked to your faith in Jesus and  those emotions are well placed in this situation. But again, you found a way for other people to become involved in taking action. So tell us a bit about that now. 

My own nephew is part of this whole thing with me. He is going in two weeks. He's going to Bethlehem, God willing, with a group from 12 Pilgrims Tours who very kindly have paid for a familiarisation visit for him. What we're trying to do is completely non-political. We're trying to encourage and facilitate people who have an idea of wanting to go back or go for the first time to the Holy Land, to Israel, Palestine, enabling them to do it. First of all, showing that one, it can be done, two, it can be safe, and three, we can share the contacts, the resources and the people that we've met and the people that we know, including where to go, who to speak to. But also now we've got a few companies who are going and they're very keen to be involved with us. So what started off as like a little group of people here in Liverpool to arrange a pilgrimage and go there ourselves. Now, yeah, there's a big appetite for it. And we're online, you know, on Facebook, social media, website.  We're getting a directory of pilgrimages, which are leaving from within 26, where it can be like a directory for them. So that people who would like to go, they can go through that and find out one which, which is going from their area, which is in their price range. And there'll be contacts where they can get in touch. If you want to go on your own, or if you want to go with a group, we can put you in touch with the Holy Land Trust or various other people within Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and beyond. Who will also be able to help and be able to organise a group visit for you. Even so, some people can't afford to go and some people can't go for a variety of reasons. We now have a forum where people from those communities and people from the UK interact, can mix with each other, can talk. For example, the first Mass of Christmas in the Basilica of the Nativity, lots of people from here, we got on the livestream as well as the people who were in Bethlehem who were already there. They celebrated Mass together. There's more of that because this livestream from the Christian Media Center in Jerusalem, they livestream services all the time. And we're putting them up on our website, on Facebook, so that people can engage. For the people there who are struggling financially, there's fundraising that we can do, but even more so, they want to be able to show people around their town. And so now they can do it virtually. We've arranged it so they can do like a virtual pilgrimage. A group of people will sign up and then they will take them around and livestream, show them the sights, show them the whole history and beauty which is that part of the world. Finally, younger people who are interested. There's so many people I've spoken to now within Israel, Palestine, from the Christian communities and from other communities. Young people who say, We feel smothered here; we feel trapped here; we can’t even leave our town; we can't speak to anybody. We can talk, we can meet, we can go online. They do already through TikTok, et cetera, to actually meet and then to one day to meet in the flesh is what people are talking to me about and wanting to do. And I was thinking this would be a magnificent thing. We'd love to do it. We're trying to increase the amount of people who are interested, but also speak to the right groups, find out youth groups here in the UK. There's a group, as I mentioned in, in Northern West Bank called Salt of the Earth Initiative. In that part of the West Bank now there's only, there's a few villages and there's 300 Christians left. And one group of people, they try to keep that community going and keep the young people from emigrating so that they can continue living there. And younger people in this country who would be interested just to interact and find out more about each other's lives. It's such a humanising thing. The situation needs to be better, but it's still possible. It's about connection. It's about encounter. People from this country, Christians, Catholics, have a part to play.

I think hearing about the fruits of your encounter with people when you went to the Holy Land, I can hear such a lot of thinking and thinking and talking with your nephew and talking with other people and trying to find how to turn your experience into something that can help other people to act as well. It's lovely to be hearing about the early stages of that and see that all coming together and beginning to turn into something really wonderful. So thank you for sharing that. I'll put links to the Pilgrims of Hope website where people can get in touch because I think you will have given people such a lot to think about. And I think it's really helpful when people are overwhelmed by the awfulness of what has been happening there for so long, back to October the 7th and back further than that, for so long that it's easy to feel, as you were saying at the beginning, to feel  like you're going to have to turn away or just not do anything. And you've given people lots of ideas for ways we can do something as Christians to support the people in the Holy Land and to be part of their journey. 

I was at a meeting in Southport and a meeting in Liverpool where a pastor from Bethlehem came to talk to the people about the situation there, just to raise awareness. Different people said, put their hands up and said, But what can we actually do? And his answer was the same, Come and see. Where was Christ, he said, come and see. But also then, Go and tell. Go back to where you are and tell people the truth. It's life-changing for us, for them.

Thank you, Mike. I still think it's courageous action that you have taken that you're now trying to encourage other people to get involved in, to make a difference in a really difficult situation and to support other Christians and other people in a difficult place in the world today. So I think it's given me a lot of hope, actually. It's lifted my spirits hearing you speak about this, encouraging us to think practically and to feel able to take some action. So thank you very much for spending some time with us. 

Great. Well, thank you. 

Listeners, after this conversation with Mike, I was inspired to invite a guest for next week who has a much longer experience with the Holy Land and with Christians who suffer persecution in other parts of the world. So next week, John from Aid to the Church in Need is going to be our guest. I think it will be an interesting contrast to hear from somebody who has been managing his emotions around terrible situations Christian people are in, for a long time. So I hope you'll find that conversation a good one too. 

Thanks so much for joining me on All Kinds of Catholic this time.  I hope today's conversation has resonated with you.  A new episode is released each Wednesday and you can follow All Kinds of Catholic on the usual podcast platforms.  Rate and review to help others find it. You can also follow us on social media @KindsofCatholic. And remember if you connect with us on Substack, you can comment on episodes and share your thoughts and be part of the dialogue there.  Until the next time.