Harmony and solidarity

The 'Thinking Anew' column in today's Irish Times.

Michael Commane

This day last week the first British European Space Agency astronaut, Tim Peake returned to earth, parachuting out of the skies over Kazakhstan. As he and his two colleagues were being escorted away from the capsule a young woman walked beside him and there stitched on to her shirt was a white, blue and red tricolour, the flag of the Russian Federation. A lovely young woman with a great smile. She was there assisting Tim in his first traumatic moments back on earth.

Looking at the group of people, smiling, so delighted with the success of the mission and from many countries, including the US, the Russian Federation and Britain, honestly brought goose pimples to my skin. Cosmonauts and astronauts returning to earth in a Soyuz capsule must be a remarkable moment of human genius working in cooperation, throwing away all the differences that so often cause so much hatred and evil in the world.

It's difficult to equate that cooperation in far-off Kazakhstan with Nato manoeuvres that are currently taking place in Poland.

On that same day Gerry Moriarty in this newspaper reported the story of the soccer-loving Turner family from Northern Ireland, attending all the matches of both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in the current European Soccer Championships. Their late father, Canon Edgar Turner (96), had bought tickets for the Euros but unfortunately died some weeks ago. Moriarty described him as a man, "who bequeathed his love of soccer to his two children and also a concept of the game as unifying and all-embracing, and a way to experience new countries and cultures.”

The day before the Soyuz landing, the leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron and Labour's leader, Jeremy Corbyn stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the Yorkshire town of Birstall to honour the memory of Labour MP Jo Cox, who had been savagely murdered the previous day. Jo Cox in her short time as an MP had made it quite clear that working together in harmony and solidarity is the only way to solve our problems.

Senior Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell, writing in 'The Daily Telegraph' referred to her as "a force of nature, a five-foot-bundle of Yorkshire grit and determination, absolutely committed to helping other people".

"I first met her shortly after she came into the House of Commons for the first time last year. She came to see me to talk about international development, the issue she’d done so much work on.

"She said she wanted to set up a new parliamentary group to talk about Syria and the appalling situation there.

"What was so striking about that was that here was a newly-elected Labour MP who had so little time for the petty aspects of party-political life of Westminster.

"She was fearless, utterly fearless. Last year, we went to see the Russian ambassador in London, to give him a rollicking about the terrible way his country has behaved in Syria.

"Jo got the better of him: it was her mixture of charm and steel. Her great passion in politics was helping the poorest people in the world."

In tomorrow's Gospel Luke (9: 51 - 62) tells us how Jesus was not welcome in a Samaritan village because he was on his way to Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John hear this they say: 

"Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to reduce them to ashes? Jesus turned and rebuked them..."

Do we ever learn? And yet people like Jo Cox, those scenes on the ground in Kazakhstan, should surely prompt us to listen to the words of Jesus. The flag of the Russian Federation on that young woman, and watching David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn stand side-by-side in the midst of such wrong-doing are images that will stay with me forever.