During his homily for the feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour in Kerċem, Gozo Bishop Mario Grech highlighted the Biblical metaphor of being barefoot.
Interpreted in the modern sense, being barefoot refers to individuals suffering from ruined relationships, to parish or feast groups that disregard ecclesiastical guidelines, to communities or societies that exclude God, to the greed of multinationals, to financial empires that subsist by trampling on the weakest and to supranational institutions with all their illusions of supervision and safeguarding.
In the prophetic vision of Mgr Grech, solutions without God are temporary, limited and fallible; only the merciful face of the Son moulded in flesh by the Virgin Mary can offer a permanent and authentic healing therapy for the full recovery of self and society, thus bringing to full circle all the wisdom expressed in Psalm 127:
“Unless the Lord builds the house, they labour in vain who build it. Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman keeps awake in vain.”