Our Lady of Lourdes and African refugees in Morocco

The Mother of the Poor accompanies those who cross the desert with faith in the heart

In the lands of northern Morocco, a few tens of kilometres from Europe, thousands of men, women and children from sub-Saharan Africa are sometimes waiting for months or years to follow their path to the European continent. Among them, a considerable part are devoted Catholics who carry with them, along with their few belongings, a deep faith and a particular devotion to the Virgin Mary. Our Lady of Lourdes occupies in their hearts a very special place: it is the Mother who listens to those who suffer, who promised Bernadette Soubirous that she would make her soul happy - not in this world, but in the other - who never abandons her who invokes her on the dark night of the journey.

The drama of migration: an exodus on the threshold of Europe

Morocco occupies a unique geographical position: it is at the same time the westernmost end of the Arab world and the southern bank of the Strait of Gibraltar, the closest gateway to the European continent from sub-Saharan Africa. This position makes it an inescapable transit country for hundreds of thousands of people who, fleeing extreme poverty, violence, persecution or lack of future, are taking the long way to Europe.

The Nador region, in the north-east of Morocco, next to the fence that separates Morocco from the Spanish autonomous city of Melilla, concentrates an important part of this presence. The forests near the fence have for years housed improvised camps where people of dozens of nationalities live together, in conditions of extreme precariousness, exposed to cold, violence and uncertainty. NGOs working in the area - including Caritas Morocco and Jesuit organizations - have extensively documented this reality.

The typical route of these migrants is extremely long and dangerous: they cross the Sahel, cross the Sahara desert, cross Libya or Algeria and arrive in Morocco after months, sometimes years, on a journey. Many have lost partners on the way. Many arrive with deep physical and psychological wounds. And yet many come also with the faith intact or even strengthened by the test.

The faith that accompanies: the sub-Saharan Catholics in Morocco

The Christian presence in Morocco is historically reduced but significant. The Catholic Church in Morocco - organized in the Archdiocese of Rabat and the Diocese of Tangier - has been composed for decades mainly of resident Europeans, diplomats and expatriate workers. However, in recent decades the situation has changed significantly: today, a considerable part of the Catholics living in Morocco are sub-Saharan migrants, many of them in an irregular situation, who form vibrant and fervent communities in the churches of large cities.

The Congolese, Nigerians, Cameroonian, Marcel and Guineans who arrive in Morocco bring with them a deeply rooted religious tradition. Catholicism in sub-Saharan Africa has its own characteristics: a lush liturgy, an intense Marian devotion, a community prayer that does not conceive of silence. When these communities meet in the parishes of Rabat, Casablanca or Tangier, or when they celebrate Mass in improvised spaces near the camps, they bring with them all that spiritual wealth.

The pastoral care of migrants has been taken with dedication by the Jesuits present in Morocco, the Missionaries of Charity and Caritas Morocco. These ecclesial agents not only provide material assistance - food, clothing, health care, legal orientation - but also spiritually accompany these communities, celebrate the sacraments, organize moments of prayer and catechesis. The Eucharist and the Rosary are the two great pillars of the spiritual life of these communities in transit.

Our Lady of Lourdes: the advocation that crosses the Mediterranean

Among the most venerated Marian claims by African migrants in Morocco, Our Lady of Lourdes occupies a place of honor. The reason is, in part, historical: the evangelization of sub-Saharan Africa was largely carried out by French and Belgian missionaries from the 19th and early 20th centuries, who transmitted to the new Christian communities the Lourdesian devotion, then in full rise in Europe. Thus, generations of African Catholics have grown up with the image of the Grotto of Massabielle, miraculous water and the message of the Immaculate.

But there is also a deeper reason, which has to do with Lourdes' own message. Bernadette Soubirous was a poor, humble family girl who lived in precarious conditions in the city of Lourdes. The Virgin did not appear to the powerful or the enlightened: she appeared to the little ones. This detail does not go unnoticed to African migrants, who find in Lourdes a mirror of their own situation: they too are the small, the ignored, the ones that society does not see. And the Mother speaks to them too.

The pilgrimages from Africa to Lourdes are, in normal times, numerous and fervent. The dioceses of countries such as Nigeria, Congo, Cameroon, Senegal or Côte d'Ivoire organize groups of pilgrims who travel to the Pyrenees each year. For migrants trapped in Morocco, this physical pilgrimage is impossible; but the inner pilgrimage, that of the soul that turns to the Mother, is always within reach.

Lourdes' message on the night of migration

The apparitions of Our Lady from Lourdes to Bernadette Soubirous between February 11 and July 16, 1858 conveyed a simple message but of an inexhaustible depth: penance, prayer, care for the sick and the poor. "Do penance, go drink to the fountain and wash in it," the Lady said. In the source that sprang at Bernadette's feet, the Church has since seen a symbol of grace that purifies and heals.

For migrants waiting in the camps in northern Morocco, each of these elements of the Lourdes message acquires a particular resonance. Penance not as punishment, but as a voluntary offer of one's own suffering to God: and they already suffer, already carry a very heavy cross. Prayer as the only certainty when everything else fails. The water of the source as a symbol of life and hope: the water that is so scarce in the desert, the water that gives life. And the care of the sick: in the camps, the most vulnerable - children, pregnant women, the wounded - are cared for by their own companions with a generosity that speaks of humanity intact despite everything.

The Virgin's promise to Bernadette - "I will not make you happy in this world, but in the other" - is, paradoxically, one of the most comforting for those who have lost much in this world. It is not a promise to ignore pain; it is a promise that takes it seriously and transcends it. Many migrants have found in this sentence the spiritual support that has allowed them to continue.

Caritas and ecclesial organizations: concrete presence with the poorest

The Church in Morocco is not present only in the cathedrals and parishes of the great cities. Through Caritas Morocco and the religious congregations working in the country, the Church has also reached the margins, the camps, the improvised reception centres. This presence is discreet - the religious situation in the country requires it - but it is constant and committed.

Caritas Morocco, in coordination with Caritas international, has developed programmes to assist migrants, including food and clothing distribution, basic medical assistance, legal guidance on regularization and asylum applications processes, and psychosocial support. The Jesuits, with a long tradition of working with refugees through the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), have been present in Morocco, accompanying these communities.

The Missionaries of Charity, founded by Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, have also extended their mission to some points in Morocco, following their particular charism of presence with "the poorest among the poor." Marian devotion is the thread that connects all these ecclesial agents to the communities of migrants: the Virgin Mary, the mother of the poor and suffering, is the meeting point around which communion is built.

The Virgin Mary: Mother of those who pilgrim

The Christian tradition has always seen the pilgrim in Mary par excellence. She herself was taken refuge: with Joseph and the Child Jesus fled to Egypt to be safe from the persecution of Herod (Mt 2: 13-15). This flight to Egypt - which goes through, precisely, North Africa - is particularly evident when considering the situation of African migrants in Morocco. They run, too. They also carry their children. They also go through deserts in search of security and a future.

Marian theology has always stressed Mary's closeness to the poor and small. The Magnificat, the song that Mary pronounces when she met Elizabeth, is a hymn to the investment that God operates in history: "He brought down the powerful from their thrones and exalted the humble; the hungry filled with goods and the rich laid off empty" (Lk 1: 52-53). This text is, for migrant communities, a word of hope and justice.

Under the title of Our Lady of Lourdes, Mary presents herself as the Immaculate, which is on the side of those who have ignored or crushed history. The sanctuary of Lourdes, from its origins, has been a place where the sick, the poor and the marginalized found the Mother. It is no coincidence that African migrants, in their condition of extreme vulnerability, have made this devotion so intensely their own.

Spiritual reflection: the rosary in the pocket

Many testimonies collected by humanitarian and ecclesiastical organizations working with migrants in Morocco coincide with a striking fact: the rosary. Migrants wear the rosary. They carry it in their pocket, around their wrist, hanging from their neck. They pray at night in the camps, quietly so as not to wake up the companions. They pray when they cross the mountain, when they go up to a patera, when they arrive exhausted to a beach. The rosary is, for many of them, the only object they have preserved throughout the journey.

This image is deeply eloquent. The rosary is the prayer of the poor: it does not require books or buildings, it does not require academic training or cultural privileges. It is the prayer that any man or woman can pray in any place and under any circumstances. It is the prayer that connects with the Mother, that puts her eyes on the mystery of Christ through her look. And in Lourdes, the Virgin appeared with the rosary between her fingers.

To pray for the migrants who are in Morocco - and for all who undertake the journey of the sea or the desert - is a work of mercy that any Christian can exercise from his home, from his parish, from his personal prayer. The Virgin of Lourdes, the mother of the sick and the poor, does not close her ears to any prayer. He's with you on the way. He's waiting on the shore.

"Our Lady of Lourdes, the mother of the poor and those who pilgrim, pray for us.