Sharing the sufferings and the joys of the migrants of Ceuta
Adelaida Lacasta, Christian Life Community, Spain
During Holy Week, the Migrations Team of Christian Life Community (CLC) in Spain, along with the Vedruna Carmelites Community and the Elín Association, sought to share the sufferings and the joys of the migrants of Ceuta, an autonomous Spanish city located on the African coast of the Strait of Gibraltar.
We crossed the Strait in a ferry, a passage of 14 kilometers that has become a cemetery for so many children, so many men and women simply seeking a better life. And there we found Ceuta, bordered on the north by the sea and on the south by a double barricade six meters high and topped with barbed wire. Two weeks ago a young man bled to death after his neck got caught in the wire. And high above us, the starry sky.
Holy Thursday: bread that is given. We give and we receive. We receive more than we give. We visit the Temporary Centre for Immigrants, a euphemism for the prison that houses those arriving illegally in Ceuta, those who have no rights, who do not exist, who are invisible. We travel up to the forest to which 54 Indians from the Punjab fled a year and a half ago, and where they have been surviving with great difficulty. They embrace us, they smile on us, they sit us down at their table, they share with us their lives. And all of them, from Guinea, Senegal, the Congo, India… enter into our hearts and now will never leave.
Good Friday: bread that is broken. From the forest to the church they walk along with us in silence, carrying the Cross. They pray with us before that wide sea that separates them from their dream. How can we hold so many crucified people within our hearts?
Holy Saturday: bread that is shared. We cross the border made by men, the border separating North from South, and we arrive in Morocco. Night falls, the great Night of Light, Word, and Water. The parlour of the Vedruna’s house can hardly hold us. We sit on the same carpet where so many refugees have slept, exhausted and injured from their long, unspeakable journey, arriving at a place where they find a little bread and repose and much affection.
Seated on the ground, since there are no more chairs, we celebrate the Love of God. We celebrate the God of the poor and the forgotten; the God who walks with the immigrants and the refugees, his chosen people; the God of tears and smiles; the God of embraces and words; the God who is partial and sits beside the little ones and opts for the oppressed; the God who keeps faith and stands by us; the God who becomes bread and wine, who is given, broken, and shared.
I don't have much more to say. I wish you all could meet Ropar, Gurjit, Baboo, Dao, Raj, Gabriel, Omar, Ibrahim,... and experience their dignity, their transparency, their generosity, their courage, their hospitality.... God is alive, restoring hope to us in the midst of so much death. I return with a renewed certainty that I have seen the Lord in the faces and the lives of all those with whom I have shared these days of Holy Week.
Adelaida Lacasta, CVX-E [email protected] [email protected]
See also : www.asociacionelin.com/default.aspand www.fronterasdelsur.blogspot.com
The participants: http://tinyurl.com/p5ryxa
