The Lampedusa Cross in front of the altar is made with wood salvaged from a shipwrecked boat in the Mediterranean Sea carrying people seeking asylum.

 

“Make hospitality your special care.” Romans 12:13

The theme of the Jubilee Year is ‘Pilgrims of Hope’.  Throughout this year, Caritas will be sharing positive stories of hope from our parishes and schools. Our first story is about a mother seeking asylum in the UK, and the welcome and friendship she found at Plymouth Cathedral.

Marie* from Cameroon, along with her three-month old baby, was sent to Plymouth as an asylum seeker by the Home Office. She knew no-one there and felt completely isolated and frightened. Support agencies were able to help with some practical issues, but what proved to be the most beneficial support came from the welcome and fellowship she found at Plymouth Cathedral. Marie was granted refugee status and wanted to give back to a country that had granted her safety, so she gained confidence from doing readings in the Cathedral, volunteered with support agencies and then went on to qualify from Plymouth University as an occupational therapist and now works in Plymouth for the NHS. Her daughter received her first Holy Communion at the Cathedral last year.

Marie told us about her experience and gave some ideas on how to support people seeking asylum and those with refugee status, who we may meet in our churches:

“As an asylum seeker you need a family, someone to speak to you compassionately, you need to be invited to activities, and when these things are done it tends to build trust in people and help them to forget some of the traumatic experiences they’ve been through before. It makes them feel at home and then confident, and it brings out the potential that they need to be able to forge ahead in life.

It’s not easy as an asylum seeker. I was fortunate that I had a Catholic background, and I had my daughter with me, who was three months old. It was very difficult for me even to leave the house, but I thought I will go out and look for a Catholic church and I found the Cathedral. I went to the Cathedral at just the right time, because they were carrying out the Novena of Mary, who unties knots, and I know I had a big knot. I couldn’t stay at home to untie this knot, so I joined the Novena and I got in touch with people in church who supported me, we prayed together and thankfully that knot was untied.

When you speak to people who come from diverse cultures, especially asylum seekers, some are very shy and some are not very bold to speak up. People are frightened and very isolated. I could speak English but I was still finding it really hard, so consider someone who does not have English as their first language: if you are not compassionate in the way that you speak to that person,  if you don’t invite them to activities, then they are left alone in their own loop and the hopelessness becomes really much and you find people going into depression.

I have a whole family in the Cathedral now. That is the importance with being with people who also support you in your faith, in what you do and give you advice and signpost you.”

The image above of the Lampedusa Cross on the Cathedral altar, is a poignant reminder of the desperate plight of people fleeing persecution and poverty in their homelands to seek a place of sanctuary. During this Year of Jubilee, we are all invited to consider how the Gospel imperative to ‘Welcome the Stranger’ can be translated into practical action.

*name changed to protect confidentiality