“I Thirst for You”: An Experience of Encounter in Morocco
It hasn’t been easy for me to put into writing what I lived during those days. There was much to ponder, and what happened needs time to settle, to blossom, and to reveal its full meaning. A few months ago, I had a very special experience: I arrived in Tangier exhausted, disconnected from my life of faith, tired of routine… I felt that God was asking me to stop and spend some time at his side. And he made that clear to me from the very first day in that city.
With the Xaverian Missionaries, the so-called “Easter Encounters” are held every year in Morocco: intense days of prayer, community life, and service in which young people and missionaries share life together in a land with a Muslim majority. These are precious opportunities to meet our Muslim brothers and sisters in fraternity, to learn to look each other in the eye without fear, and to build bridges of friendship and peace. In that context, Tangier became for me a place of passage… but also a place of deep revelation.
I have always believed in miracles—those moments in life when one feels that, despite God’s omnipotence and omnipresence, he stands right beside you, as if for a moment he put the rest of humanity on hold just to give you the embrace you need. Like a mother who, among ten children, embraces the smallest one, the one having the hardest time.
On that first day we visited a work of the Missionaries of Charity. There I read a prayer and — with a touch of narcissism — I felt it had been written for me. A quiet gratitude rose within me. Peace, because through those words I was certain that I was exactly where I needed to be. And even a hint of humor, but a humor full of satisfaction. With just one phrase — “I thirst for you” — he told me everything.
With that gentle blow to my soul, this experience began. That thirst of God marked all those days: the thirst of a God who dies on the cross asking us to give everything, down to the last drop of our life, for what keeps us united to him. And I believe there could be no better place to feel that.
Because it is easy to give your life for that friend you trust so deeply, whom you consider like a blood brother. It is easy to give yourself to that mother who lives with you and to whom you owe so much. But doubts arise when you encounter that Muslim brother whom the news portrays as someone not to be trusted; who grows up in a different culture, with traditions that some perceive as a threat; that person who does not believe in your God…
And it is precisely there that God tells me he thirsts for me. And as the days go by, I see it more and more clearly. God wants us to pour out our lives, to ensure that this precious gift does not become something mediocre, trapped in the conformism of a “quiet” yet closed existence. In my Muslim brother I discover that our many — yet small — differences are overshadowed by love. That love of neighbor which sustains the deepest truth of our religions. God asks me to learn to love, to understand that — as Christian de Chergé said — “the heart of the other is a sacred place.” In a world of wars, injustices, and hearts turned to stone, God’s message could not be more timely.
During those days I came to see that dialogue, born from the humblest respect, is the decisive tool for understanding that I can also see God in my Muslim brother. A dialogue that begins with words, but becomes truly human through gestures, smiles, and shared glances.
I lived many experiences that still come to my mind today with a blend of nostalgia and joy. I met concrete individuals who made this experience unique: faces, stories, and names that I feel God has placed on my path to enlighten me at just the right moment. From all of this, one word rises in me: thank you. Thank you and affection.
To conclude, I would like to recall the words of the newly elected Pope Leo XIV in his inaugural address:
“Let us build bridges through dialogue, through encounter. Let us come together so that we may be one single people, always at peace.”
The death of Pope Francis struck us all. That Easter Monday, after celebrating the resurrection of Jesus in our lives, the whole world trembled at the news of his passing. So much war, so much hatred and resentment—and now this grief as well. Yet in the midst of that climate of fear and uncertainty, Leo called us to unity, to the building of bridges.
I believe that this call will be the cornerstone upon which his pontificate will be built. And even more, I believe it will be the rock on which the hope of a peaceful future will rest. On a smaller scale, that is what this encounter in Morocco was for me: a school of bridges, a place where God once again whispered to me, “I thirst for you… and for all your brothers.”
Testimony of Ignacio Bravo Paños
