Pilgrims, their faces and vibrant flamenco dresses coated in dust, congregated around an ox-driven carriage carrying the icon of the Virgin Mary. They had journeyed for nearly 12 hours on foot, horseback, and wagon, traversing the rugged dirt roads to reach this sacred destination.
As festive flamenco music faded and revellers set aside their drinks, the Catholic faithful gathered among the pine trees, a few miles from the hamlet of El Rocío, to pray the evening rosary.
Meme Morales, a long-time pilgrim since the early 1990s, reflected on the dual nature of the pilgrimage. “One can drink and hang out. Our best friends are here. But it’s essential to pray,” she said, accompanied by her two daughters. “The Virgin is something that forms part of our life.”
The veneration of the Rocío Virgin has been a tradition since the main icon was discovered near the village in Andalusia around the end of the 13th century.
It has grown into one of world’s largest, most unique Catholic pilgrimages. For days before Pentecost weekend, about a million people do the “romería del Rocío” in swirling clouds of dust that’s as pervasive and natural as the faithful’s devotion.
It looks like a rolling, wild party, even among the religious brotherhoods, more than 130 of whom participate, taking different paths from around the region and as distant as Brussels. Morales’ group is the Triana brotherhood.
From when they break camp around dawn until well into the night, they sing flamenco songs, many specific to each brotherhood — accompanied by guitar and rhythmic clapping. Homemade food and copious amounts of water, beer and sherry are shared with friends and strangers alike.
But there are prayers at every break along the country paths, priests to hear confession at day’s end, conversations about the pope, mission trips and social outreach, even solemn Masses in the fields.
“Without that, this wouldn’t make any sense. It would be a picnic,” said Patricia Rodríguez Galinier, who oversees liturgical celebrations for the Triana brotherhood. Based in a neighbourhood by the same name in Seville, about 50 miles (80 kilometres) away, it’s one of the largest and oldest, founded more than 200 years ago.
Rodríguez had just helped set up Mass by the Triana “simpecado” — meaning “without sin.” It refers to their version of the icon of the Virgin, carried by an ox-driven cart covered in silver and fresh flowers. At each night’s camp, wagons are set in a circle and people gather to worship through the night.
With the oxen tied to small trees and some riders still on horses in the 90-degree weather (33 Celsius), more than 700 faithful listened to the homily by their spiritual director, the Rev. Manuel Sánchez.
He quoted Pope Leo XIV’s first public words about God’s love for everyone — adding, to laughter, that love included those at that moment receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation behind the wagon still grasping their beer bottles.
“There’s a profound sense of spontaneity in El Rocío … just like in the Gospel when Jesus goes to have dinner with folks,” Sánchez said later. “We have a lot of time to come to God crying in life, but that’s not El Rocío.”
One reason for the pilgrimage’s down-to-earth nature is El Rocío’s location, in the wetlands and sand dunes of the Guadalquivir River’s estuary, said Juan Carlos González Faraco, a University of Huelva professor who has studied the pilgrimage.
.jpg?width=1200&auto=webp&trim=0%2C50%2C0%2C50&w=390&resize=390,220&ssl=1 "Whoopi Goldberg clashes with her ‘View’ colleagues on Elon Musk-Trump breakup: ‘It’s fake!’")