A beloved Holy Week tradition, Alfombras de Semana Santa (Carpets of Holy Week) will take place once again at two Hispanic parishes in the Diocese of Cleveland.
Sagrada Familia on Cleveland’s West Side and Sacred Heart Chapel in Lorain will have the sawdust carpets once again this year.
The carpets have been a Holy Week tradition for centuries in some parts of the world. Their origins are believed to be in Spain, but the custom is popular in Central America, especially Guatemala and El Salvador, where the diocese established a mission in 1964. The tradition took hold in the Cleveland Diocese about 30 years ago, when a group of Sacred Heart Chapel parishioners created the first carpets here.
Parishioners and other volunteers will begin work on the carpets at Sagrada Familia after the noon Mass on Palm Sunday, March 29. Volunteers will clean the floor in the parish hall (gym) and lay long strips of plastic with each panel outlined in marker. The group assigned to each square will work on their panel(s) from Palm Sunday through Holy Thursday, April 2. The public is invited to view the carpets on Holy Thursday and until the Good Friday procession, which begins at 11 a.m. on April 3.
Procession participants will trample/destroy the carpets as they leave Sagrada Familia to walk to St. Colman Church for the second part of the Passion liturgy.
Father Rob Reidy, who is retired, served at the diocesan mission in El Salvador and ministered at both Sagrada Familia and Sacred Heart Chapel. He was instrumental in establishing the Carpets of Holy Week at the two parishes. During his time as Sagrada Familia’s pastor, Father Reidy asked a parishioner who was then a Boy Scout, to begin the tradition as his Eagle Scout project about a dozen years ago. The scout is now a grown man pursuing a career, but his family and Sagrada Familia parishioners continue the tradition.
Although it takes months for the parishes to plan and build the carpets, they are destroyed in a matter of minutes on Good Friday. The destruction of the carpets is symbolic of the death of Jesus, who triumphed over sin and death to bring us salvation.
At Sacred Heart, the designs will be traced on large sheets of heavy, white paper that will be taped to the floor of the parish hall. The carpets form a path that is followed as the faithful process from the church into the hall after the Passion liturgy on Good Friday afternoon.
The public can view the carpets until the Good Friday liturgies.