Sunny, warm weather helped draw hundreds of participants for the 50th annual Good Friday Procession on April 3. The event is a tradition that involves stops at three Hispanic parishes on Cleveland’s West Side: La Sagrada Familia, St. Colman and St. Michael the Archangel.
Led by Auxiliary Bishop Michael Woost, the procession formed at La Sagrada Familia. It began with a short prayer service in the church before the faithful followed the clergy into the parish hall to trample the sawdust Carpets of Holy Week as they left the building.
(See photo gallery above.)
Pastors from the three parishes also participated in the procession: Msg. Richard Antall, Sagrada Familia; Father Caroli Shao, St. Colman, and Father Mark Riley, St. Michael the Archangel.
Escorted by yellow-vested volunteers, the large crowd wound its way through the parking lot of St. Augustine Health Ministries as it headed to Franklin Boulevard for the march to St. Colman Church. Participants sang, prayed and recited the rosary during the walk.
Among those in the procession were three young men dressed as Jesus and carrying large wooden crosses. Several others dressed as centurions or men and women from that time period.
Some in the procession helped carry a life-size statue of the crucified Jesus and others carried a statue of the Blessed Mother dressed in black.
They procession wound its way through the streets to St. Colman on West 65th Street, where it stopped for the first part of the Passion Liturgy. In his homily – which Father Riley translated into Spanish – Bishop Woost told the faithful it was “important to take our faith into the streets with reverence and witness to Jesus … Let us recognize how far the Lord will go for us.” He said it was important to remove what keeps us from Jesus and to ask him to strengthen us.
“Jesus talks about carrying the cross … We must pick up and carry the cross to follow him … Jesus’ words change us,” the bishop said, reminding the faithful that they must carry their crosses and follow Jesus in order to be his disciples.
“You must put Jesus at the center of your life … you must have complete, unconditional surrender to Jesus and his Gospel way of life. That is what it means to take up the real cross,” Bishop Woost added.
The procession reformed and marched to St. Michael the Archangel, where the Passion liturgy concluded and the group disbanded.