This year presented a new experience of the way of the Cross on Good Friday in one of the parishes. Traditionally, the Living Way of the Cross is a reenactment of the 14 stations with Biblical citations and references from all four Gospels transmitted by loudspeakers.


A traditional reenactment: Pilate washing his hands.

Dogs barking and chickens clucking angry complaints as they scurry from the meandering procession fill in the details for an instantaneous transportation to a public execution. You cannot help but be swept up by the dusty, slow, shoulder-bumping walk that is accompanied by an undertone of commentary by the common folk.


Traditional reenactment: Veronica and the women of Jerusalem.

This year however, an opportunity for a unique meditation was provided by different families at each station taking up their cross and carrying it together to the next station. Three crosses were born at each interval and the crowd which numbered about three


This year's format: families took turns carrying the cross from one of the stations to the next.

hundred at the beginning swelled to six hundred by the end of the Via Crucis, where the traditional services were celebrated including the Passion according to John, Veneration of the Cross and the Eucharistic Communion service.


This year's format: Unless you pick up your cross daily. . .

Seguidores de la Cruz has a policy of encouraging all to participate in their respective parishes for the Holy Week services and traditional festivities. At El Rancho Nazaret we do not celebrate any of the Sacred Triduum Rites and only gather back together on Easter Sunday morning for the Mass at dawn.


The traditional reenactment: Women of Jerusalem.

Reactions and reflections to the new format were mixed. Some of the families expressed a profound experiences of unity and inspiration. Others preferred the traditional reenactment because it attracts more onlookers to follow and realize that it is Good Friday. In both presentations, Fr Tim mentioned, many are drawn to the sacrament of confession-- some after a long interval.


They shall look on Him whom they have pierced.