Preparing for Good Friday

LYNN – Gilmar DeLeon runs a house-painting company and Alfredo Benavides drives a truck. But Friday, DeLeon will play Pontius Pilate and Benavides will be a scribe in an annual re-enactment of the Bible story of Jesus? natural death.For eight years, worshippers from St. Joseph?s Church, joined by onlookers, have reenacted Christ?s crucifixion – and the procession that preceded it – complete with a 50-pound cross and an angry mob cursing and beating the congregation member depicting Jesus.The procession isn?t simply a parade. DeLeon and fellow participants said it is a way for St. Joseph?s worshippers and anyone who wants to join them to bring to life events commemorated on the days leading up to Easter. They also said it is a way they bring themselves closer to their faith.?I obligate myself to it. I take it as a penance. It really has opened my eyes,” said David Rosa of Lynn.The Good Friday Stations of the Cross procession begins on Lynn Commons where DeLeon, standing on a decorated stage and playing Pilate, will ask an assembled crowd for its verdict on Jesus? life or death.Slated to start at 11:30 a.m., the procession will then move down the Commons following a prescribed Stations of the Cross route that will take it through downtown to St. Joseph?s parish center on Green Street.Downtown drivers should anticipate traffic delays and possible detours during the procession, with police officers assigned to direct traffic. Police said the procession could take about 2? hours to cross downtown.Rosa played Jesus from 2008 to 2012 and, like Benavides and DeLeon, said the procession caps off weeks of preparation and practice for the several-block long walk. One of the parish center?s rooms is packed with costumes ranging from bystander?s smocks to outfits for more than a dozen Roman soldiers.The soldiers? shields are trash barrel lids painted gold and red and the horse hair combs that would have adorned real Roman helmets are brooms cut and trimmed to look the part.?We don?t have money to buy costumes so it?s all homemade,” he said.Planning for the procession begins in mid-March with organization meetings that include St. Joseph?s administrator, the Rev. Israel Rodriguez. Participants repair costumes and begin rehearsing different stages of the procession. This week is filled with several full-dress rehearsals.?We spend a lot of time on it, but it?s worth it,” Benavides said.He has been involved in the parade for four years and said it adds a dimension to his Holy Week experience. Benavides said preparation for the procession involves more than 100 St. Joseph?s congregation members and DeLeon said more than 1,000 people line the procession route every year.?Many people come from other cities,” he said.Benavides traced the origin of the procession to a Latin American nun who came to Lynn with her fellow sisters to help St. Joseph?s grow its congregation. He said Luz Rodriguez obtained a police permit and urged congregation members to join the parade, reminding them, “We can?t forget what Jesus did for us.”?Since then, it has grown every year,” he said.Rosa said he is always moved by the crucifixion reenactment that ends the procession.Parishioners pack into the parish center auditorium and around its stage where three wooden crosses tower over the crowd.Rosa will not climb onto the cross at the stage?s center this year: He will play the role of a Roman guard captain joining the procession and watching for yet another year how onlookers respond to the procession.?Every block we walk we pick up more people,” he said.