St. Joseph Hispanic Ministry to reenact Christ’s Passion in Live “Via Crucis”

By Mary Lim 

All are invited to the Live Via Crucis Procession at St. Joseph Parish on Good Friday, April 7 at 1pm. The procession will start at Wilshire Heights Park on Craycroft and 14th St., and will finish at St. Joseph Parish in the church. For those who wish to pray the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday with the Procession, but cannot physically make the walk or have small children for whom the reenactments would not be suitable, they can pray the Rosary together in the church at the same time, and then complete the prayer of the Via Crucis Procession with the rest of the participants when they arrive back at the church.  

On Fridays during the Liturgical season of Lent, many Catholics reflect on the Stations of the Cross, which is fourteen events/moments or “stations” in the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ. If your parish hosts a weekly Stations of the Cross for the community, the information to attend the service will be found in your parish bulletin.   

Most Catholic churches will provide this prayerful tradition, often referred to as “Via Crucis” or “Way of the Cross”, in the form of fourteen images that depict each particular moment in Christ’s Passion, set up along a path for parishioners to encounter as they walk and pray together, accompanied by a prayer and reflection read aloud for each station.   

Every Friday during Lent, St. Joseph Parish in Tucson holds three scheduled Stations of the Cross events, two in English and one in Spanish. On the last Friday of Lent, Good Friday, instead of walking from station to station with the usual inanimate images of the Stations of the Cross displayed, St. Joseph’s Hispanic Ministry puts on a Live Via Crucis Procession.   

Inspired out of the city of Doctor Mora in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico, local Tucsonans have participated in this tradition throughout the years. For the last five years, St. Joseph Hispanic Ministry has continued the annual Via Crucis Procession, where volunteers prayerfully reenact the events that led to Jesus’ crucifixion on Good Friday.   

Deacon Teodoro Perez, who coordinates the Hispanic Ministry at St. Joseph and organizes the Via Crucis Procession, has been working alongside close to two hundred Catholic community members over the course of the last month and a half to make this dynamic and impactful production happen. Eight hundred or more people attend the procession every year.  

Deacon Perez has watched the annual event grow from a small reenactment that took place inside the church, to a ginormous ministry event comprising of a volunteer coordinator/director, at least one hundred volunteer actors, and city permits.   

Before St. Joseph Parish took on the planning of what has become a popular Tucson Catholic tradition, it was hosted by other parishes throughout the diocese, and Deacon Perez has participated in past productions as one of the “witnesses.” Now, Deacon Perez oversees the coordination of the event, and he is the one who will read the reflections, in English and Spanish, for each of the stations reenacted.   

The event is a huge undertaking and is accomplished by the talent and efforts of many individuals. Deacon Perez touches on just a few of the many details that go into preparing an event of this magnitude, “There is real whipping, three prop crosses, real carrying of the cross... the [mocking], the pushing, and the words of the scriptures are read... [Actors] dress authentically according to how they would have dressed in the time of Jesus. [Witnesses] will mock Jesus.”  

While the Hispanic Ministry does all that they can to make the production as true to the real Passion of Christ as possible, they are also careful to be safe, and they use clever props to aid in both the visual portrayal of the procession and the safety of the actors. The whip, for example, looks authentic, but is pieces of soft cloth, dipped in red tint to give the illusion that it is cutting into the back of the actor who portrays Jesus. Similarly, the crown will be freshly dipped in a red tint to give the illusion that the actor who portrays Jesus is bleeding when it is placed on his head.  

A volunteer director, Manuel, casts the crew and assigns volunteers to create costumes. Everyone will be dressed authentically, including the Roman soldiers, Pilate, scribes and pharisees, Barabbas, Mary Magdala, Mary Jesus’ Mother, the other women, Jesus, and even all the townspeople will be wearing what you might imagine people in Jesus’ time would have worn.  

There are often around 100 people who portray the townspeople. Every person who contributes to the production of the Live Via Crucis is a volunteer, and they come from parishes all over the diocese. It is mostly by word of mouth that people hear about the event, to volunteer or to attend the procession. 

Because the event has grown so much, if you would like to attend, it is recommended that you arrive early to get good parking. Parking will be available at the church, in the lots at St. Joseph school and in the back of the school, at the park where the procession begins, and across the street from St. Joseph Parish. You may consider carpooling if that is a possibility for you. 

There will be limited seating inside the church, with rows reserved for the volunteers and for disability seating. All other seating is “first come, first served.”