Millions of Christians in India commemorated Good Friday with prayer and fasting, remembering the immeasurable love and sacrifice of Lord Jesus who was crucified on the Cross this day 2000 years back.
Thousands of believers packed into churches Friday morning to attend special prayer services and kept daylong fasts to commemorate the pain and suffering that Jesus Christ went through when he was crucified.
In Delhi, believers thronged the Sacred Heart Cathedral, Free Church, the Cathedral Church of the Redemption, the Centenary Methodist Church and the Bible Bhavan Christian Fellowship, praying and singing hymns. A special Good Friday service was held in FICCI Auditorium by the Delhi Bible Fellowship.
In most churches, the sequences of events leading to the crucifixion were enacted followed by church service in the evening on Good Friday.
In Kerala, where the concentration of Christian population is high, many devotees offered individual and mass prayers to renounce the path of sin and hatred and emulate the selfless love of Jesus Christ.
Men and women dressed as Biblical characters presented dramatized versions of the Crucifixion supplemented with narrations in many churches. Tableaux depicting scenes of the Bible were also presented.
Some churches organized 'The Stations of the Cross,' a procession on the agony of Christ on his way to Mount Calvary with devotees carrying a replica of the wooden crucifix to relive the experience.
The believers also turned up in large numbers to participate in the church rituals, including the 'Way of the Cross.'
Archbishop M. Susai Pakiam led the prayers in St Joseph's Cathedral in Thiruvananthapuram.
Interestingly, for the first time, the state government had declared dry day on Good Friday in Kerala keeping liquor shops and bars closed.
In Mumbai, Christians observed Good Friday by offerings prayers and reciting hymns and enacting 'The Stations of the Cross' – a procession that offered people to recall the sufferings of Christ as it played out the 14 stations – including Christ's questioning by authorities, his flogging, crowning with thorns, falling thrice and the eventual mounting and nailing on the cross.
"Here the nailing was only symbolically represented," said one of the organizers. The procession started at mid–day from Sacred Heart Church, Khar and ended at Kalina in the afternoon, the time at which Christ is believed to have breathed his last.
"We wish to remind everyone that Good Friday is a day of fasting, penance and mourning and is not to be celebrated with partying," said one of the organizers of the group which has been enacting this procession for the past 20 years.
The procession was aided with sound and special effects and it took about three weeks to put the procession in place, said one of the organizers.
Nation
Nation recalls love of Christ on Good Friday
By: Jacob Chaterjee
Saturday, 7 April 2007, 20:54 (IST)
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