Procession marks Good Friday in city

Our Correspondent
Jalandhar, April 19

Members of the Christian community led by Father Xavier, the parish priest, Sacred Heart Church, took out a procession here on Friday. Chanting hymns and bearing crosses, they marked Good Friday, a day before Easter, by retracing Jesus’ final footsteps.

The procession commenced from the church campus at Bishop’s House Complex with devotees carrying crosses in hands and offering prayers. After passing through streets, including Kamal Palace road, Shastri Market, Namdev Chowk and Press Club Chowk, it culminated at the Bishop’s house.

The entire community had spent the day while fasting, going to churches, doing meditation and remembering Jesus.

“The death of Jesus is marked as ‘good’ as it is believed that the ultimate sacrifice of his very life resulted in the saving of mankind from God’s wrath and the forgiveness of everyone’s sins,” said Father Xavier, adding that residents from all walks of life and reverent fathers, who are directors of convent schools, and reverent sisters, (religious nuns) who are principals of convent schools, participated in the procession in large numbers.

He said, “The death of Jesus Christ provided the perfect atoning sacrifice for the sins of all mankind, making the crucifix or cross, one of the defining symbols of Christianity. Three days after his death, Jesus’s tomb was found empty. He had risen from the dead and appeared to his disciples”, he said.