Thousands of Christians gather in Calgary for Good Friday march

A wooden cross was carried through the streets of Calgary on Good Friday for the annual Way of the Cross walk to celebrate and remember the journey that led to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Thousands of people gathered at St. Mary’s Cathedral to walk through the Mission and Beltline areas, where they paused at 14 stations to remember a significant moment in Christ’s journey but also to acknowledge hardships faced by Calgarians.

At each stop, the crowd kneeled to bless the area and joined in unison to sing hymns or offer prayers.

At the front of the procession, about 120 chosen people took turns carrying a large wooden cross on their shoulders. One of them was Dawson Warman.

“The cross itself isn’t heavy but the reminder of what it is, is,” said Warman, who is part of Mount Royal University’s Christian Catholic Outreach organization. “To have a physical remembrance to bear your own cross, to suffer and to give graciously in all you do is significant. I’m incredibly happy to be here.”

Prayers were offered for people experiencing homelessness, victims of the sex trade and world-wide trafficking, missing and murdered Indigenous women and refugees fleeing war, among others.

Event organizer Marilou LeGeyt said she hopes the annual pilgrimage moves people to get more involved in social justice issues in the city.

“I think it touches people’s hearts,” said LeGeyt. “There are all of these injustices and people that our suffering in our own city, so we take people out and we hope they see those (vulnerable) people and that it moves from the head to the heart to the hands. To action.”

Last year, about 3,000 Calgarians braved -10C and heavy snow to attend. LeGeyt said she thinks they surpassed that number this year, in part because of the breezy, warmer weather.

Rain or shine, snow or sunshine, attendee Mirna Farahat has participated for the past eight years after moving to the city from Egypt. She is a member of St. Basil’s Melkite Greek Catholic Church.

“I love seeing people just gather around the cross in prayer,” she said. “I love to see that everyone is showing their faith because in our work communities, people feel intimidated just to say they are Christians or Catholic, so it’s really nice.”

She said many members of her church’s congregation are refugees who came to Calgary during the Syrian refugee crisis and feel a sense of community walking with hundreds of other Calgarians and praying for all of those suffering in one way or another.

At the conclusion of the 36th annual march, Bishop William McGrattan stood next to the then-upright wooden cross and said, “We need to be grateful to God that we still have the gift of religious freedom here in this country, that we can demonstrate, that we can witness publicly through the gift of our faith and our belief in God and Jesus Christ.”