Our cross to bear

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This article was published 08/04/2017 (3433 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As Christians around the world mark Good Friday next week, Winnipeggers plan to hit the pavement for peace and justice.

Two separate events on Good Friday, April 14, share the same theme: connecting the commemoration of the death of Jesus Christ with real life in Winnipeg.

“We’re trying to use our Christian rituals and traditions in a way that makes a difference in the world,” explains Lynda Trono, one of the organizers of Friday’s Stations of the Cross marking the struggles of the province’s hungry and homeless people.

“I think there’s a place for public lament when things go wrong.”

Sponsored by the multifaith Hunger Free Manitoba, the noon event features eight stops near or along Broadway connected to issues of hunger and homelessness, including the Law Courts Building, the Manitoba legislature, a soup kitchen, a health centre, a rooming house and public housing.

“It has to do with the fact that people are suffering in Manitoba because they don’t have enough to eat. For us that’s a daily crucifixion,” says Trono, of West Broadway Community Ministry.

Earlier Friday, Winnipeggers can join the Public Way of the Cross, which begins at 9:30 a.m. at St. Mary’s Academy.

Both public walks are inspired by the traditional practice of the Stations of the Cross, in which Christians mark the last hours of Jesus Christ through images, prayers and biblical readings over 14 stops, or stations.

The Friday morning event, organized by the city’s Roman Catholics for the past three decades, invites Christians of all denominations to walk a city neighbourhood in a procession headed by several people carrying a large wooden cross.

This year, participants are invited to focus on issues of advocacy, equity, family, inclusivity, hospitality and education, says organizer Michelle Garlinski of St. Mary’s Academy.

“The idea isn’t the traditional stations,” she says of the procession, which begins and ends at the Catholic high school for girls.

“It’s about the walk, the prayerfulness and the injustice of the cross. And people are continuing to suffer and die today.”

For Winnipegger Brian Smith, who on Friday afternoon is scheduled to share his poem about the death of a homeless man, both events hit close to home — or his lack of one.

On the streets for the past decade, he’s slept in a bus shelter since December. He finds homeless shelters don’t work for him because he has night terrors due to post-traumatic stress disorder.

“I can’t afford housing. I don’t want to live in a bar and I don’t want to live in a homeless shelter and I don’t want to live in a rooming house. Find me a home for $285,” says Smith, 53, referring to his monthly housing allowance.

That’s exactly where the rubber hits the road — understanding that the Christian faith acknowledges and respects the divinity and humanity of every person, says Lutheran Bishop Elaine Sauer, who is also offering a reflection at one of the stops on Broadway.

“It’s a retelling of that story of Jesus’s own life and who lived among us as a human being,” says Sauer, from the Manitoba/Northwestern Ontario Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada.

“We’re walking the experience of what homeless people live every day.”

brenda@suderman.com

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