3,000 Faithful Gather for Passion Play : Religion: The dramatic re-enactment of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion has become an annual tradition for families in Oxnard’s La Colonia area.

Three-year-old Roberto Valencia sat on his father’s shoulders, wincing as spear-clutching Roman soldiers ridiculed and brutalized a fallen Jesus Christ.

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“Why are they going to kill him?” Roberto asked, pointing to Jesus, who had just collapsed from carrying the cross.

“They don’t know what they are doing,” said Enrique Valencia, a lemon picker who moved to Oxnard from Mexico seven years ago. “They will repent.”

More than 3,000 of the faithful gathered on Good Friday at Oxnard’s La Colonia barrio for the 24th annual re-creation of the trial, torture and crucifixion of Christ.

The colorful, dramatic pageant known as the Passion Play keeps alive a tradition played out in towns throughout Europe and Latin America.

Vendors swarmed around the procession selling everything from churros and milk bars to inflatable Power Ranger dolls as teen-agers and families scrambled to get a look at Jesus, played for the fourth year by 32-year-old Saul Aguilar.

“I don’t like to watch it, really,” said 19-year-old Cesar Valenzuela, who nevertheless has attended the spectacle every year since his mother brought him as an infant. “What they did to him was awful.”

Children climbed on rooftops and atop fence posts to watch as Pontius Pilate, played by truck driver Francisco Perez, decided whether to spare the life of Jesus or Barabbas the thief, played by landscaper Reynaldo Hernandez.

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A servant boy held a large plume--actually a boom microphone--and moved near Jesus and the Roman magistrate during key moments, allowing the multitudes to listen to the drama.

“Why Jesus? Why Jesus?” cried a chorus of weeping women as Christ was sentenced to die.

The actors them marched six blocks through the heart of La Colonia’s bodegas and liquor stores on Cooper Road to the playground behind Our Lady of Guadalupe School, where the mock Crucifixion occurred. Microphone-clad priests provided a running commentary of the biblical event.

“You see the love that Jesus taught us and is still teaching us,” said Carmen Mora, 25, who brought her nieces, 3-year-old Karina and 6-year-old Elizabeth, to the pageant. “He died, but he is up there watching us.”

Alberto Garcia admits not being much of a churchgoer. But he is proud of his Mexican heritage. The Passion Play is an important event in the life of many Latinos, he said, and needs to be preserved.

“My father taught me to be a Catholic, and his father taught him,” Garcia said. “They take you to these ceremonies and after a few years, it becomes a tradition. To me, it means more than religion.”

Jose Castillo, paralyzed after breaking his neck 15 years ago, watched the procession from his wheelchair beside his home in La Colonia.

“I’m not religious, but I have faith,” said the 40-year-old Castillo. “Faith is something special.”

Two old men who had attended the La Colonia Passion Play for the last 20 years debated who had portrayed Jesus best. Aguilar was in the top echelon, they both agreed, although they could not decide if he was the finest.

“Some are more graceful than others, but they have all been able to carry the cross fairly well,” said one of the men, who asked not to be identified because they are undocumented. “Aguilar looks very close.”

Wearing long lace veils and holding rosaries between their fingers, 75-year-old Rosa Orona and 62-year-old Rosa Sanchez wept and discussed the plight of Jesus.

The two women said they had attended all 24 Passion Plays in La Colonia, outlasting the numerous priests who had presided over the procession through the years.

“God is still living among us, his spirit is here,” Orona said. “Every year serves as a renovation for me.”