Passion Play Depicting Christ’s Last Day Stirs La Colonia Crowd

The first time Jesus fell--in the street right across from the Discoteca Aguilar--his cross clattered to the ground with a thud.

A centurion snapped a whip across his back, and his mother, Mary, cried out in anguish: “Mijo! [Son!]”

Yards away, amid a crowd of thousands, 4-year-old Andrew and Andrea Vasquez shrieked, clinging to their mother’s leg.

“They know the story. It’s hard for them,” said the twins’ mom, Luz Roa. “I get emotional, too.”

They were among the faithful who filled the streets of La Colonia on Friday to witness a reenactment of Christ’s tortured last day on Earth. The annual event began 29 years ago in Oxnard and continues a tradition followed in cities and villages throughout Latin America and Europe.

Only half an hour earlier, Jesus was an Oxnard farm worker sitting in a makeup chair for a last-minute touch-up. And Mary was a 22-year-old woman shepherding a group of first-time actors through the crowded room that served as backstage at Christ the King Church.

Darseth Peraza, this year’s Mary, readied herself for the nearly two hours of nonstop crying required of her by trying to imagine herself in the place of Christ’s mother.

“She cries really, really good,” confided one cast member, who expected to follow Peraza’s weeping cue. Saul Aguilar--who everyone says was born to play Jesus, thanks to a mane of brown hair and reddish beard as often depicted on paintings and statues since the Renaissance--prayed silently to draw the moral strength required to heft a cross for seven blocks.

Amid last-minute crises--where is that other centurion’s uniform?--and teenage soldiers dueling with their homemade spears, Father Eusebio Elizondo was a calming presence.

“They brought this tradition [from Mexico], and the people are expecting this every year,” he said. “But it all started with the Gospel of the word.”

The theater was one of the main thoroughfares of the La Colonia barrio, a strip of Cooper Street flanked by taquerias, neighborhood groceries and panaderias (bakeries). The audience was a crowd of thousands of Oxnard residents and others. Many of them have been attending the yearly event since they were children. Some remember similar marches in Mexico.

“This is a way to unify our community, to remind us of our tradition,” said Juan Carlos Pelayo, 21, carrying his 2-year-old nephew, Brandon. “It’s not about crime and what some people say about us. This is something to teach kids.”

The Passion play began a little after noon. On a small stage in front of Christ the King Church--surrounded by Spanish-language radio announcers, vendors hawking ice pops, neighborhood families perched on their roofs for a better view and parents with children on their shoulders--Jesus was sentenced to death.

And then, smudges of red dripping from beneath his crown of thorns, Aguilar dragged the cross down Cooper Street--past La Colonia’s working-class homes and crowds of worshipers kept from him by Roman soldiers with spears. He ended at the field of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church’s school, where he would be crucified, just yards from the jungle gym where neighborhood kids watched.

The soldiers raised three crosses and crucified two criminals. And then Jesus was nailed to the cross. He cried out to God before crumpling forward in death. Mary rushed to him, with one final wail of loss, amplified across the field by a microphone.

At that point, Gloria Portillo, who comes every year and stood a bit back from the crowds, prayed quietly.

“Our faith is what keeps our families together,” she said. “This brings me closer.”

The cast of 70 walked back toward the church, mingling with the crowd--soldiers and Christian followers alike--ready to sit down to a meal provided by Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Ted Cabrera reflected on his role as a centurion and the whippings he gave Aguilar as Jesus--who ended the event with a new bruise on his shoulder from the weight of the cross.

“I turn around and I look at people with tears in their eyes,” Cabrera said. “I feel the same way.”