Good Friday Puts Faithful’s Focus on Cross

Good Friday was marked in Orange County with events ranging from quiet services to reenactments of Christ’s journey with the cross. And at the Neighborhood Congregational Church in Laguna Beach, faithful young and old stepped through a giant labyrinth marked on canvas to examine their faith.

“It’s a metaphor for life,” said Deborah Rogers of Laguna Beach, who took time out from the frenzy of daily life to lead her 3-year-old daughter through the labyrinth.

For Carolyn Miller, 77, of Anaheim, the ritual was the perfect way to pray on such a holy day.

“You feel like you’re with God when you’re walking it,” said Miller, who brought her two grandchildren with her to walk the circular path. “You can talk to him.”

In Laguna Niguel, about 60 people from several denominations gathered to carry a 6-foot wooden cross in an interfaith procession from St. Timothy Catholic Community on Crown Valley Parkway for a mile-long journey to honor the suffering of Jesus.

“We’re doing this to be a witness to the community,” said Gloria Fetta, co-director of religious education at St. Timothy. “This is the day that traditional Christians think that Jesus died on the cross. We’re reliving part of his passion and his death.”

Mariners Church offered four Good Friday services in which members of the Irvine megachurch nailed their burdens, written on note cards, to a 7-foot wooden cross.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange also held Good Friday services at Holy Family Cathedral in Orange, with stations of the cross and a celebration of the Lord’s Passion led by Bishop Tod D. Brown.