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The Madriz family watched a broadcast of Palm Sunday Mass, April 5, 2020, at their home in Richmond. Juan Madriz tradtionally plays the role of Jesus in the passion play at St. Dominic Parish in San Francisco. (Photos by Lorena Rojas/Catholic San Francisco)
April 6, 2020
Lorena Rojas
San Francisco Católico
Shelter-in-place has canceled the traditional Holy Week dramatizations and processions that are part of Hispanic ministries in many parishes, but some actors are enacting their parts in the passion play at home.
"I feel sad," said Jaime Pinto, longtime director of the passion play at St. Dominic and Mission Dolores parishes in San Francisco. “I'm thinking, what does God want? If this thing (the coronavirus) doesn't let us present the work, it's because God already had his plans.”
He said that this year 10 more people had been interested in participating and joined the cast at St. Dominic.
“Until two weeks ago, I still thought we were going to perform on April 5, Palm Sunday," Pinto said. "Maybe God wanted a different year.”
With holy palms he had kept from previous years, and holy water from Lourdes to bless the entrance and the door of his house, Pinto planned to symbolically enacted Palm Sunday while watching a live broadcast of the Mass.
Juan Madriz, who is from the Diocese of Oakland, is part of Pinto’s group and has played the role of Jesus since the presentations began.
"I'm a little sad because we're not going to be able to present the play this year and we were already prepared," Madriz said.
He said his pastor, Father Ruben Morales of St. Mark Parish in Richmond, had recommended that parishioners have some green foliage during the online celebration of the Palm Sunday Mass.
"Since I am a gardener, I am going to bring some branches from the garden and receive the blessing of the palms from the house, watching it through the cell phone," Madriz said.
"My faith continues,” he said. “If this is the only means we have to follow the services of this Holy Week, even if it is through an electronic means, that is fine. It would have been much more difficult this Holy Week if we did not have this option.”
St. Timothy Parish in San Mateo will also feel the absence of the passion play. Enrique Castillo has directed the play and has played different characters for several years. This year he is using his creativity to celebrate from his home.
"We are having a different Holy Week, but it is still a Holy Week,” he said. “To live the devotion of the liturgy of the Easter triduum I am going to put an altar with the holy cross in my house to do the veneration during the Good Friday liturgy.”
For Palm Sunday, he was planning to join two other members of his parish's Divine Mercy prayer group to pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy and commemorate the Lord's entry into Jerusalem.