MIAMI — Corpus Christi Catholic Church will hold a Good Friday procession on April 3, carrying life-sized statues of Jesus and Mary through Miami's Wynwood neighborhood. Good Friday, a solemn day in the Christian calendar, commemorates the crucifixion and death of Jesus ahead of his resurrection on Easter Sunday.

This year, Good Friday falls on April 3 for Catholics and Protestants and April 10 for Orthodox Christians. The Miami procession is organized by a brotherhood led by Manolo Gobea, who moved from Seville, Spain, to Miami around 30 years ago. In Seville, tens of thousands of people watch hours-long processions of venerated images of Jesus and Mary throughout Holy Week.

"To the weeping Mary, we put flowers, we sing hymns, and that's because we know how it ends — which is the resurrection," Gobea said. As statues exit the palm-fringed church during the Miami procession, they are carried over carpets made of colored sawdust and flowers. A similar tradition exists in Antigua, Guatemala, where miles of colored sawdust and flower carpets are created twice on Good Friday for Holy Week processions.

The Rev. José Luis Menéndez, pastor at Corpus Christi Catholic Church, described the procession's purpose. "Our procession is a cry to the world — 'get out, look at what is the way, the truth, the life,'" Menéndez said. He also urged participants to approach the event with reverence: "May your entire attitude be a living prayer."

Manuel León, a Catholic Church youth group member who will carry a realistic statue of Jesus crucified in the procession, said the experience carries personal weight. "The time leading up to Good Friday is a big reflection on sacrifice — what he did for me and what I am doing in return," León said. "Pushing that statue from the back and seeing how torn up he is, what he did for us really becomes real," León added.

Good Friday rituals vary across the globe, ranging from the pope's "Way of the Cross" in Rome to a pilgrimage to the adobe sanctuary of Chimayo in New Mexico to self-flagellation and crucifixion reenactments in the Philippines. A fourth-century pilgrim's diary describes a bishop at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem holding up the cross for several hours so the faithful could venerate it.

Up until the Vatican's Holy Week reforms in the 1950s, Communion was not distributed on Good Friday. It is now distributed using hosts consecrated on Holy Thursday.