Walking through Holy Week here in Ethiopia requires you to take off your shoes and feel the rocky soil between your toes. Ethiopians don’t celebrate Easter in a mere cerebral way; instead they need to feel it more physically. They manifest their spiritual journey of the week with tangible expressions which are at the same time profound yet plain: joyous palm waving as the King enters on a real donkey, 10km long stations of the cross processions in the blazing sun which literally scale up the hill of Calvary, vivid dramatic reenactments to supplement the liturgies, four straight hours of prostrations and prayers on Good Friday to enter into the Passion with one’s body. Yet the faith expression is marked with a humble simplicity – processing through the mud alongside herds of cattle, unadorned crosses made with two pieces of wood joined by a nail, Easter Sunday baptisms from a plastic bowl in a mud-walled chapel. All is beautiful and meaningful, in the same way for Jesus’ Passion to be fully redemptive, it also needed to be physical.
Palm Sunday Processions:
Good Friday Way of the Cross:
Easter Vigil and Sunday:
Mark & Maggie Banga
Comboni Lay Missionaries serving in Awassa, Ethiopia
