Badajoz will live its Passion today in full with the Magna Procession

With time ahead, Badajoz will experience its dream Good Friday today. The Holy Burial will be accompanied this year, in addition to the long-awaited sun, another twelve steps in a Magna Procession that will bring to the street the complete representation of the Passion and Death of Jesus.

Today is the day it will be difficult to find a seat in the official race, where you can see a procession of more than 4,000 people including costaleros, Nazarenes, members of the governing boards of all the brotherhoods, civil and military authorities and bands.

The departure of this procession is experienced with special intensity in San Agustín, headquarters of the Brotherhood of the Holy Burial, which has spent five years (three of rain and two of a pandemic) without being able to remove its overwhelming Recumbent and the exquisite sweetness of the Virgin of The tears. “We are very nervous because we are very excited and excited,” Carmen María Gutiérrez, the older sister, acknowledged yesterday, determined to recover the traditions of what is the official procession of Holy Week in Badajoz.

Magna Procession of the Holy Burial.

With these views, one of the old demonstrations that will be seen on the street again today will be that of the men in rigorous mourning watching over the Recumbent during the parade. «In the old days there were not so many people who put on the Nazarene tunic and many men with suit jackets and black ties came out behind the passage of Christ and we wanted to recover it».

Another nod to the origins will be made with the black satin ribbons that have been placed in each of the corners of the Recumbent urn. “The ties with the symbols of the passion were carried by the seminarians of the last year during the procession and they gave them to kiss in the street,” details the older sister.

The Virgin will also represent the desire of the brotherhood to return to the origins and for this she has dressed in an ancient way, with the rostrillo framing her face. She will wear her restored Holy Face brooch, one of the most important jewels of Holy Week in Badajoz. The Brotherhood has managed to find the great-grandchildren of the goldsmiths who made the piece, which has recovered all its splendor in its workshops in Torrejoncillo and Ciudad Rodrigo.

The two steps of the Holy Burial will close the Magna procession, which will be the plastic expression of the Badajoz Passion.

Brotherhood of Solitude.

The procession will begin with the Borriquita de San Roque, followed by the Oración en el Huerto –which the rain prevented from going all the way on Monday–, La Caridad (of the Brotherhood of the Resurrected), and the Amarrao and the Ecce Homo ( of Solitude).

Behind will come another of the most anticipated steps in Badajoz, that of the Christ of the Thorn, who had to stay at home on Holy Tuesday due to the threat of rain to the dismay of the hundreds of people who awaited his departure in the Captaincy. Behind the Nazarene of Las Descalzas, two imposing crucified men will parade: Angustia de San Fernando and Amor de la Vera Cruz. And it will be followed by the majesty of the Descent of San Andrés and the moving Pietà de Santo Domingo.

La Magna will depart at 5:00 p.m. from San Agustín, but before that the rest of the steps can be seen on the street between Plaza de la Soledad, Arias Montano, José Lanot, Duque de San Germán and Luis Braille. The procession will go together until the official race is completed, which they will arrive at around 7:00 p.m., and from there the brotherhoods will go disintegrating back to their respective temples.

Good Friday will have another protagonist. The Patron saint of mourning will meet again with the hundreds of women who will illuminate her during the entire procession of the rosary. They will wait for Soledad in black, without embroidery, canopy or jewels, at the exit of her hermitage.