The Passion needs to be in our hearts as well as on the screen

y Mary Regina Morrell

"Father, forgive them."

Well, the day has come, the movie is out, and the controversies rage around The Passion of Jesus the Christ. Articles columns, commentaries abound with litanies of complaints -- anti-Semitism, anti-Christian rhetoric, historical inaccuracy, scriptural infidelity, excessive violence, the use of Latin instead of Greek......

But since everything is colored through the lens of our own personal history - sometimes for the better and sometimes to our disadvantage and the disadvantage of others -- it would be foolish to expect anything different for those commentating on a movie few are likely to forget. I was among a large group of people who had the opportunity to see the movie at an advanced showing just days before it was released. There were about 300 of us and, by the time the movie was over, probably just as many different perceptions of what had been viewed.

I can only share my own perception.

This was not a movie about Jews, Romans or Christians.

This was a movie about Divine Love.

This was a movie about Jesus, his sacrifice and his power to transform the human heart. It was a story about the potentials of human nature.

I saw Jewish leaders of the Sanhedrin clamor for Jesus' death by crucifixion at the same time I saw other Jewish leaders rail against the injustice of it all. I saw some of the angry mob shouting for the release of Barabas and the death of Jesus, while others in the crowd cried and gasped at the tortured figure of the innocent man before them. I saw grief stricken Jews, whose faith makes mercy and justice a commandment, sobbing as a pitiful, bloodied figure of a man dragged the instrument of his own torture up winding stone paths to Golgotha. I saw Romans who exercised such brutality as I never dreamed possible and others who were converted though the gaze or touch of Christ.

I saw faithfulness and betrayal, love and apathy, goodness and evil and the ever-present reality of temptation.

I came away in awe, renewed in gratitude for God's profound love.

I came away with a deeper understanding of the power of free will - to create hell on earth or build the Kingdom of God in each human heart.

I realized once again that, in many ways, the world of man that exists today is no different than the world of Jesus some two thousand years ago.

And maybe that's the point.

Maybe that's why, after all this time of being given the choice and choosing poorly, we were graced with a movie as disturbing as this one -- to shake us up out of our malaise as Christians and remind us what we are all about.

As Christians, we must never forget our past, anymore than the Jews should forget theirs. And just as the Jews, the Chosen People of God, embrace the necessity of remembering the Holocaust, lest they forget, Christians must remember, with great passion, the sacrifice of Christ -- a Holocaust of one -- lest we forget.

As people of faith we have a choice to make: Will we use this movie to push agendas or fuel the prejudice that has long existed between different religious traditions or, instead, educate to our common heritage - our God of awesome love -- and what has been endured because of it?

It is a choice that becomes sorely apparent when, near the end of the movie, Mary raises her eyes from the bloodied, mutilated body of the son she holds in her arms and looks out into the eyes of the audience, seeming to ask plaintively,

"Now, what will you do?"

Contact

Diocese of Metuchen
http://www.diometuchen.org NJ, US
Mary Regina Morrell - Associate Director, Office of Religious Education, 732 562-1990

Email

mmorrell@diometuchen.org

Keywords

Passion, Jesus, Crucifixion, remembering

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