passion of christ

Be on Fire with a 'Passion' for the Christ

By Fr. Christopher Pollard
Special to the Herald
(From the issue of 2/19/04)

"I love Him more than I ever knew possible," responded James Caviezel to a reporter's question about how his new movie affected his faith in Jesus Christ. His portrayal of Our Lord will leave many audiences saying the same thing after the Ash Wednesday opening of The Passion of the Christ, co-written, directed and produced by Mel Gibson.

This graphic depiction of Christ's suffering and death offers an opportunity to interiorize the Holy Gospel. Certainly it is not the only the way to do so. St. Francis of Assisi and St. Pio of Pietrelcina surely were not at a loss for having missed this film; they carried Our Lord's passion in their bodies. However, they did so after many years of study, meditation and penance. Knowing Christ and living His life of poverty, celibacy and obedience made them better able to receive Divine Love and Grace, which is the very God Himself. Novices and veterans of the spiritual life should welcome occasions of grace that will serve as windows into the mind and heart of the Redeemer so as to be able to put on Christ.

Holy images of God help us to confront the reality of the Incarnation. Each of us has a favorite image of Christ. The variety of images of Jesus allows each age and culture to identify with Him. We need not fear that one particular picture will inhibit our imagination. Rather, the Word-made-Flesh actually forces a visual and tangible encounter with the ineffable God. I remember many years ago hearing Father Benedict Groeschel insist that the Christian who does not have an image of Christ in his mind when he prays is a Christian with no real prayer life and no personal relationship with his Savior. In particular, we all desperately need to visualize the scandal of Good Friday, beginning with the crucifix and the Stations of the Cross. The shedding of blood by the Lamb of God is birth of the new and everlasting Covenant. By His wounds we were healed. The unbloody re-presentation of the Paschal Mystery introduces us to a contemplation of the salvific acts of our Redeemer. Fully and actively, which is to say interiorly, participating in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass will lead the soul to an undiminished communion with the death and resurrection of Christ. It is the reason why you might occasionally see some holy tears quietly shed on the way to the altar.

Unbeknownst to most Christians, the traditional portrayal of the death of Jesus in passion plays can conjure up negative connotations. Depicting the sorrowful events of Good Friday in costume and on stage can occasion non-historical stereotypes of the characters involved. So great is the concern that an advisory committee of the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops drafted guidelines for the "Criteria for the Evaluation of Dramatizations of the Passion" (http://www.usccb.org/seia/CRITERIA.PDF). This 1988 document of the Bishops' Committee on Ecumenical and Inter-religious Affairs, along with the Declaration of the Second Vatican Council on the Relation of the Church with non-Christian Religions, is frequently cited by critics of Mel Gibson. Rather than serve as examples of his supposed ignorance of Church teaching, it is Church doctrine that seems to establish the framework for his production.

The undeniable historical actuality of the Gospels accounts for the dialogue and structure of the movie. Sts. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John can be credited with the original script. The Second Vatican Council taught in the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation: "Holy Mother Church has firmly and with absolute constancy held, and continues to hold, that the four Gospels just named, whose historical character the Church unhesitatingly asserts, faithfully hand on what Jesus Christ, while living among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation until the day He was taken up into heaven" (Dei Verbum, 19). As we would expect of any genuine meditation, extra details make the truth of which we can be certain come to life.

The source for much of Gibson's extra-biblical material is Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824), who, like St. Francis and Padre Pio, bore the physical and spiritual wounds of Christ. Befriended by the famous poet Klemens Brentano, who would write and publish her spiritual works, this stigmatist vividly described the suffering of Christ in The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. First printed in 1833, it is still widely read to this day.

Contrary to popular belief, there are several ancient accounts of the death of Jesus other than those found in the New Testament. Most well known to scholars are the Annals of Tacitus, the Jewish Antiquities by Josephus, as well as the Babylonian Talmud and an obscure text called the Toledoth Yeshu. There are also various significant documents that reference non-extent writings that described the execution of Christ.

Reasonable historical observations about the movie include the probability that Greek would have been the lingua franca of the day in that part of the Roman Empire. Following the Semitic languages, the titulus plate over Our Lord's cross, mocking Him as the "King of the Jews" would likely have been written from right to left and not from left to right. And it may very well be that Jesus would have carried only the crossbeam and not the entire cross on the way to Golgotha.

Some people have claimed that Pontius Pilate benefits from an overly benevolent scriptwriter. They say he was a brutal man. True enough. Several times he was reprimanded for his cruelty. But mad, angry men are not the only ones capable of terror. How much more monstrous is he who condemns another man he considers innocent? More frightening, actually, are the cold and calculated manner with which he orders Christ's severe scourging and the vain attempt to absolve himself of culpability as he dispatches Christ to His death. Moreover, both Flavius Josephus and Philo of Alexandria mention at least one particular occasion when Pilate was influenced by the protests of those he governed (http://www.livius.org/pi-pm/pilate/pilate04.html). May God have mercy on the man whom the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds never fail to mention as the man under whom Jesus suffered, died and was buried.

The most frequent concern mentioned about the movie is its portrayal of Jews. The same kinds of objections are raised about the Gospel of St. John itself, whose terminology corresponds to the way we might tolerate members of ethnic groups using pejorative terms referring to their own that would be grossly derogatory were they used by others. At every turn in Gibson's movie, there are good Jews who try to prevent our Lord's execution. The few residents of Jerusalem that were corralled into a mob are not depicted as representative of the Jewish population. Reassuring the public, though, that the film will not foment anti-Semitism can ring hollow when there remain too many Christians whose opinions of Jews defy logic, history and charity.

The real enemy, portrayed hauntingly, is the devil. His most willing accomplices, the Roman soldiers, show his human face from many angles. The Book of Genesis foretells the demise of the deceiver, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel" (Gen 3,15). Sinners fall prey to his machinations. But in the end, even the devil's plots fail to escape Providence's governance of all things (Rom 8:28). Christ's death turns out to be Satan's defeat.

I hope that you will see this movie. Parents should view the film before they bring their children. Allow it to be an opportunity to read and meditate on the Gospels; you will notice details that have always been there for you to discover. After witnessing the physical and spiritual toll inflicted on Christ by our sins, it should be easier to make a good confession. It should also be easier to love Jesus and His mother.

After seeing this movie it will be difficult not to have a tender devotion to the mother of the apostles, she whose last words in the Gospel are appropriately "Do whatever he says" (John 2,5). At every moment the deference shown the Blessed Virgin Mary gives flesh to the manner in which Christ honored her: "whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother." Knowing that Our Lord asserted Mary's obedience to the word of God as greater cause to declare her blessed, Christ's encounter with the women weeping over Him on His way to His death places Mary's real agony under a magnifying glass. "Weep instead for yourselves and for your children, for indeed, the days are coming when people will say, 'Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed.'" Few of us will want to trade places with Mary but every Christian finds a place next to her and her Son in the person of John. Mary's final wound of being entrusted to John and losing her Son makes her our mother to whom we turn for comfort and guidance. Meditating on the rosary will never be the same.

After seeing this movie your devotion to the crucified One will bear an indelible emblem. No one will ever again wonder why Catholics insist on displaying the crucifix. Our Lord's death was no ordinary human death. Even non-believing audiences will be faced with an ordeal that might convince them that it was sufficient to atone for all sins of man. Following the Way of the Cross and praying the Holy Mass hopefully will never be the same.

Long after the lights go up, you likely will witness the tears and silence of those who have seen what they did not dare imagine. You may only be aware of your own heart beating. You may want to bring your own tissue. Like the actors who inserted themselves in the story of Jesus, we who allow ourselves to be drawn into the mystery of His suffering, death and resurrection will be on fire with a passion for the Christ.

Fr. Pollard is parochial vicar at St. Agnes Parish in Arlington.

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