Cardinal's Column 2/29/04

Accompanying Christ in his Passion

The season of Lent draws us into the mystery of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection. From Ash Wednesday to the Easter Vigil, the Church’s liturgy is designed to immerse us in the great mystery of our redemption, conforming us more closely to Christ as we pray through the events that bring us salvation. The penitential practices of Lent join to Christ’s passion our own sufferings: voluntary (fasting, acts of penance and charity) and involuntary (sickness, financial loss, family problems, social prejudice and violence).

This Lent, a particular cinematic interpretation of Christ’s passion has captured the interest of millions: Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.” The interest that surrounds the film’s opening on Ash Wednesday has been generated by the controversy that has surrounded its presentation to selected audiences these past few months. About two months ago, I viewed a rough cut of the film here in Chicago. Because the film wasn’t yet completed when I saw it, I find it easier to speak about the power of the images individually rather than pass judgment on the film itself. The images are powerful and express the brutality of the Roman form of crucifixion, which was death by torture. The physical violence, however, is a metaphor for the spiritual violence which is sin itself. It is inevitably shocking to see the Son of God making himself sin for our sake. In the garden of Gethsemane, an androgynous and sinister figure symbolizing the power of Satan throughout the film approaches Jesus as he struggles with what he is to suffer and whispers to him, “It is far too heavy; no man can bear it.”

But bear it, Jesus does; and seeing the film prayerfully might be one way of accompanying Christ in his passion this Lent. The theological underpinnings of the film carry us beyond the events of the passion to an understanding of Jesus as the Paschal Victim and the Bread of Life, linking the Last Supper and the Cross. Those who use this film to accompany the Lord in his passion will find themselves in the company of his mother, for the Blessed Virgin Mary is portrayed as a personage as integral to Christ’s death as she was necessary for his life.

The film is an interpretation based on the Gospels and on the writing of some mystics and, finally, on the masterful artistic skill of Mr. Gibson himself. Every interpretation can be questioned, and the film has been criticized by some Christians and some Jews. The Christian criticisms arise from a reluctance to simply take the Gospel texts themselves at their face value, without submitting them to various forms of biblical criticism. They arise also from a concern that the film might harm the still fragile dialogue with the Jewish people that has been carefully built up over the past 40 years, not least by Pope John Paul II.

The Jewish criticisms arise from a concern for “unintended consequences.” The film itself might not be anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish, but popular presentations of Christ’s passion over the centuries have been the occasion for outbreaks of verbal and physical violence to Jews, and these incidents are part of the memory of the Jewish people. We should, I believe, not only honor these memories but also try to see the film itself with them in mind. As Christian believers, we must be moved to our very depths in seeing the passion of Jesus presented so graphically; but as Christian believers who share this society with Jews, we should also be moved by their concerns. As Christian believers, we condemn anti-Semitism as a sin; the sin of hatred for the Jewish people is therefore part of the history of human sinfulness which brought Jesus to the cross.

In fact, the story of the passion is a Jewish story. Jesus was a Jew, the son of a Jewish mother. His friends and family and disciples were Jews. His enemies were also Jews. The conflicts among the Jewish people of Jesus’ day were exploited by the Roman occupation army in order to impose Roman rule. We proclaim in the Creed that Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate.” Pilate can be seen as someone who reluctantly acceded to the death of a man he knew to be innocent, or he can be seen as someone who cleverly manipulated the Jewish leaders themselves into acclaiming Caesar as their only king while sending Jesus to his death. The texts of the passion narratives will yield either interpretation, although the first has been the most often expounded.

In Chicago, many rabbis and other leaders of the Jewish community have been not only good friends and neighbors but, even more, responsive to Christian concerns, especially for our fellow Christians in Israel. Some in the Jewish community now would see the Mel Gibson film as primarily a Christian concern, one more occasion for polarization between liberal and conservative Christians. It’s not a Jewish fight, they say. They may be right. The Pope has prayed that Jews and Christians “work together to build a future in which there will be no more anti-Jewish feeling among Christians nor any anti-Christian feeling among Jews.” Let’s hope John Paul will be proved right.

An occasion for accompanying Christ in his passion should be an occasion for repentance, for the healing of divisions. Since the passion itself was a brutal event, born in hatred and sin and enmity, perhaps the representation of that passion inevitably also brings more division. Christ himself said that he came not to bring peace but the sword, to set family member against family member. In the human family, Christ is the dividing line. He is both loved and hated, represented and misrepresented, as is his Church.

Christians should leave this film and return to their churches to meet in word and sacrament the Savior whose love is stronger than death, whose love embraces and unites Christians with their elder brothers and sisters of the Jewish people. The passion of Jesus Christ moves us to humility and contrition. I believe Mel Gibson’s interpretation of that passion can and should do the same for those who see it this Lent. I hope Catholics of the Archdiocese will see it and discuss it, comparing it to the Gospel texts themselves. Most of all, I hope seeing it will lead us to prayer and repentance. God bless you.