The Passion of the Christ

This Good Friday, I watched the 2004 movie The Passion of the Christ for the first time. The movie is based on the four Gospels as well as the visions of Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, a German nun of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, beatified by Pope Saint John Paul II in 2004. It recounts Jesus’ final days, starting with the Agony in the Garden and ending with the Resurrection.

As a first-time viewer, I had heard of the film for a while and knew that it was a graphic depiction of the Passion, but I still was not completely sure what to expect. Of course I knew the narrative of the Passion from the Bible and have seen artists’ depictions of it my whole life, but the movie revealed the full brutality of Jesus’ suffering in a way that art glosses over and it revealed some aspects of the suffering that are not as thoroughly explained in the Gospels. For example, the Gospels only briefly mention the scourging of Jesus ,yet there is a far more brutal underlying image to be found in these words that the film brings to light. The whips used were flagella which had sharp ends that pierced His skin and ripped it off with each strike. The blood covered floor is not something you will see in the average church mural.

This revealed brutality is critical to the film’s portrayal, because it allows the viewer to grasp the true extent of the suffering that Jesus had to endure. In the book of Isaiah, the Passion of Jesus is foretold in lines such as, “[j]ust as there were many who were astonished at him—so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of mortals—so he shall startle many nations” (Is. 52:14-15). It was this brutality that was on my mind that night at the Good Friday liturgy in my parish, and I had noticed that the reading of the Passion resonated with me in an entirely new way.

Another way The Passion has managed to feel authentic and timeless is through its use of the historically authentic languages of the region. When watching the movie, it feels like the viewer is looking through time and seeing the events live. We can finally hear the words we have heard so many times in the scriptures in the tongue they were spoken.

While Lent is behind us and we continue to celebrate the Easter season, The Passion of the Christ is still a fantastic way to reflect on the immense joy of the Resurrection in relation to the suffering that Jesus conquered. The film is also a good watch as we enter May and celebrate the month of Our Lady. It has a strong focus on the sufferings Mary had to go through as she watched her son endure the torments of the cross. The film draws from Blessed Anne Emmerich’s The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ for its representation of Mary’s spiritual connection with Jesus’ suffering. Scenes like her waking in the night while Jesus is in Gethsemane are taken directly from lines in the book like, “During this agony of Jesus, I saw the Blessed Virgin also overwhelmed with sorrow and anguish of soul, in the house of Mary, the mother of Mark. She was with Magdalene and Mary… for she beheld in spirit Jesus bathed in a bloody sweat.” The film also highlights Mary’s motherhood of the Church with the apostles calling her “Mother” throughout. The penultimate scene of the movie shows Mary holding Jesus’ body in a pose similar to Michelangelo’s Pieta and looking out at the viewer in a way reminiscent of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, reminding us that it was our sins that Jesus died for. As we watch this film, may we remember the great suffering we brought on both of them through our sins and bring His sacrificial love to each other in our own lives.

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