Monday, February 02, 2004
On the Passion
Someone mentioned that some people she had talked to thought the Passion of the Christ was too bloody a movie, and they didn't want to see it because of that.
Personally, I think we like to whitewash what Jesus went through...Our crucifixes, although representing what he went through, don't show it in the graphic reality, and I suspect we make it symbolic in our minds and try to forget.
Jesus died a bloody brutal death. Beyond the agony in the garden, he was abused first by the Jerusalem authorities, and then the Roman ones, including a beating which some people think may have been enough by itself to cause his death.
We sometimes act like we want our Jesus to be a whitewashed, weak, almost plastic version of the Jesus who preached, lived, suffered and died for us. The Jesus who lived was a vital, dynamic person who willingly allowed himself to be captured, tortured,
given a bloody, painful horrid death and basically may have bled out (counting on which authority you listen to)...Experts on the sudarium, the cloth used to cover the face of Jesus after he died, shows that he had enough blood in his lungs from the crucifixion to bleed through his nose for well over a half hour after being taken down from the cross.
Blood was everywhere.
I think decrying the movie because it is violent is trying to muddy the point - Jesus did this for US...he suffered for us. He gave his life's blood for us. He even gave away the one thing he had left, his mother.
Catholics of all people should understand this.
Don't whitewash it. Celebrate it.
Someone mentioned that some people she had talked to thought the Passion of the Christ was too bloody a movie, and they didn't want to see it because of that.
Personally, I think we like to whitewash what Jesus went through...Our crucifixes, although representing what he went through, don't show it in the graphic reality, and I suspect we make it symbolic in our minds and try to forget.
Jesus died a bloody brutal death. Beyond the agony in the garden, he was abused first by the Jerusalem authorities, and then the Roman ones, including a beating which some people think may have been enough by itself to cause his death.
We sometimes act like we want our Jesus to be a whitewashed, weak, almost plastic version of the Jesus who preached, lived, suffered and died for us. The Jesus who lived was a vital, dynamic person who willingly allowed himself to be captured, tortured,
given a bloody, painful horrid death and basically may have bled out (counting on which authority you listen to)...Experts on the sudarium, the cloth used to cover the face of Jesus after he died, shows that he had enough blood in his lungs from the crucifixion to bleed through his nose for well over a half hour after being taken down from the cross.
Blood was everywhere.
I think decrying the movie because it is violent is trying to muddy the point - Jesus did this for US...he suffered for us. He gave his life's blood for us. He even gave away the one thing he had left, his mother.
Catholics of all people should understand this.
Don't whitewash it. Celebrate it.
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