Last night, I was able to watch Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ with Bishop Aymond of Austin along with about 130 other students and alumni of the University Catholic Center. To steal the words from Bishop Aymond: “Powerful… well-done… very faithful to the scriptures- he added a little here and there but overall, very faithful.”
The movie didn’t really shock me though; it didn’t surprise me. The death of Our Lord and Savior wasn’t as clean or as painless as we tried to think of it as. When Christ fell, he simply didn’t trip. He collapsed. When Veronica wiped his face, it wasn’t to wipe off a little sweat or a little blood. It was to soak up all the blood and sweat off of his face. Too often we forget about the suffering endured for our sins. One man should not have had to carry that burden, a burden that he had no share in creating. Yet, he did. Our salvation history came to a crashing- and bloody- climax when Christ left this Earth by death so we could have our salvation from the eternal death. This is our faith. This is our God. He did not simply die for us; he took abuse many of us couldn’t stand to watch on the screen much less endure. The movie captured the last tweleve hours of his life in a span of two hours. It was hard for us to watch it for two hours; he endured it for twelve hours.
And so, we as Christians can not forget this message. This is why Catholics have a special place for the Stations of the Cross. With that, I must be running to campus.
The movie didn’t really shock me though; it didn’t surprise me. The death of Our Lord and Savior wasn’t as clean or as painless as we tried to think of it as. When Christ fell, he simply didn’t trip. He collapsed. When Veronica wiped his face, it wasn’t to wipe off a little sweat or a little blood. It was to soak up all the blood and sweat off of his face. Too often we forget about the suffering endured for our sins. One man should not have had to carry that burden, a burden that he had no share in creating. Yet, he did. Our salvation history came to a crashing- and bloody- climax when Christ left this Earth by death so we could have our salvation from the eternal death. This is our faith. This is our God. He did not simply die for us; he took abuse many of us couldn’t stand to watch on the screen much less endure. The movie captured the last tweleve hours of his life in a span of two hours. It was hard for us to watch it for two hours; he endured it for twelve hours.
And so, we as Christians can not forget this message. This is why Catholics have a special place for the Stations of the Cross. With that, I must be running to campus.
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