The Passion on Good Friday
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Faith on Tuesday, March 30, 2010 10:30 PM
Every Good Friday after the liturgy, my dad watches Mel Gibson’s 2004 movie The Passion of the Christ. Some of my family members always watch it with him.
I am never one of them. I saw the movie in the theater during Holy Week the year it came out, and I’m glad I did, but I haven’t watched it since then.
There are a couple reasons for this. First of all, I’m a very visual person and I have a near-photographic memory. With six years since my only viewing of Gibson’s film, I can still “see” many scenes from it just by closing my eyes. For the first few days after I watched it, I “saw” little else. Also, since I grew up without a television, I never desensitized to violence on the screen. Even small amounts in movies or television shows make me bury my head in my husband’s shoulder. The amount of violence in The Passion is enough to really, really upset me.
Now, I know that the violence in Gibson’s movie is not gratuitous. In my opinion, it’s good that the film exists. The thing I always waffle about is whether it’s good for me to watch it.
I certainly wouldn’t *enjoy* it, but Good Friday isn’t a day for enjoyment. It’s a day for meditating on the passion and death of Jesus Christ. Every year when my family sits down to watch the movie and I opt out, I have a moment when I wonder if I’m making the right decision. I’ll spend extra time reading the Scriptures, but I know that my family members who watch The Passion will be forced to confront Christ’s suffering and death in a much more vivid way.
Clearly it’s effective for them, and helps them focus on his sacrifice, or they wouldn’t keep watching. If I watched, I’d be much more traumatized than meditative afterward. Realizing that is what convinces me each year that I am making the right decision.
(It’s also become a moot point over the past couple years, since my husband must go back to work after the Good Friday services and I can’t watch the children and the movie at the same time.)
I’m curious about your opinions on this topic. Do you ever use The Passion of the Christ - or any other film, for that matter - as a tool to help you contemplate Christ’s suffering during Lent and/or the Triduum? Would such a thing be effective for you? If your family were watching the movie, would you watch along, or opt out?
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