SHOULD there be a reason to be hopeful that the observance of Holy Week will bring a transformation in the hearts and minds of countless people involved in rampant corruption, widespread vote-buying and other forms of electoral fraud?
Shouldn’t the Church be more vigorous in opposing these major and persistent social ills in our government and society?
A pause from political activities, certainly, should be expected all over the country, including covert vote-buying, in token and hypocritical deference to this religious tradition, which is the real and actual foundation of Christianity.
This nation has since been misled by tradition and rituals and has ignored the essential moral and spiritual changes needed in our lives. Most of us have allowed recreation over divine revelation and have taken for granted the terrifying ordeal that Jesus Christ endured to provide an incomparably astonishing proof of God’s love, mercy and grace to us all.
In the best-selling book of Lee Strobel, “A Case For Christ,” a prominent US medical expert, Dr. Alexander Metherell, who has written several books on the suffering and death of Christ, gives a vivid account of the beatings.
“Roman floggings were known to be terribly brutal. They usually consisted of thirty-nine lashes but frequently were a lot more than that, depending on the mood of the soldiers applying the blows.
“The soldier would use a whip of braided leather thongs with metal balls woven into them. When the whip would strike the flesh, these balls would cause deep bruises or contusions, which would break open with further blows. And the whip had pieces of sharp bones as well, which would cut the flesh severely”.
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For the first time in Hollywood history, a trailblazing producer and director wanted to tell the whole and real truth about the suffering and death of Jesus. Mel Gibson encountered very stiff resistance not only from Hollywood producers and prominent executives.
The international Jewish community and officials of Rome, as well, threw endless brickbats at him and the movie, which starred Jim Caviezel. Nobody in Hollywood wanted to touch the movie because it dealt with “anti-semitic” issues, among other “offensive” historical and cultural accounts.
Traditionally, religion was a format often rejected or ignored by Hollywood movie moguls because of its uncommercial value. Gibson took a huge risk when he produced and directed “The Passion of the Christ.” Gibson single-handedly financed the movie through his own company, Icon Productions, which funded it with $30 million and then with $15 million more when it overshot the budget. It turned out to be a box office success, making $612 million.
The movie’s powerfully moving depictions of the terrifying ordeal of the brutal Roman beatings and crucifixion of Christ, as never seen before, drove countless moviegoers to tears. The news media also carried actual testimonies of repentance and surrender to Our Lord, not only among the movie crew but among many others in the audience worldwide.
Through the movie, the world finally came face-to-face with the raw and real truth of the actual proof of God’s unfathomable love, sacrifice and mercy for all of us.
