Today is Friday - traditionally a day of penance in the Catholic world - remembering in some felt-way the meaning of Christ's death on the cross. And here is a final scene from Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. It is like Michelangelo's famous marble Pieta in St. Peter's Basilica, except here it is created in film.
Last Friday and Saturday, young white men who fancy themselves to be the new Nazis, carried torches in Charlottesville, VA (like in a 1940's Third Reich procession) chanting, "Jews will not replace us." They also chanted "Whose streets? Our streets," which means, "If we have anything to do with it, this country will belong to us again and not to anyone who is not us." That translates: black people, native peoples, brown people, Asians, gay people, Muslims, Jews, even Catholics. Special needs and handicapped people? Hitler got rid of them too.
When I heard the anti-Jewish chant, this film-image came to mind. Mary Magdalen and the young apostle, John, are on the left. They were Jewish. Jesus and his dear Mother are in the center of the tableau. They were Jewish. Who is that on the right? Perhaps a soldier, exhausted with hate and violence. He's bending over to catch his breath and still his pounding heart. Perhaps he is feeling the first twinges of terrible regret for his complicity.
