Sunday, July 20, 2008

Supreme sacrifice moves faithful to tears

IT is known as the greatest story ever told, and yesterday it came to Sydney, with passionate young Catholics re-enacting the final hours of Jesus's life, and Christ's ultimate victory over death, in detail both glorious and gory.

In a performance that significantly dampened the previously buoyant mood of World Youth Day, the broken figure of Christ, played by 27-year-old Alfio Stutio, stumbled barefoot and bleeding through a Sydney production of biblical proportions, over 13stations of the cross.

The Prince of Peace was tortured, lashed, mocked, stripped, crowned with thorns and then crucified in front of an audience of 100,000 people at Barangaroo, the old Sydney docksite, just as the sun began to set.

Winter sunshine of recent days had given way to strong and icy winds. Pilgrims who came to see the dramatic finale wrapped themselves in the flags of their nations, and huddled together for warmth. Christ's tormentors did not nail Jesus through the wrists, as happened in the Bible, but lashed him with leather straps to the large wooden cross as it lay prone on the ground.

The cross, and the man upon it, then rose slowly from the ground. Stutio's face was revealed as stained with dust, sweat, tears and blood, and his naked chest heaved. Many in the crowd fell to their knees and wept.

When the broken body of Christ was taken down from the cross, silence washed over the crowd. The bleat of a mobile phone and the buzz of a helicopter flying overhead were the only sounds.

The story ends well, of course: Jesus is resurrected, and the gospel says he now sits at the right hand of the father, a symbol of everlasting life and of God's eternal love.

The re-enactment of Jesus's death began with a re-creation of the last supper at St Mary's Cathedral, which organisers imagined as Leonardo depicts it in the famous painting of the same name: a long table, with Jesus at the centre, a plate of flat bread, and two modest wine goblets to hold the blood of Christ.

The actors did not speak - the story was read by speakers holding microphones, who also led the prayers.

The Pope appeared only at the first station, emerging much like a game-show host from a hidden door behind the table after the 12 Apostles left the stage. The pontiff also led the first of what seemed like very many Our Fathers, and Hail Marys.

The unpopular figure of Judas was played by 18-year old Chehade Richa, chosen specifically because he is handsome and the church wanted to remind young people that evil can present an attractive face.

Station two was the agony of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus reveals his distress at his looming death, and says those immortal words: "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."

The 13 acts took place over five sites, all chosen carefully: besides the cathedral, there was a hospital, and the columns of the Art Gallery of NSW made a satisfying Rome, where Jesus told the high priests of the Sanhedrin that he was Christ, son of the Lord.

Pontius Pilate made his appearance at the Opera House, where Jesus was effectively thrown to the wolves.

In one deft act of stagecraft, Jesus was lowered by his wrists to a torture cell; he was raised moments later, twisting, and dangling by his feet.

The actor then took up his cross, and by now truly appeared to be in agony. The journey to his death took more than an hour, and it ended in the arms of his mother Mary, played by Marina Dickson, 27. Sister Kathy Joseph, who has led a group of 42 pilgrims from Trinidad and Tobago to World Youth Day, described the re-enactment as "deeply moving and very spiritual".

"The actors really took on the passion and the suffering of the Lord," she said.

Lorena Chiarella, 17, of Ashfield, said: "It was so emotional when they took his body down from the cross. It was really graphic and it makes you think about what he, Jesus, did for us which makes you reflect on your own life."

Unlike the Via Dolorosa, where the crowd follows Jesus as he makes his agonising way towards his death, the crowd was invited to assemble at any of the 13 stations, and particularly at Barangaroo. It was on big screens that they watched the actor stripped of his clothes, and stumbling under the burden of his cross.

Vision was supplied by 20 fixed and portable cameras filming live in the streets of Sydney and at five locations: St Mary's Cathedral, the Domain, the Opera House, Cockle Bay and Barangaroo at Darling Harbour.

Some 10,000 people watched the stations of the cross in the Domain, while an estimated audience of 500 million tuned in for the telecast.

The design of the crucifix was Michael Scott-Mitchell's cross to bear. He also designed the Olympic Cauldron in 2000, and aimed for a moment that would be powerful, and yet allowed the actor to remain comfortable, in freezing weather, barely clad and exhausted from his performance.

Although there are normally 14 stations of the cross, only eight have a scriptural foundation, and in any case, the number and order was changed for World Youth Day, in part to placate Jews, who feared animosity, if the full stations were played out.

WYD co-ordinator Bishop Anthony Fisher said the Catholic Church did not want to anger the Jewish community.

The Pope remains in Sydney until after mass tomorrow. He met yesterday with Premier Morris Iemma, and held an ecumenical meeting with Reverend Robert Forsythe of the Anglican Church and representatives of other Christian churches and other faiths.

It wasn't all meetings, interspersed with blood and misery, however. The Pope received gifts from 12 young people chosen to meet him.

Those gifts included rosary beads (possibly he has a few, but these were from Salamanca), an Aboriginal cloth, a Papuan crest, African clothes from Congo and a Coolamon, or wooden dish for carrying things.

One can only imagine how he looked, having put all that on.
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