The Herald

The Herald is the monthly magazine of the Team Parish of Louth. It is published on the first of the month and costs 60p a copy or £6 for an annual subscription. It can be posted in the UK for £9.00 per annum. If you would like a copy posted to you, or delivered if you live in Louth, please contact the Parish Office.

Editorial for July 2010

I’m still reflecting on the visit to the Oberammergau Passion Play last month. It was an extraordinary experience.

49 of us went, flying from Manchester and spending the first few days in Fuschl in Austria before driving to the village of Oberammergau in Bavaria for the play as the climax of our stay.

In one sense you know the story; it’s familiar, you’ve seen and read it before. But nothing quite prepared me for the experience I was to have.

The first thing that struck me was the tradition of it all.

For 200 years, every 10 years this small village put together a production, based on the text of a local Roman Catholic priest, that drew hundreds of thousands of people to this small place nestling in the Alps.

The Play permeated the whole village. You might find one of the cast serving you in a shop or giving you breakfast in your accommodation or driving you in his taxi. The actors are all amateurs who have ‘day jobs’ as well.

Walking around the village it seemed that most village men had long hair and beards! In some senses everything else stood still for the 18 months around the year of the Play.

There was enormous commitment from the village emanating from the understanding of a promise to God by the villagers in the sixteenth century, to rid them of plague.

Then there was the enormity of it all. 4700 people sat in the auditorium; a cavernous semi circle roof with raked seating. One end was open and there was the permanent stage against the backdrop of the mountains.

There must have been between four and five hundred people in the cast and orchestra let alone the sheep and goats, horses and camels. A ‘Big do’ and an extraordinary spectacle.

And the Play itself.

It is always fascinating to watch different productions of the same Play. Different emphases open up new understandings and challenge our complacency and comfortableness. We see things in a different light and that often helps us grow in understanding.

Oberammergau 2010 sets the familiar story firmly in the context of community.

Jesus’ Passion is firmly connected to events of the past. It is placed clearly as a reflector to many stories of the Old Testament. So Old Testament stories such as the flight from Egypt, the burning bush and the sacrifice of Isaac are nuanced in a different way and have new light shed on them through Jesus’ own Passion.

Further, the Passion unfolds in the context of both the Roman occupation and the whole community. It is not an isolated incident that concerns but a few. Roman soldiers and the crowd are centre stage. Judas is a tragic figure who doesn’t realise the actual consequences of his betrayal of Jesus and discovers the enormity of what he has done.

Suddenly, there in front of me was unfolding a drama that involved us all, whether we recognised it or not.

Jesus’ Passion is universal. It is with us and for us and in us.

Jesus was crucified as the sky turned black. There was an emptiness all round until…… a flickering light brightened the darkness. And even when all seemed empty and dark, the light flickered on.