Promises Past and Future

By MSGR. THOMAS J. MCSWEENEY
Religion Columnist

Suspicious of people who make promises they do not keep, the French essayist Alfred de Musset wrote, "It is easy to promise, and alas! how easy to forget!"

As much as I like to think of myself as a man of my word, I shudder to think of the many promises I have made to myself and others through the years, promises that forgetfulness or any number of thin excuses have broken. From "I promise to get it to you next week" to "Lord, forgive me, I'll never do it again!" my personal litany of unfulfilled assurances is endless.

I suspect that is why I have long had a fascination and respect for the promise made by the residents of Oberammergau, a picturesque German village nestled at the foot of the Bavarian Alps. For the past 366 years, these devoutly religious folks have kept a promise made by their ancestors to God. In the midst of a devastating plague in 1632, villagers vowed that, should they be shielded from the pestilence, they would regularly act out the Passion of Jesus Christ as a way to celebrate His divinity.

Historical records show that the epidemic was killing one of every ten Oberammergau citizens. Once the promise was made, not one villager fell victim. The first performance of the Passion Play took place in the spring of 1634, and the drama has been mounted approximately every ten years since. A few additional performances make this year's presentation the 40th full-scale production. This year, 2000 people, about half the village of 5300, will participate one way or another.

As one of the hundreds of thousands of tourists who will make the trek into the Bavarian hills to see this amazing spectacle, I have been monitoring recent news reports regarding the play's continuing issues with anti-Semitism.

Understandably such accusations have increasingly soured the play's reception.

In the past, Jews were presented in "horned" costumes, and the end of Judaism was predicted as a punishment for denying Jesus. During the Second Vatican Council, however, the Church began to examine ancient prejudices about the collective guilt of the Jewish people and a divine curse upon Jewish blood, and a new understanding gradually emerged. Pope John Paul II has made the scourge of anti-Semitism the centerpiece of his Jubilee Year plea for forgiveness and reconciliation.

But, after years of serious attempts to purge the world's most famous Passion Play of anti-Jewish passages, the play remains troubling for Jews and Christians alike. So the present generation of villagers has taken a new look at these elements and radically revised the script.

Jesus is now portrayed as a Hebrew-speaking Jew and is called "Rabbi' by His followers. His conduct reflects more accurately Jewish religious rituals such as the Seder meal. In the scenes where the crowd calls for Jesus' crucifixion, one group of actors counters their shouts with a cry not to crucify Jesus, in order to suggest that not all Jews were against Him.

Many Christians and Jews still see serious problems, yet these modest but critical changes are a start. Perhaps one day, that centuries-old vow will help obliterate the scourge of religious intolerance, particularly anti-Semitismthe most infamous plague of our 20th century. It would be a promise worth keeping.

For a free copy of the Christopher News Note, TOLERANCE, write to The Christophers, 12 East 48th Street, New York, NY 10017

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