Braving forecasts of rain and rising petrol prices, about 5000 people attended the annual Good Friday Passion Play at the Shrine of Our Lady of Mercy in Penrose Park.
With about a hundred costumed actors and crew members, the spectacular pageant traces the whole story, in all its drama and tragedy, from Judas’s betrayal to Palm Sunday to the Last Supper to the Crucifixion and burial of Christ.
The play has been running for some 38 years, director David Bruggeman, who lives in the Southern Highlands town of Wingello, told The Catholic Weekly. All of David’s eight children are involved.
This is the fifth year that his son Peter will play the role of Jesus – acclaimed by crowds, then betrayed, beaten, scourged, crowned, and crucified. Mary is played by Philomena Richards, who comes from Albury.
It’s a wonderful spiritual experience, David says.
“Basically we think only of the Gospel story. You don’t take it in,” David explained. “But when you’re here and when you see him get beaten up, and scourged and go to the wall and fall down and get weakened and die, you realise that this isn’t made-up rubbish. This is real.
“Being here in person works. It transforms Good Friday.”
The “gritty, earthy, and realistic” play also moves people to take advantage of the presence of half a dozen priests who hear confessions throughout the play.
“There are long queues,” says David. The Australian bishops have approved a plenary indulgence for those who follow the Passion Play because it incorporates the traditional 14 Stations of the Cross.
