Faith

This Easter the BBC is broadcasting The Passion.

The play is the retelling of the last week of Jesus's life from three different viewpoints: the religious authorities, the Romans and Jesus himself

To coincide with the BBC broadcast a local priest reads an extract from the Passion and explains what the story means to him.

Fr Stephen Maughan

Father Stephen Maughan came to Hull two years ago after training to be a Catholic priest in Rome.  Before that he was a secondary school teacher.  He is now based at St Charles Borromeo church in the city centre. 

What does the Passion mean to me?
Everything.  When you are ordained a priest, as part of the ceremony you lie prostrate on the floor while the people invoke the saints and pray for you.  It is a sign of total submission to Christ.  We don't marry and commit ourselves as much as we can to working for Christ in the world. 

That is made possible by the unconditional love shown to me in the passion of Christ.  It is the passion which makes sense of my life and which makes sense of so many situations I come across in my dealings with others. 

Sometimes it seems too much to take in, but Christ died for love of me - and so I put my trust and hope in him - and so he means everything to me.