We know it is all in the story: in the Scriptures, that is. Haven't we read the tale often enough? What we haven't done until now is ... live it.

The audience for "The Passion of the Christ" lives it in detail That is the glory of the visual. It is what Veronese, Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo and hundreds like them have known: visual representation as clothing for truths only partly susceptible to words.

"The Passion of the Christ" may prove for moderns -- uniquely forgetful of what it once meant to kneel, weeping, at the foot of the cross -- a kind of fifth Gospel. The Gospel According to Mel, but not circumscribed by the auteur's human idiosyncrasies; taken from his hands, perhaps, as with Michelangelo's Pieta and fulfilled in ways to be wondered at for years to come.

I cannot know whether John Paul II, upon viewing "The Passion of the Christ," actually used the words attributed to him -- "It is as it was." I know this -- I sense this -- I am beyond measure confident of this ... "It is as it was."