An act of love

I will have the pleasure of appearing in one more performance of Jesus Christ Superstar, Lorna Gianeloni’s the Weber & Rice musical that Lorna Gianelloni has produced, and which audiences have enjoyed this past weekend at the Courtyard Marriott.

Had my late, sainted grandmother, Domenica Tarulli, lived long enough to see me perform in this show, she would have shook her head and in English laced with a very strong Italian accent no doubt excoriated me for playing the role of Caiaphas, the high priest who is among the conspirators whose words and actions led to the crucifixion of Christ. I am sure she would have disapproved of the show as well, believing as I am sure she did that the place for discussions of the sacred should be in church.

Early in the on-site rehearsals for the show I had many occasions to view the actors playing Christ’s apostles remove him – in the form of Billy Walker, who handles the role with dignity and aplomb, from the cross that appears on stage. I don’t feel this is a spoiler, as the greatest story ever told is no secret to anyone.

Among the hands undoing the ropes were those of someone for whom the entire story of Christ and the apostles is no secret. Father Glenn LeCompte, a Houma native who now works primarily as director of worship for the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, owns those hands. And the first time I saw him performing this task I was struck with the idea that I was seeing something very special.

Here, I thought, is a man for whom taking Christ down from the cross after his death is something more than a mere action taken as part of a play. Ordained in 1986, Father Glenn is someone for whom the story is not just a story, who has actually taken the place of Christ many, many times on many altars, or so I would learn after we had an in-depth conversation about it all. This was not mere acting. It was something else, though I couldn’t find the right words to describe it, hence the discussion.

I learned that the play has been a part of Father Glenn’s life for as long as it has been part of mine. I was in high school when the original rock opera came out on vinyl. Father Glenn was 12-years-old when it came out, and he performed a pantomime to it under the direction of Sister Joanne Russo of the Marianite order.

“It’s very special for me,” said Father Glenn, who is no stranger to music and plays a mean guitar.

The apostles – with the exception of Peter and Judas – are not named in the show. Father Glenn said he can imagine himself as Matthew, if his apostle character had to be identified with a specific one of the twelve. Matthew was a tax collector, Father Glenn was an accountant before the vocational call. His graduate school thesis was on Matthew. So they are not strangers. As to the expression that his moment of freeing the executed Christ was something special, he assured me it was not in my head.

“Just looking there and being in touch with that moment of Jesus dying, and the great love that I have for Jesus knowing he gave his life for me and for everyone else,” he said. “To take him down from that cross is an act of love.”

Indeed that was the word missing from my description. It was love. An act of love felt strongly by the man portraying it, for someone whom even the agnostic would have to agree spread a message that has gone about the world that is all about love.

Participation in the show was already affecting how I might approach next week’s observations of the last week in the life of Jesus. My discussion with Father Glenn will live with me for a much longer time.