(ANS – Rome) – The Salesian community of the Don Bosco parish of Cinecittà, Rome,  decided to produce for Lent and Easter 2012 a diorama of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus. In a form which is easy to understand, but at the same time evocative, the representation seeks to recall the  most important moments of the liturgical year and the event which changed the history of the world.

The idea of creating a diorama – that is a plastic representation, a scale model of a place or an event – was due to the Salesian community.  The Rector of the community, Fr. Giancarlo Manieri explained: “We asked ourselves, why is it that at Christmas, the feast of the Incarnation of the Lord, we make a crib (...) and yet at Easter, the feast of feasts, the memorial of Christ who, so as not to abandon humanity, takes the form of bread, the solemnity which recalls the most incredible of miracles, the Resurrection, we don’t do something similar?

The diorama set up at “Don Bosco” in the same place as the annual Christmas crib, does not have a single focus like that of the crib, which centres on the nativity scene. The diorama scenes follow the unfolding of the events of the Pascal Triduum. In the foreground there is the Cenacle, the room of the Last Supper and of Christ’s gift of the Eucharist; further back there is Golgotha, where the Messiah is nailed to the cross, simbolically surrounded by lightning flashes which seem to underline nature upset by the death of the Creator; finally there is the sepulchre which represents the time of waiting on Holy Saturday, but which is seen wide open, leading to the luminous image of the Risen Christ.

The guide the attention of the onlooker towards the open tomb and the Resurrection there are the three statuettes of Mary Magdalen, Mary mother of James and Salome, who represent all the women of the world. Behind them, however, there is a group of other people, wearing traditional dress of diffenet countries and cultures, to represent the movement of the whole of humanity towards the salvation brought by Jesus.

To signify the universality of the event there are some symbols to represent all the continents: a camel and the desert for Africa, the Colossus for Europe, the Great Wall for Asia, some skyscrapers and the Statue of Liberty for America two Eater Island heads for Oceania.  

Published 06/04/2012