Passion

The word passion is now used to mean a great enthusiam for some thing, but in a Christian context, the Passion (with a capital P) is the suffering of Jesus Christ in his final days, or a telling of this story in the Gospels. This usage exposes the etymological origins of the word, which lie in the Latin pati: "to suffer".

The word is also used to refer to a musical setting of this story. The best known musical settings of the Passion are by Johann Sebastian Bach, who wrote two Passions which have survived intact to the present day, one based on the Gospel of John (the St. John Passion, the other on the Gospel of Matthew (the St. Matthew Passion). In more recent times, the 20th century Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki has written a St. Luke Passion, based on the Gospel of Luke.

Non-musical settings of the Passion story are generally called Passion plays.

In the Roman Catholic Church, the Passion story is depicted in the Stations of the Cross (or Way of the Cross).

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Passion is also the name of:

• a musical by Stephen Sondheim; see Passion (musical)
• a 1954 film directed by Allan Dwan;
• a film directed by Jean-Luc Godard;
• an album produced by Peter Gabriel; see Passion (album)
• a fruit; see passion fruit
• The St. John Passion, BWV 245, and the St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244, are musical compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach

The Passion of Christ is the name of a movie by Mel Gibson.