Hugh Bonneville at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem while filming “Jesus: Countdown to Calvary.” Photo courtesy of American Public Television
Of course an actor like Hugh Bonneville would be captivated by the drama of the last week of Jesus’ life, with his triumphant entrance into Jerusalem, his challenging of the priests in the temple, his betrayal by Judas and his sentencing to crucifixion at the hands of a mob.
What will surprise many is that Bonneville, 54, whose biggest role to date has been as Lord Grantham in “Downton Abbey,” has a theology degree from Cambridge University, where he was taught Christian history by Rowan Williams, formerly the archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church of England.
After Cambridge, Bonneville went on to drama school, but last year he packed a suitcase full of his old Cambridge textbooks and headed for Jerusalem to research and retrace the last tumultuous days of of Jesus’ life. The result is a new hourlong documentary, “Jesus: Countdown to Calvary,” which will air on most public television stations before Easter.
“This is a place where history and faith come together,” Bonneville says in the opening section of the documentary, standing before the sunny, heat-kissed stones of the old city. “Whether you are a person of faith or of none, you cannot escape the fact that the last six days of this man’s life, and his death, changed the world.”
Caring for my senior dog was a masterclass in that Lenten refrain: “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” It was my soul that she was training.
Pope Francis experienced another setback today with “two episodes of acute respiratory insufficiency” caused by “a significant accumulation of mucus in the lungs.”
Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, shared that, “The pope is reminding every one of us, all people, starting with us elderly, that we are all frail and therefore we must take care of each other.”
