In observing, listening, and reading about Bach’s Passions, it was brought to my attention that not only does the word “passion” hold such a strong religious meaning and connotation, but the word also has varying meaning. The discovery that today’s connotation and common meaning of the word is much different than the true definition and connotation of the word was very interesting to me, and it was shocking to see how far the word has strayed from its meaning in modern time. Today when we think of the word passion, most people probably think of “strong and barely controllable emotion” or “strong feeling” as the word is described by most dictionaries. We may also relate this word to the idea of an intense love. Either way, the feeling associated with the word passion is generally positive, but if we look at a different meaning, and likely the original meaning, we see something entirely different. The word passion is derived from the Latin “passio” which means suffering. This correlates with many secondary definitions of passion such as “the suffering and death of Jesus Christ.” These interpretations not only define passion as suffering but relate the word directly to the crucifixion of Jesus, which is not such a positive idea for many people. This exactly what we see in Bach’s Passions as he tells the story of the death of Jesus using the Gospels and other biblical texts. I do not think the average person in today’s world would immediately think of Jesus Christ at the mention of passion, but it seems that this may have been the case in the past.