VIA CRUCIS AT THE COLOSSEUM
Here is a translation of the Holy Father's words at the end of the Stations of the Cross tonight:
Dear brothers and sisters,
Tonight we accompanied in faith Jesus as he walked through the last stage of his earthly journey, the most sorrowful part of it, the path to Calvary.
We heard the cries of the mob, the words of condemnation, the mocking of the soldiers, the weeping of the Virgin Mary and the other women.
Now we are immersed in the silence of this night, the silence of the Cross, the silence of death. It is a silence that is laden with all the weight borne by the man who is rejected, oppressed, crushed, , the weight of sin that disfigures his face, the weight of evil.
Tonight, in the depths of our hearts, we have relived the drama of Jesus, so laden with pain, with evil, with man's sin.
And what remains before our eyes? There remains a Crucifix - a cross raised on Golgotha, a Cross which seems to mark the definitive defeat of He who spoke of the power of forgiveness and mercy, who had asked his listeners to believe in God's infinite love for every human being. "Spurned and avoided by men", we have before us the "man of suffering... from whom men hide their faces" (Is 53,3).
But let us look well at the man crucified between heaven and earth, let us contemplate him more profoundly, and we will discover that teh Cross is not the sign of the victory of death, or sin or evil, but the luminous sign of love, indeed, the vastness of God's love, which we could never have imagined, ask or hope for:
God stooped down to us, he humbled himself in order to reach the darkest corners of our lives to hold out his hand to us and draw us to himself, to bring us to himself.
The Cross speaks to us of God's supreme love and invites us to renew today our faith in thE power of that love, to believe that in every situation of our life, of history, in the world, God can triumph over death, sin, evil, and give us a new life, resurrected.
In the death on thE Cross of the Son of God, is the seed of new hope of life, like the seed that first dies in the earth.
On this night heavy with silence, heavy with hope, there resounds the invitation that God extends to us through the words of St. Augustine:
Have faith! You will come to me and enjoy the good things at my table, just as I have not refused to taste the bad things at your table .. I promised you my life... As a token, I have given you my death, to say, 'Here, I invite you to take part in my life'...
It is a life where no one dies, a truly blessed life, that offers incorruptible food, food which restores and never falls short...
The life to which I invite you is this... friendship with the Father and the Holy Spirit: it is the eternal banquet, it is communion with me... participating in my life. (cfr Discourse 211,5).
Let us fix our gaze on Jesus crucified and ask him in prayer: "Enlighten, Lord, our hearts so that we may follow you along the way of the Cross, and let the old person die in us, the one who is bound to selfishness, to evil, to sin. Make us new beings, holy men and women, transformed and animated by your love".
4/23/11
P.S. I have now had a chance to review the dozens of pictures taken at the Colosseum by various agencies, and not having seen the telecast (I was on EWTN practically the whole day Friday and they did not air it) - I surmise that the Pope did not enter the Colosseum at all, nor 'carry the Cross' as he did in previous years, but proceeded straight to the tribunal that had been arranged for him overlooking the scene. The tinge of regret one feels about any indication of our Holy Father's physical aging is immediately replaced by a feeling of gratitude that he has taken care to be very prudent about pacing himself and conserving his forces so he may more optimally carry out the things he must do (versus the things he might want to do but are really non-essential). God keep his Vicar on earth healthy and well for many many more years to come....
Pope Benedict XVI leads
Good Friday 'Via Crucis'
Rome, April 22 (dpa) - Pope Benedict XVI presided over Rome's traditional Good Friday Way of the Cross procession, reminding the faithful how earthly temptations such as an obsession with personal success can make people lose their sense of humanity.
In his opening prayer, the ontiff referred to the suffering inflicted on 'the youngest and weakest,' without directly referring to the widespread revelations that have emerged in recent years of sexual abuse of children by priests.
'It is the hour of darkness ... when an emptiness of sense and values nullifies the act of education and the disorder of the heart disfigures the ingenuousness of the youngest and the weakest,' Benedict said.
During the procession, also known as Via Crucis, thousands of people, many carrying candles, wound their way round the Colosseum as they marked the 14 Stations of the Cross, which commemorate the last hours leading to Jesus' crucifixion.
The 84-year-old Benedict followed proceedings by kneeling down on a platform situated on the Palatine Hill overlooking the ancient Roman amphitheatre.
Volunteers, a disabled man in a wheelchair, and two families - one from Ethiopia and one from Rome - took turns carrying a wooden cross at the head of the procession, while prayers and meditations were read aloud at each of the 14 intervals.
Both families included children - five in the case of the Roman family, with a set of 6-year-old triplets and another of 2-year-old twins.
This year the meditations were penned by an Italian Augustinian nun, Sister Maria Rita Piccione. It marked the first time the Pontiff [Benedict XVI, that is'; John Paul II twice assigned it to women - one nun, and one Protestant] has entrusted the task to a woman.
In an interview, Piccione said that as a special tribute to childhood, she had added a short sentence to be read by a child at the beginning of each station.
'I would like for a child to read this for two reasons: first, to reclaim the simple gaze that immediately captures the heart of reality. Also to include the voice of children who have been exploited, hurt and offended,' Piccione told Catholic television news agency Rome Reports.
Earlier Friday, Benedict himself made broadcasting history when he became the first ontiff to appear on television to answer several questions from the public, including from a child who survived the recent earthquake in Japan and a Muslim woman from strife-torn Ivory Coast.
The pontiff told 7-year-old Japanese girl Elena that he did not know why people are made to suffer, but that consolation should be drawn from Jesus, who 'stands by our side' and suffered on the Cross.
Benedict, who frequently reminds the faithful that according to Catholic teachings euthanasia is wrong, told a mother that her spending hours everyday by the side of her vegetative, coma-stricken son was an act of faith in God and of 'respect for human life, even in the saddest of situations.'
In other questions posed to him, including by several Christian students from Iraq, Benedict stressed the need for peace and religious tolerance around the world.
The Pontiff is scheduled to lead an Easter vigil on Saturday at the Vatican.
On Sunday, he is due to celebrate Easter Mass in St Peter's Basilica before delivering his Urbi et Orbi message and blessing 'to the city and the world.'
Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ and is regarded by Christians as their most important religious feast.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/04/2011 21:36]