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March 29, 2013, GOOD FRIDAY
Friday of the Passion of our Lord
The Crucifixion, from left: Giotto, 1304-1305; Masaccio, 1426; Michelangelo (sculpture), 1492; Raphael, 1502; and Van der Weyden, Entombment of Christ, 1451.[
Readings for today's liturgy:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/032913.cfm
WITH THE POPE TODAY
5:00 p.m. Pope Francis presided at the
Commemoration of the Lord's Passion
Liturgy of the Word, Adoration of the Cross and Communion Rite
Rt. Peter's Basilica
9:15 p.m. The Pope joined the faithful at the Via Crucis meditations and prayers at the Colosseum.
This year, Benedict XVI asked two young people from Lebanon to prepare the meditations and prayers under the guidance of Cardinal Bechara Boutros Rai, Patriarch of the Maronite Church.
The tests and illustrations may be found here:
www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/2013/documents/ns_lit_doc_20130329_via-crucis...
Pope Francis prostrates himself before the Crucifix at the afternoon commemoration of the Lord's Passion in St. Peter's Basilica. Below, Benedict XVI on Good Friday 2007:
However, the iconic papal image for Good Friday remains that of John Paul II hugging a Crucifix while watching the Via Crucis at the Colosseum in 2005 on a small monitor in his private chapel at the Apostolic Palace. All the more poignant because it was the last living image we saw of him. Less than a week later, he went home to the Father's house.
[DIM=8pt]Historical footnote about Benedict XVI: He presided at his first Holy Week liturgies as Pope only in 2006 because he was elected Pope after Easter which was March 25 in 2005. However, he was the unintended protagonist of Good Friday and Easter Sunday in 2005, because he wrote the Meditations and Prayers for the Via Crucis at the Colosseum, with his denunciation of filth in the Church, and two nights later, he presided at the Easter Vigil Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, having been designated by John Paul II, then less than a week away from death, to take his place.
Adoration of the Cross, St. Peter's Basilica, Good Friday, 2012.
VIA CRUCIS
at the Colosseum
ROME, April 6, 2012 (Translated from AGI) - Benedict XVI presided at the annual Good Friday Way of the Cross at the Roman Colosseum Friday night, which was attended by some 20,000 pilgrims and broadcast worldwide on radio and TV.
The meditations and prayers for this year's ritual were written at the Pope's request by an octogenarian couple. Danilo and Anna Maria Zanzucchi, who were collaborators of the late Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolari Movement, and who had founded within that ecclesial entity, the Famiglie Nuove (New Families) movement. Their text focused on problems of the family. preliminary to the World Meeting of Families held in Milan in June last year, with the presence of Benedict XVI.
At the end of the 14 stations, the Pope delivered a brief reflection on the family. Here is the Vatican translation of the Holy Father's remarks and concluding prayer:
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Once more in meditation, prayer and song, we have recalled Jesus’s journey along the way of the cross: a journey seemingly hopeless, yet one that changed human life and history, and opened the way to “new heavens and a new earth” (cf. Rev 21:1).
Especially today, Good Friday, the Church commemorates with deep spiritual union the death of the Son of God on the cross; in his cross she sees the tree of life, which blossoms in new hope.
The experience of suffering and of the cross touches all mankind; it touches the family too. How often does the journey become wearisome and difficult! Misunderstandings, conflicts, worry for the future of our children, sickness and problems of every kind. These days too, the situation of many families is made worse by the threat of unemployment and other negative effects of the economic crisis.
The Way of the Cross which we have spiritually retraced this evening invites all of us, and families in particular, to contemplate Christ crucified in order to have the strength to overcome difficulties. The cross of Christ is the supreme sign of God’s love for every man and woman, the superabundant response to every person’s need for love.
At times of trouble, when our families have to face pain and adversity, let us look to Christ’s cross. There we can find the courage and strength to press on; there we can repeat with firm hope the words of Saint Paul: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom 8:35,37).
In times of trial and tribulation, we are not alone; the family is not alone. Jesus is present with his love, he sustains them by his grace and grants the strength needed to carry on, to make sacrifices and to overcome every obstacle. And it is to this love of Christ that we must turn when human turmoil and difficulties threaten the unity of our lives and our families.
The mystery of Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection inspires us to go on in hope: times of trouble and testing, when endured with Christ, with faith in him, already contain the light of the resurrection, the new life of a world reborn, the passover of all those who believe in his word.
In that crucified Man who is the Son of God, even death itself takes on new meaning and purpose: it is redeemed and overcome, it becomes a passage to new life. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it produces much fruit” (Jn 12:24).
Let us entrust ourselves to the Mother of Christ.
May Mary, who accompanied her Son along his way of sorrows, who stood beneath the cross at the hour of his death, and who inspired the Church at its birth to live in God’s presence, lead our hearts and the hearts of every family through the vast mysterium passionis towards the mysterium paschale, towards that light which breaks forth from Christ’s resurrection and reveals the definitive victory of love, joy and life over evil, suffering and death. Amen.
To end this Good Friday post, please revisit the Meditations and Prayers written by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger for the 2005 Via Crucis at the Colosseum.
http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/2005/documents/ns_lit_doc_20050325_via-crucis_en.html
Click on each illustration to access the meditation and prayer associated with each station.
It is remarkable that John Paul II did not call on Cardinal Ratzinger to do this in the previous 23 years since the latter came to Rome to be Prefect of the CDF. It was also providential, given what was to follow less than a month later, when Cardinal Ratzinger would become Pope himself.
NINTH STATION
Jesus falls for the third time
V/. Adoramus te, Christe, et benedicimus tibi.
R/. Quia per sanctam crucem tuam redemisti mundum.
From the Book of Lamentations. 3:27-32
It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone in silence when he has laid it on him; let him put his mouth in the dust - there may yet be hope; let him give his cheek to the smiter, and be filled with insults. For the Lord will not cast off for ever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion, according to the abundance of his steadfast love.
MEDITATION
What can the third fall of Jesus under the Cross say to us? We have considered the fall of man in general, and the falling of many Christians away from Christ and into a godless secularism.
Should we not also think of how much Christ suffers in his own Church? How often is the holy sacrament of his Presence abused, how often must he enter empty and evil hearts!
How often do we celebrate only ourselves, without even realizing that he is there!
How often is his Word twisted and misused!
What little faith is present behind so many theories, so many empty words!
How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to him!
How much pride, how much self-complacency!
What little respect we pay to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where he waits for us, ready to raise us up whenever we fall!
All this is present in his Passion. His betrayal by his disciples, their unworthy reception of his Body and Blood, is certainly the greatest suffering endured by the Redeemer; it pierces his heart. We can only call to him from the depths of our hearts: Kyrie eleison – Lord, save us (cf. Mt 8,25).
PRAYER
Lord, your Church often seems like a boat about to sink, a boat taking in water on every side. In your field we see more weeds than wheat. The soiled garments and face of your Church throw us into confusion.
Yet it is we ourselves who have soiled them! It is we who betray you time and time again, after all our lofty words and grand gestures. Have mercy on your Church; within her too, Adam continues to fall.
When we fall, we drag you down to earth, and Satan laughs, for he hopes that you will not be able to rise from that fall; he hopes that being dragged down in the fall of your Church, you will remain prostrate and overpowered.
But you will rise again. You stood up, you arose and you can also raise us up. Save and sanctify your Church. Save and sanctify us all.
Pater noster, qui es in cælis:
sanctificetur nomen tuum;
adveniat regnum tuum;
fiat voluntas tua, sicut in cælo, et in terra.
Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie;
et dimitte nobis debita nostra,
sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris;
et ne nos inducas in tentationem;
sed libera nos a malo.
Eia mater, fons amoris,
me sentire vim doloris
fac, ut tecum lugeam.
No matter how many times I have read this, the stark power of truth in the simple words always overwhelms me. One journalist, looking back on the first year of Benedict XVI's Pntificate, whose anniversary was 3 days after Easter 2006 (which fell on his 79th birthday that year), says four significant interventions by Cardinal Ratzinger inearly 2005 paved the way for his election as Pope: his extemporaneous eulogy at the funeral of Don Luigi Giussani, founde rof Communione e Liberazione and his personalk friend, at the Cathedral of Milan in February; the Via Crucis meditations and prayer in March; hs funeral eulogy for John Paul II; his April 1 address to the Benedictine community in Subiaco on the crisis of faith in Europe; and his 'dictatorship of relativism' homily (it was far more than that, of course), at the Mass that immediately preceded the Conclave which went on to elect him Pope. In hindsight, it was a phenomenal and thoroughly unplanned course which can only be considered providential.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 30/03/2013 04:53] |