Show Me the Way of the Cross Once Again
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Part FOR THE LITURGICAL CELEBRATIONS
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
Practiced Fri
THE PASSION OF THE LORD
THE Style OF THE CROSS
LED Past HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
COLOSSEUM
ROME, 30 MARCH 2018
[Arabic, English, French, High german, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish]
INTRODUCTION
This yr, the meditations on the 14 stations of the Way of the Cross were written past 15 immature people between the ages of 16 and 27. Two things are unusual in this regard. First, there is the age of the authors: they are young people and adolescents, nine of whom are students at the Liceo Pilo Albertelli in Rome. Second, there is the "choral" attribute of their work, which is a symphony of many voices of different tonalities and timbres. These are non "immature people" in general; instead, they are Valerio, Maria, Margherita, Francesco, Chiara, Greta and the others.
With the enthusiasm typical of their age, they took up the challenge presented by the Pope in this yr devoted peculiarly to the younger generation. They did so using a precise methodology. Gathered around a table, they read the accounts of the passion of Christ from the four Gospels. In other words, they stood before each scene forth the Way of the Cross and "saw" it. Then, later a certain fourth dimension had passed, each immature person spoke about a item of each scene that had struck him or her the nigh. In this way, it became easier and more than natural to assign the private stations.
3 cardinal words, three verbs, marker the development of these texts: first, as already stated, is seeing, then encountering, and last, praying.
When we are young, we want to meet, we want to encounter the earth around us; we want to see everything. The scene of Good Friday is powerful, even in its horror: seeing it can pb to revulsion or to mercy that provokes an run across. This was the manner of Jesus in the Gospel and every day, including today. He encounters Pilate, Herod, the priests, the guards, his female parent, the Cyrenean, the women of Jerusalem and the two thieves, his concluding companions on the way. When we are young, every day we have a take chances to see another person, and every encounter is new and surprising. Nosotros abound one-time when nosotros no longer want to see anyone, when fright closes doors and defeats trust and openness. It is the fright of change, because to encounter ways to change, to exist prepared to ready out in one case more on our journey with new eyes. To see and to see leads, finally, to prayer, because seeing and encountering give rise to mercy, even in a globe that seems pitiless and, in times like our own, abandoned to senseless acrimony, meanness and the desire not to be bothered.
Yet if nosotros follow Jesus with all our heart, also on this mysterious journey to the cross, courage and trust tin exist reborn. After nosotros have seen, and opened ourselves to encounter, we volition experience the grace of praying, no longer alone but together.
MEDITATIONS AND PRAYERS
equanimous by
| I | Valerio De Felice | |
| II | Maria Tagliaferri and Margherita Di Marco | |
| III | Caterina Benincasa | |
| Iv | Agnese Brunetti | |
| 5 | Chiara Mancini | |
| Half dozen | Cecilia Nardini | |
| 7 | Francesco Porceddu | |
| 8 | Sofia Russo | |
| Nine | Chiara Bartolucci | |
| X | Greta Giglio | |
| Eleven | Greta Sandri | |
| XII | Dante Monda | |
| XIII | Flavia De Angelis | |
| Fourteen | Marta Croppo |
coordinated by
Professor Andrea Monda
FIRST STATION
Jesus is condemned to death
From the Gospel according to Luke
A third fourth dimension he said to them, "Why, what evil has he done? I have institute in him no basis for the judgement of death; I will therefore have him flogged so release him. But they kept urgently demanding with loud shouts that he should exist crucified; and their voices prevailed. So Pilate gave his verdict that their demand should be granted. He released the man they asked for, the one who had been put in prison for insurrection and murder, and handed Jesus over as they wished (Lk 23: 22-25).
MEDITATION
I see you, Jesus, standing earlier the governor, who tries three times to oppose the will of the people, and finally decides not to decide. I meet you standing before the crowd; they are asked iii times and each time they decide against you. The crowd, in other words, anybody and no one. Hidden in the throng, nosotros lose our individuality; we become the voice of a 1000 other voices. Even before we deny you, we deny ourselves, diluting our own responsibility in the seething tide of a faceless crowd. And nevertheless we are responsible. Misled by the rabble-rousers, by the evil that insinuates itself with a deceitful and deafening voice, it is we, all humanity, who condemn y'all.
Today we are horrified at so great an injustice; we don't want to exist a part of it. Simply in this way we forget all those times when nosotros ourselves were ready to salvage Barabbas over you. All those times when our ears were deaf to the phonation of goodness, when we preferred non to see the injustice all around us.
In that crowded square, information technology would accept been enough for a single heart to hesitate, for a unmarried voice to be raised against the one thousand voices of evil. Whenever life sets before us a decision to exist fabricated, allow united states be reminded of that square and that mistake. Let united states of america permit our hearts to hesitate and command our voices to speak out.
PRAYER
I enquire y'all, Lord,
keep watch over our decisions,
bring them clarity by your light,
and lead united states to ask the right questions.
Evil alone never doubts.
Trees that sink their roots in the footing,
wither, if watered by evil,
but you take fix our roots in heaven,
and our branches on earth, to know and follow you.
Our Father…
Second STATION
Jesus receives his cross
From the Gospel according to Mark
[Jesus] chosen the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If whatsoever want to go my followers, allow them deny themselves and have up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the Gospel, volition relieve it (Mk 8:34-35).
MEDITATION
I see you, Jesus, crowned with thorns as you receive your cantankerous. You take it, equally you always accept everything and everyone. They brunt you with its wood, heavy and rough, yet you exercise not rebel, you exercise not decline that unjust and humiliating musical instrument of torture. You have it up and begin to walk, carrying it on your shoulders.
How many times have I rebelled in anger against burdens I have received, viewing them as heavy or unjust. That is not your way. You are simply a few years older than I – nowadays we would consider yous still young – only y'all are accepting. You take seriously what life offers you, every opportunity it presents, equally if you wanted to go to the very heart of things, to discover that there is ever something beyond appearances, something remarkable and meaningful. Thanks to y'all, I empathize that this is a cross of salvation and liberation, a cross that bears me upward whenever I stumble, a yoke that is piece of cake, a burden that is light.
The scandal of the death of God's Son, a sinner's death, a criminal's death, grants us the grace to discover amid sorrow your resurrection, amid suffering your glory, amid anguish your conservancy. And the cross itself, which speaks to u.s.a. of humiliation and pain, is now revealed, thanks to your cede, as a promise that from every death new life volition arise, and in every dark place light volition shine. And so nosotros tin can cry out: "Hail, holy cross, our one hope!"
PRAYER
I ask you, Lord,
that in the light of the cross, the symbol of our faith,
we may have our sufferings and, enlightened past your love,
embrace our own crosses, made glorious by your death and resurrection.
Requite us the grace to look back on the story of our lives
and to rediscover in them your dearest for us.
Our Father…
Tertiary STATION
Jesus falls for the outset time
From the book of the prophet Isaiah
Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet nosotros deemed him stricken, struck downwards by God, and afflicted (Is 53:four).
MEDITATION
I see you, Jesus, making your manner to Calvary bearing our sins. I see you autumn, hands and knees on the ground, in hurting. With what great humility did you fall! And what great humiliation y'all now endure! Your man nature, your true manhood, is conspicuously seen in this fragment of your life. The cross you carry is a heavy i. You need help to carry information technology, but when you fall to the ground, no ane helps yous. Instead, people make fun of y'all, they express joy at the sight of a God who falls. Perhaps they are disappointed, mayhap they had a mistaken idea of who you are. Sometimes nosotros think that having organized religion in y'all means never falling in life. Together with you, I as well fall, and my ideas with me, those ideas I had about yous. How delicate they were!
I see you Jesus, as you grit your teeth and, in consummate surrender to the love of the Father, y'all get up and resume your journey. With these, your first, faltering steps below the cross, Jesus, y'all remind me of a kid taking his first steps in life. Losing his balance, he falls and cries, simply then keeps going. He trusts in the hands of his parents and does non give up. He is afraid merely he keeps walking, because trust is stronger than fear.
Past your courage, yous teach us that our failures and falls must never halt our journey, and that nosotros ever accept a choice: to give up or to get upward, in matrimony with you.
PRAYER
I ask you, Lord, requite us young people
the courage to become up after every fall,
every bit you lot did on the manner to Calvary.
Grant that we may always appreciate
the groovy and precious gift of life,
and that our failures and falls
may never be a reason for throwing it away.
Nosotros know that if we trust in you lot,
we will be able to get upward once more
and find the forcefulness to continue going,
ever.
Our Father…
FOURTH STATION
Jesus meets his mother
From the Gospel according to Luke
Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, "This child is destined for the falling and the rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed, and then that the inner thoughts of many will exist revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too" (Lk two:34-35).
MEDITATION
I encounter you, Jesus, as yous encounter your mother. Mary is in that location, making her way through the crowded street, with many persons all around her. The merely thing that makes her dissimilar from the others is the fact that she is there to accompany her son. Something we run across every 24-hour interval: mothers accompanying their children to school or to the doctor, or bringing them to work. Withal Mary is different from other mothers: she is accompanying her son to his expiry. To see your own child die is the worst, the most unnatural thing that anyone could imagine for a person, and it is all the more atrocious if that kid is dying at the hands of the police. How unnatural and unjust is this scene before my eyes! My own female parent instilled in me a sense of justice and trust in life, but what I see today has nothing to practice with that: it is senseless and painful.
I see you, Mary, as you look at your poor kid. He bears on his back the marks of the scourge and he is forced to carry the weight of the cross; soon, no doubt, in his burnout he will fall beneath information technology. Yet you knew that, sooner or afterward, this would happen. It was prophesied to yous, simply at present that information technology is taking place, everything is different. That is how things are: we are ever unprepared before the harsh realities of life. Mary, now you are sorrowful, equally whatsoever woman would be in your place, only yous practice not despair. Your eyes are undimmed; you are not forlorn and downcast. You are radiant even in your sorrow, because you take hope. You know that this journey of your son will not be a one-way trip. Y'all know, you lot feel, as only mothers can feel, that soon you lot volition see him again.
PRAYER
I inquire you, Lord: help usa always
to keep before our eyes the example of Mary,
who accepted the death of her son
as a great mystery of salvation.
Help u.s.a. to act with our gaze fixed on the good of others
and to die in the hope of the resurrection,
conscious that nosotros are never alone
or abased by God or Mary,
the loving mother ever concerned for her children.
Our Father…
5th STATION
Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry the cantankerous
From the Gospel co-ordinate to Luke
Every bit they led him away, they seized a human being, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming from the state, and they laid the cross on him, and made him carry it behind Jesus (Lk 23:26).
MEDITATION
I see yous, Jesus, crushed below the weight of the cantankerous. I see that you tin't practise it alone: At your moment of greatest demand, you remain lonely, without those who called themselves your friends. Judas betrayed you, Peter denied you, the others abandoned you. Yet suddenly there is an unexpected encounter with someone unknown, a mere passerby, who perhaps had only heard most you and not followed you. However now here he is, at your side, shoulder to shoulder, to share your yoke. His name is Simon and he is a stranger come from afar, from Cyrene. For him today something unexpected happens, which becomes an see.
Every day nosotros feel any number of encounters and conflicts, especially those of us who are young people. We continually encounter new experiences and new people. In unexpected meetings, in accidental events, in strange surprises, in that location are subconscious opportunities to love, to meet the best in our neighbours, fifty-fifty those who seem different from ourselves.
At times, Jesus, nosotros feel like you, abased by those nosotros thought were our friends, crushed by a heavy burden. All the same we must not forget that there is a Simon of Cyrene prepare to carry our cantankerous. We must remember that we are not lonely and, in that realization, we will find the force to take up the cross of those effectually us.
I encounter you, Jesus: now y'all seem be to experiencing a fleck of relief. You lot manage, momentarily, to catch a breath, now that you lot are no longer alone. I also run across Simon. Who knows if he has realized that your yoke is calorie-free, and if he appreciates the meaning of this unexpected event in his life.
PRAYER
I ask you, Lord, to requite each of us the backbone
to be like Simone of Cyrene,
who takes up your cross and follows in your steps.
May each of u.s.a. be sufficiently humble and stiff
to accept up the crosses of those whom we come across.
Grant that, when nosotros feel alone,
we may recognize on our journeying a Simon of Cyrene
who volition halt and help deport our burden.
Grant that nosotros may see the best in every person,
and be open up to all different kinds of see.
I inquire that each of us may unexpectedly
find himself or herself walking at your side.
Our Father…
Sixth STATION
Veronica wipes the confront of Jesus
From the volume of the prophet Isaiah
He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others; a homo of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account (Is 53:2-3).
MEDITATION
I see yous, Jesus, wretched and barely recognizable, treated like the to the lowest degree of men. You walk, unpleasing, to your decease, your face bleeding and disfigured, yet, every bit e'er, meek and apprehensive, looking upwardly. A woman steps out of the crowd to run into at close paw that face of yours which, perhaps, had spoken and so oftentimes to her soul and which she loved. She sees its hurting and wants to help. They exercise not let her pass, there are so many of them, all too many, and they are armed. But to her, none of that matters; she is adamant to reach you lot and for a moment she manages to touch y'all, caressing you with her veil. Hers is the power of tenderness. Your eyes meet for a second, face up meets face.
We know zilch about that woman, Veronica, or her story. She earns heaven with a unproblematic gesture of charity. She approaches you lot, sees your suffering face and loves it even more than earlier. Veronica does not finish at appearances, which today are and then important in our prototype-conscious society. She loves, unconditionally, a face that is unsightly, marred, unlovely and imperfect. That confront, your face, Jesus, in its very imperfection, shows the perfection of your love for united states.
PRAYER
I ask yous, Jesus, grant me the strength
to approach others, to arroyo every person,
immature or one-time, poor or rich, friends or strangers,
and to come across your face in all those faces.
Help me never to hesitate in coming
to the aid of my neighbour, in whom y'all dwell,
even as Veronica came to help you on the fashion to Calvary.
Our Father…
7th STATION
Jesus falls for the 2nd time
From the book of the prophet Isaiah
Past a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could take imagined his future? For he was cut off from the country of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people… Yet information technology was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain (Is 53:8.ten)
MEDITATION
I see you, Jesus, fall once more before my eyes. By falling once more, you lot show me that you lot are a man, a true man. And I come across y'all become upward over again, more resolute than earlier. You practise not become up with pride; there is no pride in your gaze, there is love. In standing on your journey, getting up after each autumn, you proclaim your resurrection. You evidence that you are ready, over again and ever, to impact your bleeding shoulders the burden of human sin.
Past falling again, you sent united states a clear message of humility. You fell on the ground, on that humus from which we "humans" are built-in. We are dust, we are mud, we are nothing in comparing to you lot. But you want to go like u.s.a., and now yous show yourself close to us, with our troubles, our weaknesses, the sweat of our brow. At present, on this Friday, as often happens to us, you overwhelmed by sorrow. But you have the forcefulness to go forward, you lot are non afraid of the difficulties that lie alee, and you lot know that at the end of your struggle there is heaven. You go up precisely to go there, to, open up before the states the gates of your kingdom. What a strange male monarch you are, a king lying in the dust.
All of a sudden I am thrown into defoliation: nosotros are not worthy of comparing our efforts and our falls to yours. Your falls are a sacrifice, the greatest sacrifice that my eyes and all of history will ever exist able to see.
PRAYER
I ask you, Lord, grant that we may be gear up to get up after falling,
that nosotros may larn from our failures.
Remind the states that, when it is our turn to make mistakes and fall,
if nosotros but stay with y'all, and hold fast to your hand,
we can learn to get upwardly once again.
Grant that we young people may bring to anybody your message of humility,
that time to come generations may open their optics to you
and learn to sympathize your honey.
Teach us to assistance those who suffer and autumn beside us,
to wipe abroad their sweat, and to stretch out a hand to elevator them up.
Our Begetter…
8th STATION
Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem
From the Gospel according to Luke
A number of the people followed him, and amongst them were women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him. Jesus turned to them and said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not cry for me, but cry for yourselves and for your children. For the days are surely coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the arid, and the wombs that never diameter, and the breasts that never nursed.' Then they will say to the mountains, 'Autumn on us'; and to the hills, 'Cover united states.' For if they practice this when the wood is light-green, what will happen when it is dry?" (Lk 23:27-31)
MEDITATION
I encounter you lot and I hear you, Jesus, as yous speak to the women whom yous meet on the way to your expiry. Each twenty-four hour period you would meet whatsoever number of people; you would approach everyone and talk to all. At present y'all speak with the women of Jerusalem, who wait at y'all and weep. I as well am one of those women. But you, Jesus, speak words of warning that for me are striking: they are so concrete and direct. At first, they might appear harsh and severe, but that is because they are and then direct. Nowadays nosotros are used to a world where people crush around the bush-league. A cool hypocrisy veils and filters what we really hateful. We are unwilling to correct others. Nosotros prefer to leave them to their own devices, not bothering to challenge them for their own proficient.
Whereas you, Jesus, speak to the women similar a male parent, also admonishing them. Your words are words of truth and they are forthright for the sole sake of correction, non judgment. Yours is a language unlike from the one we speak. You always speak with humility and yous go straight to the heart of the matter.
In this coming together, your last earlier the cross, we encounter again your boundless honey for the least, the marginalized. Women in those days were not considered worthy of being spoken to, whereas you, in your kindness, are truly revolutionary.
PRAYER
I ask yous, Lord, grant that,
together with the women and men of this world,
I may become ever more charitable
towards those in need, even as you were.
Give all of united states of america the strength to go against the grain
and to enter into accurate contact with others,
edifice bridges and not enclosing ourselves in the selfishness
that leads us to the solitude of sin.
Our Father…
Ninth STATION
Jesus falls for the 3rd fourth dimension
From the book of the prophet Isaiah
But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the penalization that made us whole, and by his bruises nosotros are healed. All nosotros like sheep take gone off-target; nosotros take turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of united states all (Is 53:5-vi).
MEDITATION
I run into you, Jesus, as you fall for the third fourth dimension. Twice now you have fallen, and twice you have got up. Past at present, there are no limits to your struggle and your hurting. Now, in this 3rd and final autumn, you seem completely overwhelmed. How many times, in everyday life, practice we autumn! We fall so oftentimes that we lose count. Yet we e'er hope that each autumn will be the last, considering we need the backbone of promise to face suffering. When a person falls that many times, ultimately all strength fails and all hope vanishes.
I imagine myself beside yous, Jesus, as you make your fashion to your death. It is hard to think that yous are the Son of God himself. Someone has already tried to help y'all, only now you are exhausted, at a stand up-still, paralyzed: it seems that y'all cannot possibly go any farther. Unexpectedly, yet, I see you get up, straighten your legs and your back, despite the weight of the cross on your shoulder, and begin to walk over again. Yep, you are walking to your decease, only you want to do so to the very end. Peradventure this is honey. What I understand is that it makes no departure how many times we will autumn; there will always be i concluding time, possibly the worst, the most terrible trial, when nosotros are called to find the force to suffer to the terminate of the journeying. For Jesus the end is the crucifixion, the apparent absurdity of death, which still reveals a deeper meaning, a more sublime purpose, that of saving us all.
PRAYER
I ask you, Lord, grant usa every twenty-four hour period
the backbone to go forward on our journeying.
Grant that we may receive to the very end
the hope and the love that you have given united states of america.
May everyone face up the challenges of life
with the forcefulness and the allegiance which were yours
in the final moments of your journey
to expiry on the cantankerous.
Our Begetter…
TENTH STATION
Jesus is stripped of his garments
From the Gospel according to John
When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, ane for each soldier. They too took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top (Jn 19:23).
MEDITATION
I run across you, Jesus, naked, as I take never seen you before. They take stripped you of your garments, Jesus, and are casting dice for them. In the eyes of these men, you have lost the concluding shred of your remaining dignity, your one possession on this, your journey of suffering. At the starting time of time, your Begetter had sewn garments for men, to clothe them in nobility; now men strip that garment off your dorsum. I see you, Jesus, and I encounter a young migrant, his body ravaged, who arrives in a state that all too ofttimes is heartless, ready to strip off his garment, his one treasure, and to sell information technology. To get out him alone with his cantankerous, similar yours, lone with his disfigured skin, similar yours, alone with his optics chock with tears of pain, like yours.
Yet there is something nosotros often forget nearly dignity. It is establish beneath your skin; it is role of you, and it volition always exist with you. All the more, at this moment, in this nakedness.
The nakedness in which we are born is the same as the nakedness with which the earth will receive us in the evening of our lives. From one female parent to another. And now, here on this colina, your mother is also present. Once over again, she sees you lot naked.
I see you lot and I sympathize the grandeur and the splendour of your dignity, the dignity of every human being, which no one will always be able to erase.
PRAYER
I ask you lot, Lord, grant that all of us may acknowledge
the nobility belonging to our nature,
even when nosotros find ourselves naked and solitary before others.
Grant that nosotros may e'er encounter the dignity of others,
respect it and defend it.
We ask yous to grant us the courage needed
to understand ourselves every bit more than the clothing nosotros vesture,
and to accept our ain nakedness.
Information technology reminds us of our poverty,
with which y'all fell in love, fifty-fifty to giving your life for us.
Our Father…
ELEVENTH STATION
Jesus is nailed to the cross
From the Gospel co-ordinate to Luke
When they came to the identify that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus at that place with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And so, Jesus said, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing" (Lk 23:33-34).
MEDITATION
I come across you, Jesus, stripped of everything. They wanted to punish you, an innocent person, past nailing yous to the wood of the cross. What would I take done in your identify? Would I have had the courage to acknowledge your truth, my truth? You had the strength to carry the weight of the cross, to see with atheism, to be condemned for your provocative words. Today we can barely swallow a critical comment, as if every word was meant to hurt u.s..
You did not stop fifty-fifty earlier death. You believed deeply in your mission and you lot put your trust in your Male parent. Today, in the globe of Internet, we are so conditioned past everything that circulates on the web; there are times when I uncertainty fifty-fifty my own words. Simply your words are different; they are powerful in your weakness. Yous have forgiven us, you lot held no grudge, you taught us to offer the other cheek and you kept going, even to the total sacrifice of your self.
I look all around and I come across eyes glued to telephone screens, people trolling the social networks in club to blast others for their every mistake, with no possibility of forgiveness. People ruled by acrimony, screaming their hatred of one another for the almost futile reasons.
I wait at your wounds and I realize, now, that I would not take had your strength. But I am seated here at your anxiety, and I strip myself of all hesitation. I get up in guild to be closer to you, fifty-fifty if by a fraction of an inch.
PRAYER
I inquire you, Lord, that in the face of proficient
I may be gear up to recognize it,
that in the face of injustice I may discover the courage
to take my life in my hands and to act differently.
Grant that I may exist set free from all the fears
that, similar nails, immobilize me and proceed me far
from the life you take desired and prepared for united states.
Our Father…
Twelfth STATION
Jesus dies on the cross
From the Gospel according to Luke
It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until 3 in the afternoon, while the sun'southward light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, "Father into your hands I commend my spirit." Having said this, he breathed his last. When the centurion saw what had taken identify, he praised God and said, "Certainly this human was innocent" (Lk 23:44-47).
MEDITATION
I meet yous, Jesus, but this fourth dimension I would rather non run into. You are dying. You were cute to behold when y'all spoke to the crowds, but now all that has come to an finish. I do not want to run across that end; all also oft I have averted my gaze, I have go almost accustomed to abscond pain and decease. I have become numb to them.
Your cry on the cross is loud and heartrending. Nosotros were not prepared for all that hurting; we are non nor will nosotros ever exist. Instinctively, we abscond, in panic, before death and suffering. We decline them; nosotros prefer to look away or to close our eyes. Instead, you remain at that place, on the cross; yous await us with open arms. Y'all open our optics.
This is a smashing mystery, Jesus. You love us by dying, past suffering abandonment, past bestowing your spirit, by doing the Begetter'southward will, by withdrawing. Yous remain on the cross, and that is all. You lot do not endeavour to explicate the mystery of decease, the destruction of all things. You lot do more: y'all cross over it completely in torso and spirit. A groovy mystery. 1 that continues to question usa and to unsettle united states. It challenges us and it invites u.s.a. to open our eyes and to see your honey even in death, indeed even starting from death itself. It is there that yous loved united states of america every bit nosotros really are, truly and inevitably. It is at that place that nosotros grasp, even so imperfectly, your living and authentic presence. We will always thirst for this: for your closeness, for your being God-with-us.
PRAYER
I ask y'all, Lord, open my eyes
to see yous also in suffering, in death,
in the ending which is non the real ending.
Upset my complacency by your cross: milk shake off my drowsiness.
Challenge me always by your agonizing mystery,
that overcomes death and grants life.
Our Male parent…
THIRTEENTH STATION
Jesus is taken downward from the cross
From the Gospel co-ordinate to John
Afterward these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret i because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the torso of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission; so he came and removed his body. Nicodemus, who had at first come up to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing virtually a hundred pounds. They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, co-ordinate to the burial custom of the Jews (Jn 19:38-40).
MEDITATION
I see you, Jesus, remaining there, on the cross. A man of flesh and basic, with all their frailty, all their fears. How greatly did you suffer! It is an unbearable scene, perhaps considering it is so drenched in humanity. This word is the key, the cypher of your journeying, filled with such suffering and fatigue. It is your humanity that so often we forget to acknowledge in you and to seek in ourselves and in others, for nosotros are all too defenseless upwards in a life ever more fast-paced, blind and deaf to the difficulties and the hurting of others.
I see you, Jesus. Now you are no longer at that place, on the cross. Yous accept gone back from where you came, laid upon the lap of the world, upon the lap of your mother. The suffering is now past, vanished. This is the hr of mercy. Your lifeless body continues to speak of the forcefulness with which y'all faced suffering; the meaning that you gave it is reflected in the eyes of those still in that location at your side and will always remain there in love, given and received. Earlier you, and before us, opens a new life, heavenly life, marked by the i matter that resists and remains unbroken by death: love. You are hither with united states of america at every moment, at every stride, in every uncertainty, in every shadow. While the shadow of the tomb lengthens on your body, held in the arms of your mother, I encounter you and I am afraid, withal I do not despair. I trust that the light, your low-cal, will smooth once once again.
PRAYER
I ask you, Lord,
proceed hope ever alive in united states,
and organized religion in your unconditional beloved.
Grant that nosotros may continue, our hearts inflamed,
to fix our gaze on eternal salvation,
and thus find refreshment and peace on our journeying.
Our Male parent…
FOURTEENTH STATION
Jesus is laid in the tomb
From the Gospel according to John
Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no ane had e'er been laid. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Training, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there (Jn 19:41-42).
MEDITATION
No longer do I see you, Jesus, now all is dark. Long shadows autumn from the hills, and the Shabbat lamps light up Jerusalem, exterior homes and within. They vanquish against the gates of heaven, closed and impregnable: for whom is all this solitude? Who can sleep on a night similar this? The city is filled with the sound of children crying, mothers singing, soldiers making their rounds. The day is dying and you alone are sleeping. Are you sleeping? And on what bed? What blanket hides yous from the world?
From afar, Joseph of Arimathea followed your steps, and at present, with quiet steps, accompanies yous in your sleep, withdraws you from the stares of the indignant and malicious. A canvas enfolds you lot in the chill of death and dries your claret, sweat and tears. From the cantankerous yous descend, just lightly. Joseph carries you on his shoulders, but yous are light: y'all no longer acquit the burden of death, of hatred and anger. Y'all sleep as you did on the warm straw when you were wrapped in swaddling clothes and another Joseph held you in his arms. Just every bit there was no room for yous and so, so now yous have nowhere to lay your head. Yet on Calvary, on the stiff neck of the earth, in that location grows a garden in which no one had yet been buried.
Where take y'all gone off to, Jesus? Where take you descended, if non into the depths? Where if non in a place still untouched, in an even tighter cell? Yous are caught in our snares, imprisoned in our sadness. Like united states of america, you lot walked on the earth, and now, like united states of america, under the earth, you make room for yourself.
I would like to run far away, simply y'all are at that place within me. I need non to exit to seek you lot, because you are knocking at my door.
PRAYER
I enquire you, Lord, who revealed yourself not in glory
but in the quiet of a nighttime nighttime.
You who see not the surface, but in secret,
entering into the depths.
From the depths, hear our voice:
grant that, in our weariness, we may notice rest in yous,
seeing in y'all our nature,
and in the love of your sleeping face,
the dazzler we have lost.
Our Father…
Source: https://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/2018/documents/ns_lit_doc_20180330_via-crucis-meditazioni_en.html
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