(April 3, 2010) Pope Benedict XVI led the traditional torch-lit Way of the Cross
on Good Friday night at Rome's Colosseum, stressing that Good Friday is the day of
the greatest hope that illumines man’s suffering, failures, disillusions and difficulties.
Pope Benedict, wearing a red cloak in the breezy night, knelt in prayer at the atop
the Palatine hill as he watched the faithful carry a tall wooden cross in a procession
around the Colosseum in the meditations of the 14 stations of the Way of the Cross
that commemorates Christ's suffering and death on the cross. Thousands of people clutching
prayer books and candles crowded around the ancient arena. Speaking in Italian
at the conclusion of the Way of the Cross, Pope Benedict noted that in the Way of
the Cross, one rediscovers “how deep Jesus’ love was and is for us.” "This night
we have contemplated Jesus' face full of pain, ridiculed, insulted, disfigured by
the sin of man," the Pontiff said, adding, “tomorrow night we will contemplate his
face full of joy, radiant and luminous.” “Since the moment Christ was placed in the
sepulchre, the tomb and death are no longer hopeless places where history is closed
with the most complete failure, where man touches the ultimate limit of his powerlessness,"
the Pope explained. "Good Friday is the day of greatest hope, which matured on the
cross," the Holy Father affirmed. He recalled that when Christ died, he cried out,
"Father into your hands I commend my spirit." "Surrendering his existence, given into
the hands of the Father, he knows that his death becomes fount of life," the Pope
explained. "Jesus is the grain of wheat that falls in the earth, is torn, is broken,
dies, and because of this, can bear fruit." "From the day on which Christ was raised
up on it, the cross, which looks like a sign of abandonment, loneliness and failure,
has become a new beginning,” the Pope continued. “From the depths of death is raised
up the promise of eternal life; upon the cross already shines the victorious splendour
of the Easter dawn," that enables the eyes of the heart to see life, difficulties
and suffering in a new way. "Our failures, our disillusions, our bitterness that
seem to signal the collapse of everything, are enlightened by hope," Pope Benedict
said. "The act of love of the cross, confirmed by the Father and the radiant light
of the resurrection, envelops and transforms everything. "From betrayal, friendship
can be born; from rejection, pardon; from hate, love," Pope Benedict added