Pope relives the Way of the Cross, Christ’s last moments

(April 23, 2011) Pope Benedict XVI presided over a traditional candle-lit Good Friday Way of the Cross procession at Rome’s Colosseum at night, reminding thousands of faithful how earthly temptations such as an obsession with personal success can make people lose their sense of humanity. In his opening prayer, the pontiff 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,' Pope Benedict said. The Way of the Cross recalls Christ’s painful journey with his Cross to Calvary where he was crucified.
For this year's candle-lit Way of the Cross, two young Italians - 10-year-old Dilletta and 12-year-old Michele - introduced each of the 14 stations. The cross was carried by various volunteers, beginning with Cardinal Agostino Vallini, the Pope's vicar for Rome, and then followed successively by a Roman family with their five children, a family from Ethiopia, two Augustinian nuns, a Franciscan and youth from Egypt, a man in a wheelchair, and two Franciscan friars of the Custody of the Holy Land. Benedict XVI followed the procession on his knees, which began inside the Colosseum and concluded at the top of the Palatine Hill.
The meditations and illustrations for the text of the Stations of the Cross were prepared by two Augustinian nuns, Sister Maria Rita Piccione and Sister Elena Maria Manganelli. Sister Maria Rita, the president of the Our Lady of Good Counsel Federation of Augustinian Monasteries in Italy, penned the meditations, while Sister Elena Maria, formerly a professional sculptress, created the illustrations that accompany the texts.
Pope Benedict XVI concluded the Way of the Cross with a brief thought. Here is the English translation of what he said in Italian:
This evening, in faith, we have accompanied Jesus as he takes the final steps of his earthly journey, the most painful steps, the steps that lead to Calvary. We have heard the cries of the crowd, the words of condemnation, the insults of the soldiers, the lamentation of the Virgin Mary and of the women. Now we are immersed in the silence of this night, in the silence of the cross, the silence of death. It is a silence pregnant with the burden of pain borne by a man rejected, oppressed, downtrodden, the burden of sin which mars his face, the burden of evil. Tonight we have re-lived, deep within our hearts, the drama of Jesus, weighed down by pain, by evil, by human sin.
What remains now before our eyes? It is a crucified man, a cross raised on Golgotha, a cross which seems a sign of the final defeat of the One who brought light to those immersed in darkness, the One who spoke of the power of forgiveness and of mercy, the One who asked us to believe in God’s infinite love for each human person. Despised and rejected by men, there stands before us “a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity, one from whom others hide their faces” (Is 53:3).
But let us look more closely at that man crucified between earth and heaven. Let us contemplate him more intently, and we will realize that the cross is not the banner of the victory of death, sin and evil, but rather the luminous sign of love, of God’s immense love, of something that we could never have asked, imagined or expected: God bent down over us, he lowered himself, even to the darkest corner of our lives, in order to stretch out his hand and draw us to himself, to bring us all the way to himself. The cross speaks to us of the supreme love of God and invites, today, to renew our faith in the power of that love, and to believe that in every situation of our lives, our history and our world, God is able to vanquish death, sin and evil, and to give us new, risen life. In the Son of God’s death on the cross, we find the seed of new hope for life, like the seed which dies within the earth.
This night full of silence, full of hope, echoes God’s call to us as found in the words of Saint Augustine: “Have faith! You will come to me and you will taste the good things of my table, even as I did not disdain to taste the evil things of your table... I have promised you my own life. As a pledge of this, I have given you my death, as if to say: Look! I am inviting you to share in my life. It is a life where no one dies, a life which is truly blessed, which offers an incorruptible food, the food which refreshes and never fails. The goal to which I invite you … is friendship with the Father and the Holy Spirit, it is the eternal supper, it is communion with me … It is a share in my own life (cf. Sermo 231, 5). Let us gaze on the crucified Jesus, and let us ask in prayer: Enlighten our hearts, Lord, that we may follow you along the way of the cross. Put to death in us the “old man” bound by selfishness, evil and sin. Make us “new men”, men and women of holiness, transformed and enlivened by your love.

Earlier on Good Friday, the Pope presided over the traditional liturgy of the Passion of the Lord in Rome’s St. Peter’s Basilica. During the service that commemorates Christ's death on the cross, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the Pontifical Household, delivered the homily paying tribute to modern Christian martyrs, saying the world cannot be indifferent to their witness. He made reference to recent slayings of Catholics in Pakistan and other places where Christians are a minority. “Once more the Christian world has been visited by the ordeal of martyrdom, which was thought to have ended with the fall of totalitarian atheistic regimes. We cannot pass over their testimony in silence,” Father Cantalamessa said. “In this very day, in a great Asian country, Christians have been praying and marching in the streets to avert the threat hanging over them,” he said. Pakistan's minister for minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, a Catholic who had spoken out against anti-blasphemy laws, was murdered in early March, prompting condemnations from Pakistani bishops, the Vatican and church leaders around the world. Father Cantalamessa noted that before his death, Bhatti acknowledged the danger to his own life and wrote: “I will consider myself most fortunate if ... Jesus Christ will accept the sacrifice of my life.” Bhatti's words, Father Cantalamessa said, echoed those of earlier Christian martyrs in Rome. “The powerlessness of the victims doesn't, however, justify the indifference of the world toward their fate,” he said. The papal preacher said the deaths of Christian martyrs were not the only tragedies that have recently challenged Christians and their ability to speak about God's love. When disasters such as the Japanese earthquake and tsunami strike, affecting a predominantly non-Christian population, Christians can show their willingness to “suffer with those who suffer,” he said. “We can also tell those brothers and sisters in humanity that we admire the example of dignity and composure which they have given to the world,” he said. At the same time, he suggested that the events in Japan may hold a lesson for humanity. “Earthquakes, hurricanes and other disasters that strike the innocent and the guilty alike are never punishments from God. To say otherwise would be to offend both God and humanity,” he said. “But they do contain a warning: in this case, against the danger of deluding ourselves that science and technology will be enough to save us. Unless we practice some restraint in this field, we see that they can become more devastating than nature itself,” he said. Father Cantalamessa said the redemption brought by Christ's crucifixion and resurrection are what give meaning to human suffering. Human suffering cannot be a poisoned chalice, it must be more than negativity, loss, absurdity, if God himself has chosen to drink it. “At the bottom of the chalice, there must be a pearl. We know the name of that pearl: resurrection!” he added. Fr. Cantalamessa reflected that globalization has the positive effect of making the “suffering of one people” become “the suffering of all,” as it “arouses the solidarity of all.” “It gives us the chance to discover that we are one single human family, joined together for good or ill,” he said. “It helps us overcome all barriers of race, colour or creed.”