World Youth Day Way of the Cross with Pope Francis

Pope Benedict at the Way of the Cross: May Jesus help us overcome evil with good

The following comes from the CNA:

During an emotional Way of the Cross celebrated on Good Friday evening at the Coliseum in Rome, Pope Benedict prayed that Christians, by following the example of Jesus, may be able to overcome evil with good.

Pope Benedict followed the meditations of the Way of the Cross prepared this year by the Emeritus Vicar of Rome, Cardinal Camillo Ruini.

In his introduction to the Via Crucis, Cardinal Ruini wrote:

When the Apostle Philip asked Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father,” he replied, “Have I been with you all this time, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:8-9). This evening, as we accompany Jesus in our hearts while he makes his way beneath the cross, let us not forget those words. Even as he carries the cross, even in his death on the cross, Jesus remains the Son, who is one with God the Father. When we look upon his face disfigured by beating, weariness and inner suffering, we see the face of the Father. Indeed, it is precisely in this moment that God’s glory, his surpassing splendor, in some way becomes visible on the face of Jesus. In this poor, suffering man whom Pilate, in the hope of eliciting compassion, showed to the Jews with the words “Behold the man!” (Jn 19:5), we see revealed the true greatness of God, that mysterious grandeur beyond all our imagining.

Yet in the crucified Jesus we see revealed another kind of grandeur: our own greatness, the grandeur which belongs to every man and woman by the simple fact that we have a human face and heart. In the words of Saint Anthony of Padua, “Christ, who is your life, hangs before you, so that you can gaze upon the cross as if in a mirror… If you look upon him, you will be able to see the greatness of your dignity and worth… Nowhere else can we better recognize our own value, than by looking into the mirror of the cross”. Jesus, the Son of God, died for you, for me, for each of us. In this way he gave us concrete proof of how great and precious we are in the eyes of God, the only eyes capable of seeing beyond all appearances and of peering into the depths of our being.

As we make the Way of the Cross, let us ask God to grant us this gaze of truth and love, so that, in union with him, we may become free and good.

Immediately after, Pope Benedict said the following prayer.

Lord God, almighty Father,

you know all things

and you see, hidden within our hearts, our great need for you.

Grant each of us the humility to acknowledge this need.

Free our mind from the pretension,

wrong-headed and even ridiculous,

that we can master the mystery which embraces us.

Free our will from the presumption,

equally naïve and unfounded,

that we can create our own happiness

and the meaning of our lives.

Enlighten and purify our inner eye,

and enable us to recognize, free of all hypocrisy,

the evil which lies within us.

But grant us too,

in the light of the cross and resurrection of your only Son,

the certainty that, united to him and sustained by him,

we too can overcome evil with good.

Lord Jesus,

help us, in this spirit, to walk behind your cross.

Way of the Cross Leads to Heart of the Faith

Cardinal Camillo Ruini was asked to prepare the Way of the Cross for this Good Friday. He reflects on his preparation and on the image of Pope John Paul II whom he recalls making the Way of the Cross in his final years. The following comes from Zenit.org:

Good Friday's Way of the Cross in the Colosseum can be a precious occasion to help believers go to the heart of the faith, says Cardinal Camillo Ruini, formerly the Pope's vicar for Rome.

The cardinal was asked by Benedict XVI to write the meditations for the traditional Way of the Cross led by the Pope.

The Vatican publishing house printed 30,000 copies of the meditations, which were on sale in bookstores today. The reflections are illustrated with reproductions of the Via Crucis by Joseph Fuhrich, found in the Church of St. John Nepomuceno of Vienna, Austria.

The cardinal confided to Vatican Radio and to L'Osservatore Romano his hopes for this essential event of Holy Week, broadcast around the world.

"When the cardinal secretary of state [Tarcisio Bertone] asked me to write the texts of the Via Crucis I was surprised and, spontaneously, tried to avoid it: I thought, in fact, that I was not the right person for such a task," he confessed.

The cardinal said he drew from a synopsis of the four Gospels and the pastoral constitution from the Second Vatican Council, "Gaudium et Spes."

"The simplest thing was to try to present that what happened in Christ's passion is also the meaning of what happened, a meaning that has many levels of profundity," explained the 79-year-old cardinal.

He said the central message is that "in Jesus we see the true face of man and also the true face of God."

"It is in his cross, and of course in the resurrection -- cross and resurrection in the end are inseparable -- that this mystery of the incarnate Word, the meaning of the incarnation of Christ is revealed in its fullness, and thus we are revealed to ourselves," he reflected.

Confronting sin

Cardinal Ruini suggested that the the Way of the Cross in the Colosseum is important "not only because so many participate and because it is broadcast worldwide, but because it helps to go to the heart of the mystery of Easter."

"I think it is a great occasion to help these persons to enter more profoundly into the heart of our faith, or to rediscover it if they were estranged," he said.

The cardinal acknowledged that this year's Way of the Cross comes in a moment of particular suffering because of the scandals of sexual abuse in the Church. He noted a spirit "which would like to uproot trust in the Church -- and I fear, in the end, faith in Christ, faith in God, from men's heart."

He explained, "There are two motives of suffering that are together: suffering for the faults of the children of the Church, in particular of priests, and suffering because of this hostile will to the Church."

Hence, the retired vicar-general for the Diocese of Rome affirmed that "going with Jesus on the way of the cross, each one of us is called to sincerely look in the face first of all our own sins."

John Paul II

Cardinal Ruini said the memory of Pope John Paul II accompanied him in preparing the meditations, particularly the image of the Polish Pope on "the last occasions in which he himself was able to make the way from the Colosseum to the Palatine: arriving to the last part of it, namely to the rather difficult stairs that lead to the Palatine, he would grip the railing with force, suffering and tenacity, determined not to give up following his Lord, also physically."

The cardinal mentioned other memories, such as "the faces of people crammed together along the barriers" that mark the Way of the Cross: faces of a "diverse humanity and quite different attitudes, yet each one showing in his own way that he was living an experience that touched him inside, realizing that the Via Crucis was addressed also to him."

"My hope is that what I have written will not be an obstacle to this desire," Cardinal Ruini concluded, "but a little help to give that personal answer that the crucified Jesus awaits from each one of us."