Meditations for Good Friday’s Via Crucis to be presided over by the Pontiff
The Cross is the luminous pinnacle of the love of God that safeguards
us. We too are called to be guardians through love. This is the theme of the
meditations of the 14 Stations of the Via Crucis, over which Pope Francis will
preside at the Colosseum on Holy Friday evening, 3 April.
The author of the
meditations is H.E. Renato Corti, Bishop emeritus of Novara, who emphasizes in
the introductory note that the Via Crucis 2015 will make continual reference
“to the gift of being safeguarded by God’s love, especially by Jesus
Crucified, and to the task of being, in our turn, guardians through love
of the whole of Creation, of each person, especially of the poorest, of
ourselves and our families, so as to make the star of hope shine”.
“We wish to participate in this Via Crucis in profound
communion with Jesus”, the Bishop writes. While remaining “attentive to what is
written in the Gospels”, the meditations will discreetly include “some of the sentiments
and thoughts which may have dwelt in Jesus’ mind and heart in those
trying hours. At the same time we will allow ourselves to be challenged by some
of the realities of life which – for
better or worse – characterize our days”. Thus we will express “our will to
emulate a few of the steps of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ”.