Via Crucis meditations at Colosseum: God is mercy
(Vatican Radio) "God
is mercy": that’s the title chosen by Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti for the
meditations for the Via Crucis which will be presided by Pope Francis on the
night of Good Friday at the Roman Colosseum. In the texts, which will
be published tomorrow by the Libreria Editrice Vaticana, the archbishop of
Perugia, Italy conveys the message that in response to our fear, pain,
persecution and violence, God gives his mercy freely to all. In meditations for
each of the 14 stations of the Cross, Cardinal Bassetti recalls the words of
St. John Paul II, reflects on the plight of persecuted Christians and the Jews
killed in the death camps, and “the victims of all persecution.”
He reminds us to see the
face of Christ in the stranger, especially migrants, and to pray for families in difficulty, especially
for couples whose marriages are failing, those who have lost their jobs, and
for young people who have yet to find stable employment.
Cardinal Bassetti’s
meditations also reflect on abused children and “those who have
suffered abuse or whose dignity is not respected.”
Modern day martyrs of the
recent past like Massimiliano Kolbe and Edith Stein are also raised up in the
meditations “as true apostles of the contemporary world.” He points to the
love, gratitude and humbleness of Joseph of Arimathea who takes Christ’s body
for a “sober” burial and holds up the simplicity of his actions in
contrast to the “ostentation, banality and flashiness of the funerals of the
powerful of this world.”
With the closing of Christ’s
tomb, the Cardinal reflects, it is not death which has triumphed – because in
the shadow of this tomb in Jerusalem, he says, God is quietly “working …to
generate new grace in man.”
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