Pope Francis: remarks at Good Friday Via crucis
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis presided over the Via
crucis at the Colosseum in Rome on the evening of Good Friday. In
keeping with tradition, he briefly addressed the faithful gathered to
participate in the devotion. Below, please find our English translation of his
remarks.
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O Christ! Abandoned and betrayed even by your own and sold
for next to nothing.
O Christ! Judged by sinners, handed over by those in
Authority.
O Christ! Suffering in the flesh, crowned with thorns and
clothed in purple.
O Christ! Beaten and nailed in excruciating pain to the
Cross.
O Christ! Pierced by the lance that broke your heart.
O Christ! Dead and buried, you who are the God of life and
existence.
O Christ! Our only Saviour, we return to you this year with
eyes lowered in shame and hearts filled with hope:
Shame for all the images of devastation, destruction and
wreckage that have become a normal part of our lives;
Shame for the innocent blood shed daily by women, children,
migrants and people persecuted because of the colour of their skin or their ethnic
and social diversity or because of their faith in You;
Shame for the too many times that, like Judas and Peter, we
have sold you and betrayed you and left you alone to die for our sins, fleeing
like cowards from our responsibilities;
Shame for our silence before injustices; for our hands that
have been lazy in giving and greedy in grabbing and conquering; for the shrill
voices we use to defend our own interests and the timid ones we use to speak
out for other's; for our feet that are quick to follow the path of evil and
paralyzed when it comes to following the path of good;
Shame for all the times that we Bishops, priests,
consecrated men and women have caused scandal and pain to your body, the
Church; for having forgotten our first love, our initial enthusiasm and total
availability, leaving our hearts and our consecration to rust.
So much shame Lord, but our hearts also feel nostalgia for
the confident hope that you will not treat us according to our merits but
solely according to the abundance of Your mercy; that our betrayals do not
diminish the immensity of your love; your maternal and paternal heart does not
forget us because of the hardness of our own;
The certain hope that our names are etched in your heart and
that we are reflected in the pupils of your eyes; the hope that your Cross may
transform our hardened hearts into hearts of flesh that are able to dream, to
forgive and to love; that it may transform this dark night of your cross into
the brilliant dawn of your Resurrection;
The hope that your faithfulness is not based on our own;
The hope that the many men and women who are faithful to
your Cross may continue to live in fidelity like yeast that gives flavour and
like light that reveals new horizons in the body of our wounded humanity;
The hope that your Church will try to be the voice that
cries in the wilderness for humanity, preparing the way for your triumphant
return, when you will come to judge the living and the dead;
The hope that good will be victorious despite its apparent
defeat!
O Lord Jesus! Son of God, innocent victim of our ransom,
before your royal banner, before the mystery of your death and glory, before
your scaffold, we kneel in shame and with hope and we ask that you bathe us in
the blood and water that flowed from your lacerated heart; to forgive our sins
and our guilt;
We ask you to remember our brethren destroyed by violence,
indifference and war;
We ask you to break the chains that keep us imprisoned in
our selfishness, our wilful blindness and in the vanity of our worldly
calculations.
O Christ! We ask you to teach us never to be ashamed of your
Cross, not to exploit it but to honour and worship it, because with it You have
shown us the horror of our sins, the greatness of your love, the injustice of
our decisions and the power of your mercy. Amen.
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