Meditations by young people for Via Crucis released

Meditations by young people for Via Crucis released

Via Crusis at Colosseum.(Vatican Media)

The meditations for the 14 stations of the Cross on Good Friday at the Colosseum were released on Saturday by the Vatican, focusing on the experiences and challenges facing young people today.

This year they have been written by a group of young people coordinated by prof. Andrea Monda.

It was Pope Francis’ idea to entrust the mediations to young people especially in light of the fact that the Church is dedicating space to the new generation at October’s Synod.

Today’s Challenges

This year’s meditations focus on a number of themes such as migration, and living the message of Jesus in the era of the internet.

According to Prof Monda these young people have reflected on the stations as experiences and challenges faced in today’s world.

They also show the ability of today's young people to look inside themselves and to question themselves on the example of Jesus.

For instance, the group chosen by prof. Monda highlight the sufferings of contemporary man. In the 10^thstation author Greta Giglio writes that Jesus is stripped of his garments like "a young migrant, a broken body arriving in a land that is too often cruel, ready to take away his garment,… and to sell it; left alone with his cross, like yours, with only his battered skin, like yours, with only his eyes full of great of pain, like yours.”

Jesus knocks on our door

In the 14th station the question is posed, "Where did you go, Jesus?  The meditation continues, not really in the underworld, but in the interiority of every man, "in our bonds you are caught, in our own sadness you are imprisoned". Yes, because Jesus approaches every man, but is suffocated by anxieties and fears, so much so we would like to "run away". "But you are in me - concludes the author of the fourteenth station Marta Croppo, just as St. Augustine reflected - I do not have to go out looking for you, because you knock at my door".

The Via Crucis or Way of the Cross takes place on Good Friday 30^th  March at Rome’s Colosseum.

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