VATICAN CITY, APRIL 2, 2010 (Zenit.org).-
Here is a translation of the meditation Benedict XVI gave today at the end of
the Way of the Cross in the Roman Colosseum.
* * *
Dear brothers and sisters,
In prayer, with stirred and recollected spirits, we have tonight retraced the
path of the cross. With Christ we have climbed Calvary and we have meditated
on his suffering, rediscovering how profound is the love he has had and has
for us.
But in this moment we do not want to limit ourselves to a compassion dictated
merely by our weak sentiments. Rather we want to feel that we participate in
the suffering of Jesus; we want to accompany our Teacher, sharing his passion
in our lives, in the life of the Church, for the life of the world. Because we
know that precisely in the cross, in the limitless love where one gives all of
himself, is the fount of grace, liberation, peace and salvation.
The texts, meditations and prayers of the Way of the Cross have helped us to
gaze upon this mystery of the Passion, to learn the immense lesson of love
that God gave us on the cross, so that in us is born a renewed desire to
convert our hearts, living each day this same love, the only force capable of
changing the world.
This night we have contemplated Jesus' face full of pain, ridiculed, insulted,
disfigured by the sin of man. Tomorrow night we will contemplate his face full
of joy, radiant and luminous. Since the moment Christ was placed in the
sepulcher, the tomb and death are no longer hopeless places where history is
closed with the most complete failure, where man touches the ultimate limit of
his powerlessness. Good Friday is the day of greatest hope, that matured on
the cross.
While Jesus dies, while he exhales his breath, he sighs crying out with a loud
voice, "Father into your hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 23:46). Surrendering
his existence, given into the hands of the Father, he knows that his death
becomes fount of life. As the seed in the ground has to be broken so the plant
can grow. If the grain of wheat fallen in the earth does not die, it remains
alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Jesus is the grain of wheat that
falls in the earth, is torn, is broken, dies, and because of this, can bear
fruit. From the day on which Christ was raised up on it, the cross, which
looks like a sign of abandonment, loneliness and failure, has become a new
beginning. From the depths of death is raised up the promise of eternal life;
upon the cross already shines the victorious splendor of the Easter dawn.
In the silence that envelops this night, in the silence that envelops Hoy
Saturday, touched by the limitless love of God, we live awaiting the dawn of
the third day, the dawn of the victory of the love of God, the dawn of the
light that enables the eyes of the heart to see life, difficulties and
suffering in a new way. Our failures, our disillusions, our bitternesses that
seem to signal the collapse of everything, are enlightened by hope. The act of
love of the cross, confirmed by the Father and the radiant light of the
resurrection, envelops and transforms everything. From betrayal, friendship
can be born; from rejection, pardon; from hate, love.
Grant us, Lord, to carry our cross with love, our daily crosses, in the
certainty that they are enlightened with the radiance of your Easter. Amen.