"To preserve his health in view of tomorrow's Vigil and the Holy Mass on Easter Sunday, this evening Pope Francis will follow the Via Crucis at the Colosseum from Casa Santa Marta". It is the communication that arrived at the last moment this evening from the Vatican Press Office, while everyone was waiting for the Pontiff at the Colosseum for the traditional Good Friday rite. Everything was ready, the security device along the route from the Vatican, the organization ready to welcome the Pope, the public waiting, the massive deployment of the police forces on the site: but the armchair on the usual position from above, from where Francis was supposed to preside over the Via Crucis, remained empty.
Pope Bergoglio, among other things, wrote for the first time the meditations read during the journey of the cross: there are "the children who no longer smile" due to "the madness of war" and all those who suffer in the drama of conflicts. There are the "many Christs humiliated by arrogance". There are women "who suffer outrage and violence". But also "unborn children" and "discarded elderly people". And the 'haters' who rage on social media also recur. In his texts - mainly from the perspective of prayer - the Pope makes a compendium of the sufferings of the world, to which one can return in thought while commemorating Christ's ascent to Calvary and his death on the cross.
Along the 14 stations the cross is carried not only by religious people, but also by migrants, disabled people and disadvantaged people. Also accompanying her was the cardinal vicar of Rome Angelo De Donatis. And, following the Pope's meditations, it is also possible today to see Jesus crucified "in the Christs humiliated by arrogance and injustice, by unfair gains made at the expense of others in general indifference". "Now I understand your insistence on identifying with the needy: you have been imprisoned; you, a stranger, led out of the city to be crucified; you are naked, stripped of your clothes; you, sick and wounded; you, thirsty on the cross and hungry for 'love. Let me see you in the suffering and see the suffering in you, because you are there, in those who are stripped of dignity", is Francis' prayer.
"Help us recognize the greatness of women, those who were faithful and close to you at Easter, but who are still discarded today, suffering outrage and violence", he underlines.
"Jesus, may this prayer of intercession reach the sisters and brothers who in many parts of the world suffer persecution because of your name; those who suffer the tragedy of war and those who, drawing strength from you, carry heavy crosses", states the Pontiff in meditations read during the journey of the cross. "Faced with the tragedies of the world, is my heart frozen or does it melt? - he continues - How do I react to the madness of war, to the faces of children who no longer know how to smile, to mothers who see them malnourished and hungry and no longer have tears to shed?". "Jesus, let me recognize and love you in unborn children and abandoned ones", "in many young people, waiting for someone to listen to their cry of pain", "in too many discarded elderly people", "in prisoners and in who is alone", "in the most exploited and forgotten peoples", implores the Pontiff.
Not even forgetting, in turning to Jesus, that "many follow the barbaric spectacle of your execution and, without knowing you and without knowing the truth, pass judgment and condemnation, casting infamy and contempt on you. It also happens today, Lord, and not not even a macabre procession is needed: a keyboard is enough to insult and publish sentences." But "suffering with God does not have the last word", it is the call to hope that is the backdrop to the Via Crucis.
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