Thursday, February 28, 2013

Bidding farewell Pope Benedict XVI quotes Romano Guardini - a voice still relevant and should be made audible again (Part 1)

Benedict XVI greets College of Cardinals


Feb 28, 2013:
Below please find a Vatican Radio translation of the Holy Father’s words to the College of Cardinals Thursday morning:

Dear beloved brothers

I welcome you all with great joy and cordially greet each one of you. I thank Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who as always, has been able to convey the sentiments of the College, Cor ad cor loquitur. Thank you, Your Eminence, from my heart.

And referring to the disciples of Emmaus, I would like to say to you all that it has also been a joy for me to walk with you over the years in light of the presence of the Risen Lord. As I said yesterday, in front of thousands of people who filled St. Peter's Square, your closeness, your advice, have been a great help to me in my ministry. In these 8 years we have experienced in faith beautiful moments of radiant light in the Churches’ journey along with times when clouds have darkened the sky. We have tried to serve Christ and his Church with deep and total love which is the soul of our ministry. We have gifted hope that comes from Christ alone, and which alone can illuminate our path. Together we can thank the Lord who has helped us grow in communion, to pray to together, to help you to continue to grow in this deep unity so that the College of Cardinals is like an orchestra, where diversity, an expression of the universal Church, always contributes to a superior harmony of concord. I would like to leave you with a simple thought that is close to my heart, a thought on the Church, Her mystery, which is for all of us, we can say, the reason and the passion of our lives. I am helped by an expression of Romano Guardini’s, written in the year in which the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council approved the Constitution Lumen Gentium, his last with a personal dedication to me, so the words of this book are particularly dear to me .

Guardini says: "The Church is not an institution devised and built at table, but a living reality. She lives along the course of time by transforming Herself, like any living being, yet Her nature remains the same. At Her heart is Christ. "

This was our experience yesterday, I think, in the square. We could see that the Church is a living body, animated by the Holy Spirit, and truly lives by the power of God, She is in the world but not of the world. She is of God, of Christ, of the Spirit, as we saw yesterday. This is why another eloquent expression of Guardini’s is also true: "The Church is awakening in souls." The Church lives, grows and awakens in those souls which like the Virgin Mary accept and conceive the Word of God by the power of the Holy Spirit. They offer to God their flesh and in their own poverty and humility become capable of giving birth to Christ in the world today. Through the Church the mystery of the Incarnation remains present forever. Christ continues to walk through all times in all places. Let us remain united, dear brothers, to this mystery, in prayer, especially in daily Eucharist, and thus serve the Church and all humanity. This is our joy that no one can take from us.

Prior to bidding farewell to each of you personally, I want to tell you that I will continue to be close to you in prayer, especially in the next few days, so that you may all be fully docile to the action of the Holy Spirit in the election of the new Pope. May the Lord show you what is willed by Him. And among you, among the College of Cardinals, there is also the future Pope, to whom, here to today, I already promise my unconditional reverence and obedience. For all this, with affection and gratitude, I cordially impart upon you my Apostolic Blessing.

Link to Part 2 HERE

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Truth and Beauty go together - Pope Benedict XVI

Reflecting on these remarks by Pope Benedict XVI I could not help but marvel at how he draws us into the Passion. Yet we should not be surprised as his entire pontificate has been one of fidelity to the Church's teaching and always one that is directing us into the service of Jesus Christ. During this Lent may I suggest a meditation: while gazing upon scenes of the Passion; listening to Membra Jesu Nostri Ad faciem illustra faciem tuam; meditate on how Truth and Beauty (hanging on the Cross) go together. (I have included the lyrics below the article from VIS.)


Vatican City, 23 February 2013 (VIS) – At the conclusion of this year's spiritual exercises, Benedict XVI thanked the members of the Curia who had accompanied him in these days and Cardinal Gianfranco Ravisi, who led the retreat. The Pope referred to his preaching, the theme of which was “The Art of Believing, the Art of Praying” as “'beautiful' walks through the universe of faith, and the universe of the Psalms.”
I was reminded of the fact,” Benedict XVI said, “that the medieval theologians have translated the word 'logos' not only as 'verbum', but also as 'ars'. 'Verbum' and 'ars' are interchangeable. Only in the two together does the entire meaning of the word 'logos' appear for medieval theologians. The 'Logos' is not simply a mathematical reasoning, the 'Logos' has a heart. The 'Logos' is also love. Truth is beautiful. Truth and beauty go together. Beauty is the seal of truth.”

And yet you, starting from the Psalms and from our everyday experience, have also strongly emphasized that the 'very beautiful' of the sixth day—expressed by the creator—is always challenged in this world by evil, suffering, and corruption. It almost seems that evil wants to permanently mar creation, to contradict God and to make His truth and His beauty unrecognisable. In a world that is also so marked by evil, the 'Logos', eternal beauty and eternal 'ars', should appear as the 'caput cruentatum'. The incarnate Son, the incarnate 'Logos' is crowned with a crown of thorns and, nevertheless, just that way, in this suffering figure of the Son of God, we begin to see the most profound beauty of our Creator and Redeemer. In the silence of the 'dark night' we can still hear the Word. Believing is nothing other than, in the darkness of the world, touching the hand of God and thus, in silence, listening to the Word, seeing Love.”

Benedict XVI again thanked Cardinal Ravasi, expressing his wish to “take other 'walks' in this mysterious universe of the faith and to always be more capable of praying, proclaiming, and being witnesses to the truth, which is beauty and which is love.”
In conclusion, dear friends,” he finished, “I would like to thank all of you and not only for this week, but for these past eight years that you have carried with me—with great skill, affection, love and faith—the weight of the Petrine ministry. This gratitude remains with me and, even if this 'exterior', 'visible' communion—as Cardinal Ravasi said—is now ending, our spiritual closeness remains, the deep communion in prayer. We go forward with this certainty, certain of God's victory, certain of the truth of beauty and love.”

VII. Ad faciem

(To the face)
1. Sonata
2. Concerto (SSATB)
Illustra faciem tuam super servum tuum,
salvum me fac in misericordia tua
Let your face shine upon your servant,
save me in your mercy (Psalm 31:16)
3. Aria (ATB)
Salve, caput cruentatum,
totum spinis coronatum,
conquassatum, vulneratum,
arundine verberatum
facie sputis illita
Hail, bloodied head,
all crowned with thorns,
beaten, wounded,
struck with a cane,
the face soiled with spit
4. Aria (A)
Dum me mori est necesse,
noli mihi tunc deesse,
in tremenda mortis hora
veni, Jesu, absque mora,
tuere me et libera
When I must die,
do not then be away from me,
in the anxious hour of death
come, Jesus, without delay,
protect me and set me free!
5. Aria (SSATB)
Cum me jubes emigrare,
Jesu care, tunc appare,
o amator amplectende,
temet ipsum tunc ostende
in cruce salutifera.
When you command me to depart,
dear Jesus, then appear,
O lover to be embraced,
then show yourself
on the cross that brings salvation
6. Concerto (SSATB)
Amen

Friday, February 22, 2013

When they said repent I wondered what they meant - Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen – The Future


Give me back my broken night
My mirrored room, my secret life
It's lonely here,
There's no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
Over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby,
That's an order!

Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that's left
And stuff it up the hole
In your culture
Give me back the berlin wall
Give me stalin and st paul
I've seen the future, brother
It is murder.

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
Has crossed the threshold
And it has overturned
The order of the soul
When they said repent repent
I wonder what they meant
When they said repent repent
I wonder what they meant
When they said repent repent
I wonder what they meant

You don't know me from the wind
You never will, you never did
I'm the little jew
Who wrote the bible
I've seen the nations rise and fall
I've heard their stories, heard them all
But love's the only engine of survival
Your servant here, he has been told
To say it clear, to say it cold:
It's over, it ain't going
Any further
And now the wheels of heaven stop
You feel the devil's riding crop
Get ready for the future:
It is murder.

Things are going to slide

There'll be the breaking of the ancient
Western code
Your private life will suddenly explode
There'll be phantoms
There'll be fires on the road
And the white man dancing
You'll see a woman
Hanging upside down
Her features covered by her fallen gown
And all the lousy little poets
Coming round
Tryin' to sound like charlie manson
And the white man dancin'

Give me back the berlin wall
Give me stalin and st paul
Give me christ
Or give me hiroshima
Destroy another fetus now
We don't like children anyhow
I've seen the future, baby
It is murder.

Things are going to slide

When they said repent repent

If it be your will - Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen - If it be your will


Performed by Leonard Cohen and the Webb Sisters - Live from London 2008 -

Lyrics:

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will

If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well

And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Do we pray to "get" something or to give ourselves away?

What kind of attitude do we project when we enter into prayer?
We do not pray in order to improve our talents, to develop more clearly an intellectual synthesis, or widen our culture, religious or otherwise.  We pray in order to tell God once again that we love him and know that he loves us, and to relate ourselves to the plan of mercy that is his.
We run still greater risks in the realm of sensibility, and in believing that our prayer has value only when we have “felt” something.  The modern world takes special interest in “experiences,” descriptions, states of the soul; there is a kind of cult for everything that can yield some kind of “interior witness.”  We delight in working out a projection of ourselves that arises from the senses.
Prayer is an extremely favorable opportunity for realizing such a projection...  A person does not pray primarily in order to find himself, but to give himself, to enter into a plan of salvation that goes beyond himself.  In Christian prayer, what matters above all is not the quality of the interior experience, which can sometimes be very shallow, but the Person who is the “object” of this experience. 
Saint Paul speaks of “groanings” (Rom 8:26) or of a “cry” (Gal 4:6).  What is important is not our experience but the gift we make of ourselves.  We should enter into prayer, not to receive, but to give, to give ourselves and lose ourselves.  And if friendship with God is to remain pre-eminent in our prayer, we must enter into prayer in order to give ourselves as a free gift, with the knowledge that we may not always really give what we are giving, and yet without being concerned about what we are giving.  – Father Bernard Bro, OP excerpt from The Rediscovery of Prayer John M. Morriss, Tr. (The Society of St. Pauls/Alba House, Staten Island, NY, 1966).  his excerpt appeared in Magnificat in February 2013.

Monday, February 18, 2013

Parents’ faith penetrates their children by example - Catherine Doherty


(Whether you want it to or not, as Catherine Doherty says, "parents’ faith penetrates their children by example...")
CHRIST IS AT THE DOOR!
by Catherine Doherty
The following is excerpted from talks Catherine gave at Cana Colony, our summer apostolate to families.
 I understand that you come from all parts of the world, yet fundamentally you’re all the same. You are parents; you all have families. Yet what really binds us together is the Lord, and our love for him.
There’s another thing you have in common, something deep within you that’s not getting an outlet because of the secularism and atheism of the society that surrounds us.
I’m not talking about communistic atheism. I’m talking of simple apathy, disregard for God, even non-belief in God.
It hits you hard. I know it hits me hard. We live and move in a sea of apathy, of selfishness, of greed. We say to ourselves: "But I’m baptized! Something has got to be different for me. This is not the kind of life I want to lead."
The difficult situation for Christians is that the world has become more and more secular. We modern people simply don’t know where we are going in life. We’re at sixes and sevens over this tragic situation, and we’re not alone.
If you were a single person, it wouldn’t matter so much; but here you are, with children. Look at this little one here—he’s an absolutely perfect child. What kind of a world are we making for him? Is it his destiny to die of an exploded bomb? Or to go begging like a hobo? What will it be?
We must face up to the fact that this little fellow is going to grow up and be a big fellow someday. It’s worth laying down your life for this child. So it’s time to reappraise our values and to change the way we live our lives.
Let’s face it: we have to change our lifestyle. We Christians have to stop wanting so many material things. We have to stop worshiping things and start loving as Christ loves.
Do people in New York or Chicago or anywhere clap their hands and say, "Oh, look how those Catholics love one another"? Do they?
Do we love one another, deeply and sincerely? With grave humility and infinite meekness, in the way of Jesus Christ? Think about it. Do we?
These days there’s trouble everywhere. I just returned from one American city; at the airport, the man in charge of the luggage said, "Don’t go out after 11:30 p.m., because they’re apt to slit your pocket or slit your belly."
I said to myself, what barbarism have we come to? You have to acknowledge that we’re in a state of barbarism today, with violence born of anger. It’s a terrible thing, this desire to kill without reason. But it has become a part of life. We have to face that there’s an awful lot of anger in America and Canada. We’re facing the end of an era, like the Romans.
There’s only one thing that’s going to help us, and that is prayer. It’s time to turn to God. Don’t be afraid; just begin to pray. Don’t go and say a lot of prayers. Just pray in a very simple way, perhaps for the first time in your lives.
Maybe for you it’s different, but for so many people, God seems very distant. But he’s really right there, with you. I always invite him for a cup of coffee. Do you know that God never drank a cup of coffee while he lived on earth? They had no coffee.
Mentally, I invite him for coffee. I take the Bible and put it between us, saying: "Lord, you sit there and I’ll sit here. Here’s your cup of coffee, and here’s mine. Now we’re going to have a dialogue from your own book called the Gospel. So now I’ll be the apostles and you be yourself."
You’ll be surprised what happens when you do that. Just have a simple discussion with God over the Gospel. If I can do it, so can you.
It changes your whole life when you do that. You start to look at things differently. Yes, life changes when you start to have faith and live the Gospel. It’s hard to put it into words—there’s a kind of joy. Do you feel what I feel? For example, when I have a surplus of something, it’s such a joy to give it to others.
I learned what a joy it was to serve the poor from my parents. Let me tell you a story to show what I mean.
When I was growing up in Russia, my father was a diplomat. One time he and my mother gave a big, fancy tea party at our home for several hundred ambassadors and dignitaries.
We were in the middle of a formal tea, with everyone using nice china and so forth. I was about nine years old and was allowed to be there, all dressed up and carrying little cakes and being polite.
Suddenly, the butler entered the room and announced to my father, "Christ is at the door." Well, the French ambassador’s wife dropped her expensive teacup on the rug. She wasn’t used to such interruptions!
Father excused himself, mother excused herself, and off they went. And whom did they welcome? A hobo who had come to the door begging. And what did they do? My parents served him themselves, even though we had 14 servants in the house. My mother laid out the best linen, the most expensive silver, our best china and so forth, and she and my father served the hobo.
I saw all of this and I wanted to serve too, but mother said: "Oh no. You weren’t obedient last week; you cannot serve Christ unless you are obedient." So in my little mind, to serve the poor was a great honor and a great joy.
Now that’s Christianity. You don’t have to have catechism lessons when you see that sort of thing.
Of course, I was like any other kid too. I’d say, "Well, do we live in a monastery or something?" And my parents would reply: "No. We live in a family, of which Christ is the head."
In the end, it seemed quite natural to me to serve the poor. Christ was in them and we must serve him.
The parents’ faith penetrates their children by example, you see. Now look at yourselves. Here you are with children of your own. What do your children learn? They learn only what you can give them. So I implore you, put your Catholicity on the table for your children to see. Let them see it clearly. Let them read it in big, clear letters. This requires faith—and you get faith by praying for it.
I learned all this from my parents and part of the reason I learned it so well was that I grew up in a Christian environment. But for you today, life is different. You don’t have a Christian environment as we had. You have to re-Christianize society, because you are Christians. Re-Christianize it! Change it!
Now how do we do that, the way things are today? We are so busy these days that it’s as if we’re enmeshed in a merry-go-round or roller coaster. Faster, faster, faster—that’s us. And we don’t know if we’re going forward, backward or which way.
Christ said, I have come to serve (Matt 20:28); and so should we. Christ said, Pray always (Luke 18:1): and so we should.
Here we are, well-indoctrinated in our religion, presumably. But the world goes round about us—more selfish, more greedy, more horrible than before. Faster, faster, faster it goes. And what should we do? How should we live in the world today? How should we serve?
Well, the answer that I’ve come to see, after 50 years in the lay apostolate, is to do the duty of the moment. I will discuss this with you next time we meet. to be continued
Adapted from Dear Parents, pages 56-61 (available from Madonna House Publications). (Link on site to learn more about Dear Parents.)

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Way of the Cross - Station Fifteen


On the Third Day...
The Way of the Cross with Pope Benedict XVI
Truth is stronger than lies. The darkness of the previous days is driven away the moment Jesus rises from the grave and himself becomes God’s pure light. But this applies not only to him, not only to the darkness of those days. With the resurrection of Jesus, light itself is created anew. He draws all of us after him into the new light of the resurrection and he conquers all darkness. He is God’s new day, new for all of us.


But how is this to come about? How does all this affect us so that instead of remaining word it becomes a reality that draws us in? Through the sacrament of baptism and the profession of faith, the Lord has built a bridge across to us, through which the new day reaches us. The Lord says to the newly-baptized: Fiat lux – let there be light. God’s new day – the day of indestructible life, comes also to us. Christ takes you by the hand. From now on you are held by him and walk with him into the light, into real life. For this reason the early Church called baptism photismos – illumination.

Why was this? The darkness that poses a real threat to mankind, after all, is the fact that he can see and investigate tangible material things, but cannot see where the world is going or whence it comes, where our own life is going, what is good and what is evil. The darkness enshrouding God and obscuring values is the real threat to our existence and to the world in general. If God and moral values, the difference between good and evil, remain in darkness, then all other “lights”, that put such incredible technical feats within our reach, are not only progress but also dangers that put us and the world at risk. Today we can illuminate our cities so brightly that the stars of the sky are no longer visible. Is this not an image of the problems caused by our version of enlightenment? With regard to material things, our knowledge and our technical accomplishments are legion, but what reaches beyond, the things of God and the question of good, we can no longer identify. Faith, then, which reveals God’s light to us, is the true enlightenment, enabling God’s light to break into our world, opening our eyes to the true light.


Dear friends, as I conclude, I would like to add one more thought about light and illumination. On Easter night, the night of the new creation, the Church presents the mystery of light using a unique and very humble symbol: the Paschal candle. This is a light that lives from sacrifice. The candle shines inasmuch as it is burnt up. It gives light, inasmuch as it gives itself. Thus the Church presents most beautifully the paschal mystery of Christ, who gives himself and so bestows the great light. Secondly, we should remember that the light of the candle is a fire. Fire is the power that shapes the world, the force of transformation. And fire gives warmth. Here too the mystery of Christ is made newly visible. Christ, the light, is fire, flame, burning up evil and so reshaping both the world and ourselves. “Whoever is close to me is close to the fire,” as Jesus is reported by Origen to have said. And this fire is both heat and light: not a cold light, but one through which God’s warmth and goodness reach down to us.

Let us pray to the Lord at this time that he may grant us to experience the joy of his light; let us pray that we ourselves may become bearers of his light, and that through the Church, Christ’s radiant face may enter our world. Amen.

HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
Saint Peter's Basilica
Holy Saturday, 7 April 2012

Previous Way of the Cross posts:

Way of the Cross - Station Fourteen

Jesus is laid in the tomb
The Way of the Cross with Pope Benedict XVI
V. We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee.
R. Because by Thy holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world.
From the Gospel according to Matthew 27:59-61

Joseph took the body, and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock; and he rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb, and departed. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the sepulcher.

MEDITATION

Jesus, disgraced and mistreated, is honorably buried in a new tomb. Nicodemus brings a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight, which gives off a precious scent. In the Son's self-offering, as at his anointing in Bethany, we see an "excess" which evokes God's generous and superabundant love. God offers himself unstintingly. If God's measure is superabundance, then we for our part should consider nothing too much for God. This is the teaching of Jesus himself, in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:20). But we should also remember the words of Saint Paul, who says that God "through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ everywhere. We are the aroma of Christ" (2 Corinthians 2:14ff.). Amid the decay of ideologies, our faith needs once more to be the fragrance which returns us to the path of life. At the very moment of his burial, Jesus' words are fulfilled: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24). Jesus is the grain of wheat which dies. From that lifeless grain of wheat comes forth the great multiplication of bread which will endure until the end of the world. Jesus is the bread of life which can satisfy superabundantly the hunger of all humanity and provide its deepest nourishment. Through his Cross and Resurrection, the eternal Word of God became flesh and bread for us. The mystery of the Eucharist already shines forth in the burial of Jesus.

PRAYER

Lord Jesus Christ, in your burial you have taken on the death of the grain of wheat. You have become the lifeless grain of wheat which produces abundant fruit for every age and for all eternity. From the tomb shines forth in every generation the promise of the grain of wheat which gives rise to the true manna, the Bread of Life, in which you offer us your very self. The eternal Word, through his Incarnation and death, has become a Word which is close to us: you put yourself into our hands and into our hearts, so that your word can grow within us and bear fruit. Through the death of the grain of wheat you give us yourself, so that we too can dare to lose our life in order to find it, so that we too can trust the promise of the grain of wheat. Help us grow in love and veneration for your Eucharistic mystery -- to make you, the Bread of heaven, the source of our life. Help us to become your "fragrance," and to make known in this world the mysterious traces of your life. Like the grain of wheat which rises from the earth, putting forth its stalk and then its ear, you could not remain enclosed in the tomb: the tomb is empty because he -- the Father -- "did not abandon you to the nether world, nor let your flesh see corruption" (Acts 2:31; Ps 16:10 LXX). No, you did not see corruption. You have risen, and have made a place for our transfigured flesh in the very heart of God. Help us to rejoice in this hope and bring it joyfully to the world. Help us to become witnesses of your Resurrection.

All: OUR FATHER, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

By the Cross with thee to stay,
there with thee to weep and pray,
is all I ask of thee to give.

Previous Way of the Cross posts:

Way of the Cross - Station Thirteen

Jesus is taken down from the Cross and given to his Mother
The Way of the Cross with Pope Benedict XVI
V. We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee.
R. Because by Thy holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world.
From the Gospel according to Matthew 27:54-55

When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe, and said, "Truly this was the Son of God!" There were also many women there, looking on from afar, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him.

MEDITATION

Jesus is dead. From his heart, pierced by the lance of the Roman soldier, flow blood and water: a mysterious image of the stream of the sacraments, Baptism and the Eucharist, by which the Church is constantly reborn from the opened heart of the Lord. Jesus' legs are not broken, like those of the two men crucified with him. He is thus revealed as the true Paschal lamb, not one of whose bones must be broken (…). And now, at the end of his sufferings, it is clear that, for all the dismay which filled men's hearts, for all the power of hatred and cowardice, he was never alone. There are faithful ones who remain with him. Under the Cross stands Mary, his Mother, the sister of his Mother, Mary, Mary Magdalen and the disciple whom he loved. A wealthy man, Joseph of Arimathea, appears on the scene: a rich man is able to pass through the eye of a needle, for God has given him the grace. He buries Jesus in his own empty tomb, in a garden. At Jesus' burial, the cemetery becomes a garden, the garden from which Adam was cast out when he abandoned the fullness of life, his Creator. The garden tomb symbolizes that the dominion of death is about to end. A member of the Sanhedrin also comes along, Nicodemus, to whom Jesus had proclaimed the mystery of rebirth by water and the Spirit. Even in the Sanhedrin, which decreed his death, there is a believer, someone who knows and recognizes Jesus after his death. In this hour of immense grief, of darkness and despair, the light of hope is mysteriously present. The hidden God continues to be the God of life, ever near. Even in the night of death, the Lord continues to be our Lord and Savior. The Church of Jesus Christ, his new family, begins to take shape.

PRAYER

Lord, you descended into the darkness of death. But your body is placed in good hands and wrapped in a white shroud (Matthew 27:59). Faith has not completely died; the sun has not completely set. How often does it appear that you are asleep? How easy it is for us to step back and say to ourselves: "God is dead." In the hour of darkness, help us to know that you are still there. Do not abandon us when we are tempted to lose heart. Help us not to leave you alone. Give us the fidelity to withstand moments of confusion and a love ready to embrace you in your utter helplessness, like your Mother, who once more holds you to her breast. Help us, the poor and rich, simple and learned, to look beyond all our fears and prejudices, and to offer you our abilities, our hearts and our time, and thus to prepare a garden for the Resurrection.

All: OUR FATHER, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Let me mingle tears with thee,
mourning Him who mourned for me,
all the days that I may live

Previous Way of the Cross posts:

Way of the Cross - Station Twelve

Jesus dies on the Cross
The Way of the Cross with Pope Benedict XVI
V. We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee.
R. Because by Thy holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world.
From the Gospel according to John 19:19-20

Pilate also wrote a title and put it on the Cross; it read, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." Many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek.

From the Gospel according to Matthew 27:45-50,54

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" That is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And some of the bystanders hearing it said, "This man is calling Elijah." And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink. But the others said, "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him." And Jesus cried again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit." When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe, and said, "Truly this was the Son of God!"

MEDITATION

In Greek and Latin, the two international languages of the time, and in Hebrew, the language of the Chosen People, a sign stood above the Cross of Jesus, indicating who he was: the King of the Jews, the promised Son of David. Pilate, the unjust judge, became a prophet despite himself. The kingship of Jesus was proclaimed before the entire world. Jesus himself had not accepted the title "Messiah," because it would have suggested a mistaken, human idea of power and deliverance. Yet now the title can remain publicly displayed above the Crucified Christ. He is indeed the king of the world. Now he is truly "lifted up." In sinking to the depths he rose to the heights. Now he has radically fulfilled the commandment of love, he has completed the offering of himself, and in this way he is now the revelation of the true God, the God who is love. Now we know who God is. Now we know what true kingship is. Jesus prays Psalm 22, which begins with the words: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Psalm 22:2). He takes to himself the whole suffering people of Israel, all of suffering humanity, the drama of God's darkness, and he makes God present in the very place where he seems definitively vanquished and absent. The Cross of Jesus is a cosmic event. The world is darkened, when the Son of God is given up to death. The earth trembles. And on the Cross, the Church of the Gentiles is born. The Roman centurion understands this, and acknowledges Jesus as the Son of God. From the Cross he triumphs -- ever anew.

PRAYER

Lord Jesus Christ, at the hour of your death the sun was darkened. Ever anew you are being nailed to the Cross. At this present hour of history we are living in God's darkness. Through your great sufferings and the wickedness of men, the face of God, your face, seems obscured, unrecognizable. And yet, on the Cross, you have revealed yourself. Precisely by being the one who suffers and loves, you are exalted. From the Cross on high you have triumphed. Help us to recognize your face at this hour of darkness and tribulation. Help us to believe in you and to follow you in our hour of darkness and need. Show yourself once more to the world at this hour. Reveal to us your salvation.

All: OUR FATHER, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Let me share with thee His pain,
who for all my sins was slain,
who for me in torments died.

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