Vatican City, Mar 30, 2018 / 02:38 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- During his annual Good Friday Via Crucis at the Colosseum, Pope Francis made a heartfelt prayer asking God to give Christians the grace to be ashamed of their sins, to repent and beg for mercy, and to have hope that his love is stronger than death.
“Before your supreme love, shame pervades us for having left you alone to suffer for our sins…shame for having chosen Barabbas and not you, power and not you, appearance and not you, the god of money and not you, worldliness and not eternity,” the Pope said in his March 30 prayer.
Christians also feel shame for all the people, including some clergy, who “allowed themselves be deceived by ambition and vainglory, losing sight of their dignity and first love,” and those who have left future generations a world “fractured by divisions and wars” and “consumed by selfishness.”
Above all, Christians are ashamed “for having lost a sense of shame,” he said, and asked the Lord to “always grant us the grace of holy shame!”
Pope Francis presided over the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday at the Colosseum – an ancient practice which dates back to the pontificate of Benedict XIV, who died in 1758. After a pause, the tradition was revived by Bl. Pope Paul VI in 1964, and under St. John Paul II it became known globally through television.
Each year the pope personally chooses someone to write the meditations for the stations. This year he asked a group of Italian high school students to write the meditations, guided by religion teacher Andrea Monda.
The meditations reflected on different themes, such as compassion, Jesus’ humanity, man’s dignity, fear of suffering, modern sensitivity to anything considered offensive, the surprises God gives and the knowledge that as Christians, we are never alone.
While in the past, the pope himself used to carry the cross from station to station, it is now carried by individuals and families. This year cross-bearers included Archbishop Angelo Donatis, the Vicar of Rome, a family of five from Syria, Dominican religious sisters from Iraq and friars from the Holy Land, among others.
In his prayer at the end of the Via Crucis, Pope Francis said that as Christians contemplate Jesus’ bloody death, they look to him with a gaze full of repentance, “which before your eloquent silence, begs for your mercy.”
This repentance, he said, “springs from the certainty that only you can save us from evil, only you can heal us from our leprosy of hate, selfishness, pride, greed, revenge and idolatry.
“Only you can embrace us by restoring our dignity as your children and rejoicing for our return home, our return to life,” he said, adding that this repentance also comes from being aware of one’s smallness and vanity, and from allowing oneself to be moved by God’s “powerful invitation to convert.”
It is the repentance of David, “who from the abyss of his suffering finds in you his only strength,” and
the repentance of Peter, “who when his eyes met yours, wept bitterly for having denied you.”
“Lord Jesus, always grant us the grace of holy repentance,” he said, but noted that despite man’s sinfulness, in front of God’s majesty “the spark of hope is lit in the darkness of our despair, because we know that your only measure for loving us is to love us without measure.”
This hope, he said, is that God’s message will continue to inspire people today with the knowledge that good and forgiveness overcome evil and the desire for revenge, and that a “brotherly embrace” can dispel “hostility and fear of the other.”
It is also a hope that Christ’s sacrifice would continue to emanate the “fragrance of divine love” that touches the young people who consecrate their lives to God, and that missionaries would continue “to challenge the slumbering consciousness of humanity,” by risking their lives to serve the poor, invisible, exploited and forgotten.
Francis said this is also a hope that the Church, which is holy and yet made up of sinners, “may continue, still today, despite all attempts to discredit it, to be a light that illuminates, encourages, uplifts and bears witness to your unlimited love for humanity.”
He prayed that the Church would be “a model of selflessness, an ark of salvation, and a source of certainty and truth.”
“Lord Jesus, always grant us the grace of holy hope!” he said, and asked Jesus to help Christians “strip ourselves of the arrogance of the unrepentant thief to your left, of the short-sighted and the corrupt” and those who saw in Jesus “another chance to put one’s own fault on others, even God.”
Closing his prayer, Francis asked Jesus to help Christians identify instead “with the good thief who looks to you with eyes full of shame, repentance and hope.”
With these eyes, the good thief “saw divine victory in your apparent defeat and knelt before your mercy, honestly stealing his way into heaven.”
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If the Pope gets to decide from afar, what role in worship does the local Ordinate have? Does he just enforce the dictates of the Pope or does he not have a say over the manner in which his flock engages Our Lord in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? I understand he has charge over catechesis, confirmation and ordination; but, does he not also form the conscience of the flock under his care? I feel pity for any Bishop who wishes to grow his flock, instill right worship and true devotion and ONLY have one tool in his tool chest with with to accomplish his task: the NO Missae of Paul VI.
Every bishop of a diocese is a successor to an apostle and is sole the sole authority in his diocese. No bishop or Pope can in anway impose their personal views or opinions on any bishop/apostle of a diocese. Pope Francis is going way beyond his role as the successor of Peter.
There can be honest disagreement about the direction in which PF is leading the Church, but this tendency to micro-manage the bishops is surely unsettling to the liberal mind.
Fortunately, in my diocese we are ignoring Traditionis Custodes. And should things get uglier after April 3, plans are already being made to continue with the TLM with a diocesan priest and a real church location. The octogenarian modernists have already lost. They just don’t realize it yet, so blinded are they by envy and hate.
You’re a schismatic. Your bishop does not have the authority to ignore TC. Stop making an idol out of the TLM and start being Catholic.
Dear Friend,
When was the last time you attended a solemn high mass? When was the last time you knelt at the altar of the communion rail to receive Our Lord and do your part to finalize the oblation? When did you last gaze at the pews full of well dressed, well behaved young people, sitting with their (many) siblings and parents attentively “assisting” in the holy offering? Tell me, Friend, when did you last walk into a Catholic Church and NOT fear trampling on the precious body of Our Lord and savior? Every piece, every fraction, every fragment is the WHOLE of His body. He gets handed out like a carnival ticket in the NO Missae. I’ve seen fragments get trampled, or nearly so, because of insensitive, haughty and arrogant, modernist “Catholics” who don’t even believe in the Real Presence. The abuses are plain scandalous and shocking. Do a deep dive this Lent like I did 2 years ago when my local NO priest shut us out of the church for fear of a cold virus. Seek out that which you condemn and go. Study the counsel and its deeply jaded and nefarious players. Start with Michael Davies. He’s a good place to start. God bless. Don’t condemn. God is at the TLM. MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT.
Right, Mr. Tabish. Turning my back on the NO in 2018, I’ve never looked back except to lament the loss of God’s people still stuck there.
Scooter is correct. Pope Francis’ order may be mean-spirited, it may be vicious, it may be malevolent, it may be intended to damage the church–but it is also unquestionably lawful and proper for the pope to approve or disapprove of any liturgical format he sees fit, whether from worthy or unworthy motives. He may have adopted a double standard in dealing with the heterodox, whom he favors, and the orthodox, whom he detests. It does not matter. A lawful order is a lawful order. It doesn’t have to be nice. It doesn’t have to please our sensibilities in order to demand our obedience. Francis has as much right to suppress the TLM as Pope St. Pius V did to suppress many pre-Trenten liturgies, which he did do at the same time he issued the prototype of the Tridentine Mass. If Francis were to order bishops and priests to hold church “weddings” for same-sex couples, that order would have to be defied because it would be an unlawful, immoral order which seeks to overturn the natural law, something no man or woman can do, least of all the pope. But this does not do that. It has been said by some saints that Christ values obedience to the lawful exercise of proper church authority by duly empowered actors above all else, regardless of whether that authority is exercised in a wise or kind manner. Perhaps this is a test of obedience to and by Christ. If so, then anyone who counsels defiance of the order is failing that test. “Scooter Toloody” has said what needs to be said. Francis has as much right to crack down on the TLM as Benedict did to widen its use.
Actually it is not lawful. Read the documents of VII and consult a Canon Lawyer.
Mr. Norton, if you care to read Pius V’s document Quo Primum you will quickly conclude that Pope Francis does not have the legal authority to dispense with the TLM. It is very clear.
It is an unlawful order. The Pope does not own the Church. It is not his possession or plaything. He is charged with preserving the Church, instructing the Church in Truth, not in falsehoods. By your logic, the Pope would be within his authority to outlaw the praying of the rosary. This is extent that papolatry has reached in our era.
Bishops chose to ignore the Vatican regarding the blessing of same sex relationships, yet no one screams schism at them. Communion on the hand was banned by the Vatican, but many Bishops ignored that too. The latin mass was never banned, indeed it can never be banned as the Trent declared an anathema on anyone, including a Pope who alters or bans it.
When the Holy See is schismatic, how can defiance of its anti-canonical actions be schismatic? Not everyone idolizes clown and tango Masses like Francis, nor do they value his mendacity.
How rigid of you!.
Just like Our Lord asks of we Eye pluckers. Love your satire.
Not concerned about the pronouncements of Pope Scooter.
What is significant about April 3″
Rumours abound that on that date there will be issued tighter still restrictions on the TLM.
But go to the Rorate Caeli website where it is strongly averred that PF is losing interest in the liturgy war.
Pope Francis has also confirmed, through his lack of any disciplinary actions taken against the ‘dirty schism’ German Bishops, that if you want to perform immoral acts in the Catholic Mass, go to a Progressive Catholic Church in Germany to do so. Pope Francis confirms that you do not need any Vatican permission to do so.
For crying out loud, it’s time for traditional Catholics to practice the same manner of noncompliance that the DemoCatholics already do to support abortion, same-sex deviancy and whatever other demon driven things they allow for.
Scooter Toloody,
Name-calling… the blunt instrument of thoughtless, last ditch argument. Your judgmental and mean-spirited posting is perfectively representative of Pope Francis and his ilk. Congratulations. A little charity ( and humility) on your part would go a long way.
I suggest you follow Mr. Tabish’s soul-saving advice and get to know that which you condemn. I pray for you to find peace of soul.
Is the letter of Pope Francis’, Guardian of Tradition, a magistrial teaching or simply his personal view point as regards the latin liturgy? Clarification is needed in order to stop all the disunity that is prevailing by this issue.
There can be honest disagreement about the direction in which PF is leading the Church, but this tendency to micro-manage the bishops is surely unsettling to the liberal mind.
What previous generations considered sacred remains sacred and can not be abrogated. The problem within the church is the laity are informed of the dubious formation of the Novus ordo, and the manipulation by its designer (Fr.Bugnini). Young Catholics are attracted to the consistent celebration of the tlm, and the spiritual depth of its customs. Young priests are attracted to its direction of prayers to the sacrifice of Christ to the heavenly Father. The Vatican must be aware of the abuses within the N.O, and foster with the bishops an authentic celebration of the N.O ad orientem with the use of some Latin with gregorian chant. Right now priests are celebrating without consistent guidance. Draconian leadership will only foster more strife and confusion within the ranks.