Via Crucis in Rome

At 9:15pm this evening (3:15pm EDT), at the Roman Colosseum, the Holy Father presided over the Via Crucis.

Greetings of the Holy Father, Pope Francis

at the conclusion of the Via Crucis

At 9:15pm this evening (3:15pm EDT), the Holy Father, Pope Francis presided over the pious exercise of the Via Crucis (the Way of the Cross).  The exercise took place at the Colosseum and was broadcast throughout the world.

The texts of the meditations and the prayers for this year's stations of the Via Crucis were entrusted by the Holy Father to Sister Eugenia Bonetti, a Consolata Missionary Sister who is President of the Slaves no more Association.  The focus of the meditations was the suffering of many people who are victims of human trafficking.

Prayer composed by the Holy Father, Pope Francis

which he recited at the conclusion of the Via Crucis

Lord Jesus, help us to see in Your Cross all the crosses of the world:

• the cross of people who are hungry for bread and for love;
• the cross of people who are alone and abandoned, sometimes by their own parents and relatives;
• the cross of people who are thirsting for justice and for peace;
• the cross of people who have not know the comfort of faith;
• the cross of the elderly who are weighed down by the burden of their years and their loneliness;
• the cross of migrants who find all doors closed because of fear and hearts that are hardened by political calculations;
• the cross of little ones who have been wounded in their innocence and their powerlessness;
• the cross of humanity that wanders in the darkness of uncertainty and the obscurity of the culture of the moment;
• the cross of families who have been broken by treachery, by the seductions of the evil one or by murderous indifference and selfishness;
• the cross of consecrated persons who tirelessly seek to bring Your light to the world and feel rejected, mocked and humiliated;
• the cross of consecrated persons who, along the way, have forgotten their first love;
• the cross of your brothers who, believing in You and seeking to live according to Your word, find themselves marginalized and ignored even by their own families and their peers;
• the cross of our weaknesses, our hypocrisies, our betrayals our sins and our numerous broken promises;
• the cross of Your Church who, faithful to Your Gospel, struggles to share your love even among the baptized themselves;
• the cross of the Church, Your bride, who continually feels that she is being attacked, from within and from outside;
• the cross of our common home that is seriously withering before our very eyes, which are blinded by selfishness, greed and the thirst for power.

Lord Jesus, reawaken within us the hope of the resurrection and of Your definitive victory over every evil and every death.  Amen!

List of persons who carried the cross

to each of the fourteen stations

Text of the reflections for the Stations of the Cross

I Station:  His Eminence, Angelo Cardinal De Donatis

II Station:  Family - Antonio Lìpari, Laura Amico, Gaia and Claudio (Italy)

III Station:  Sister Venicia Meurer and Sister Lilly Nanat (Pallottine Sisters from Brazil and India)

IV Station:  UNITALSI  Costantino Fois (disabled)
                                        Francesco Diella (on a stretcher)
                                        Maria Gisella Molina (sister assistant)
                                        Carla Capuano (sister assistant)

V Station:  Patrizia Mason, Laura Manzato and Laura Ferrario (Italia)

VI Station:  Stanizzi Family (Italia)

VII Station:  Jakub Sniec and Roza Mika (Polonia)

VIII Station:  Francesca Armogida and Giovanni Giuliani (Italia)

IX Station:  Sister Anelia Gomez da Paiva (Consolata Missionary)
                    Lucia Capuzzi (Italia)

X Station:  Sister Josephine Sim (Canossian Sister)
                   Patricia Ogiefa and her daughter Cristina Ogiefa (Nigeria)

XI Station:  Sister Rita Giaretta and Ezekiel Joy (Casa Rut - Caserta)

XII Station:  Sister Mihaela Elizabeta Balauca (Ponte Galeria)
                     Maria Leonor Jardon (Street unit patrols)

XIII Station:  Father Francois M. Shamiyeh (Syria) and Father Theodorus Beta Herdistyan (Brothers from the Holy Land)

XIV Station:  His Eminence, Angelo Cardinal De Donatis

Young people carrying the torches: Giovanni Settimio and Gianluca Silva (Italia)