CV NEWS FEED // Pope Francis is writing the meditations himself for this year’s Good Friday Via Crucis at the Colosseum, the Holy See Press Office revealed on March 26.
Each year, the Pope presides over Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum in Rome on the evening of Good Friday, a tradition that dates back to the 18th century.
Vatican News reported that the fourteen meditations that accompany the Stations of the Cross are generally written by different individuals. This year, the meditations will instead be written by the Holy Father himself.
The theme for the reflections is “In prayer with Jesus on the Way of the Cross.” According to Vatican News and the Holy See Press Office, making the Way of the Cross is “an act of meditation and spirituality,” focusing on Jesus and the Year of Prayer, as 2024 was designated by Pope Francis.
“It will be focused, he noted, on Christ who makes the Way of the Cross and allows one to walk alongside Him,” Vatican News reported.
An article from the USCCB noted that Pope St. John Paul II began the practice of entrusting the writing of the meditations to other individuals in 1985. He wrote the meditations himself for the Via Crucis in 2000.
While Pope Benedict XVI never wrote the meditations during his papacy, he wrote them in 2005, less than one month before his election as pope.
The USCCB reported that Pope Francis’ decision to write the meditations himself this year marks the first time in his 11-year papacy that he has done so.
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