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Pope Francis presided over a historic Way of the Cross on Friday, which was held in St. Peter's Square in the Vatican and not in the Colosseum, as usual, and which was not attended by faithful due to the emergence of the coronavirus.
Pope Francis said a short prayer that humanity would not succumb to darkness: "Lord, do not leave us in the darkness and shadow of death, protect us with the shield of his power. God, defender of the poor and afflicted help us bear the yoke every day, "he said.
And the rest of the time he attended with absolute recollection the reading of the meditations on this rite, which narrate the Calvary of Jesus of Nazareth from his death sentence to his grave, through fourteen stations in which the Cross passes from hand to hand while two narrators read passages from the Gospel.
This year, the Way of the Cross was not held at the Colosseum, as is customary because it is considered a symbol of the persecution and suffering of the first Christians, but took place in a completely empty, silent Vatican square lit by candles on the floor, placed from the obelisk to the sacred.
The Holy See has closed the Vatican square and basilica as a precautionary measure, and this year the pope is celebrating a very peculiar Holy Week, since on Holy Thursday there was no chrism mass or foot washing, and the Via Crucis was not celebrated in the Flavio Amphitheater, and all the events are taking place without the faithful, who have to settle for following them on social networks and the media.
These precautionary measures, however, did not prevent numerous cameras and photographers from different media from approaching this Friday to the fence that surrounds the plaza to record historical images.
The bearers of the Cross began the journey in the obelisk and progressed towards the sacred, where Pope Francis was.
Two groups of five people carried the Cross, five prisoners from Padua and five doctors and nurses from the Vatican Health Assistance Fund, keeping at all times a safety meter distance, advised by the health authorities to avoid infections by COVID-19 , which in Italy has already left more than 18,800 dead.
The meditations were proposed this year by the chaplaincy of the "Due Palazzi" Penitentiary for Compliance in Padua.
Among those who wrote them are five detainees, a family victim of a homicide crime, the daughter of a man sentenced to life in prison, an educator of correctional institutions, a prison surveillance judge.
Also the mother of a detained person, a catechist, a volunteer friar, a prison police officer and a priest who was accused and then definitively acquitted, after eight years of judicial process.
The texts, collected by the chaplain Marco Pozza and the volunteer Tatiana Mario, were written in the first person but did not carry any specific name, a gesture with which they wanted to make it clear that the voice of each of them was that of all those who they share the same condition in the world.
Good Friday is the second day of the Easter Triduum and remembers the passion of Christ and his Calvary until he was crucified.
The Via Crucis rite was established in 1741 by order of Benedict XIV, although its practice was forgotten over time, until it was resumed in 1925.
It was not until 1964 when the pontiff and blessed Paul VI chose to host this ceremony the Flavian Amphitheater, symbol of the persecution of the first Christians in Roman times.
The pontiff will continue the Easter rites tomorrow with the Easter Vigil and on Easter Sunday he will celebrate a mass in St. Peter's Square in the Vatican and then impart the traditional blessing "Urbi et Orbi" (To the city and the world), all without faithful.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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