St. James News and Information

The Way of the Cross, the 'filth' in the Church and the 'decay' of ideologies

25 March, 2005
VATICAN
In his meditations on the Way of the Cross Card Joseph Ratzinger speaks about the neo-paganism of Christianity, the betrayal of the disciples, and the ‘filth’ in the Church. Only God’s loving side is remembered, not His judgement.

Rome (AsiaNews) – The leitmotiv of this year’s meditations on the Way of the Cross is the grain of wheat which falls to the earth and must die to bear fruit.

Written by Card Joseph Ratzinger, the meditations view the death of Jesus, the true grain of wheat, as the event that bears fruit.

The parable gives the theologian Ratzinger a chance to reflect on the relationship between God and the men and women of our time, a relationship marked by a culture that wants to put God aside, by a form of neo-paganism that is based on pride and by the trivialisation of values and even faith.

In such a context people do not see that they are on a path to self-destruction, a sin that is also found among the clergy.

“How much filth there is in the Church,” writes the Cardinal, who sends a terrible warning for we accept “only the gentleness and love of God and Jesus, and quietly set aside the word of judgment”

Cardinal Ratzinger looks at the whole of humanity. “How often,” he says in the second station when Jesus is forced to carry the Cross, “are the symbols of power, borne by the great ones of this world, an affront to truth, to justice and to the dignity of man! How many times are their pomps and their lofty words nothing but grandiose lies, a parody of their solemn obligation to serve the common good! [. . .] The price of justice in this world is suffering”.

Speaking in the third and seventh stations, he calls attention to the sin of pride in man. “In Jesus’ fall beneath the weight of the Cross, the meaning of his whole life is seen: his voluntary abasement, which lifts us up from the depths of our pride. The nature of our pride is also revealed: it is that arrogance which makes us want to be liberated from God and left alone to ourselves, the arrogance which makes us think that we do not need his eternal love, but can be the masters of our own lives. In this rebellion against truth, in this attempt to be our own god, creator and judge, we fall headlong and plunge into self-destruction.”

What is more, recent history shows “how a Christianity which has grown weary of faith has abandoned the Lord: the great ideologies, and the banal existence of those who no longer believing in anything, who simply drift through life, have built a new and worse paganism, which in its attempt to do away with God once and for all, have ended up doing away with man”

Finally, the third fall perhaps reminds us of “the fall of man in general, and the falling of many Christians away from Christ and into a godless secularism. Should we not also think of how much Christ suffers in his own Church? How often is the holy sacrament of his Presence abused, how often must he enter empty and evil hearts! How often do we celebrate only ourselves, without even realizing that he is there! How often is his Word twisted and misused! What little faith is present behind so many theories, so many empty words! How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to him! How much pride, how much self-complacency! What little respect we pay to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where he waits for us, ready to raise us up whenever we fall! All this is present in his Passion. His betrayal by his disciples, their unworthy reception of his Body and Blood, is certainly the greatest suffering endured by the Redeemer.”

Jesus’ own words in the eight station, when he reproaches the women of Jerusalem who follow him and weep for him, should be seen as “directed at a piety which is purely sentimental, one which fails to lead to conversion and living faith”.

“It is no use to lament the sufferings of this world if our life goes on as usual. And so the Lord warns us of the danger in which we find ourselves. He shows us both the seriousness of sin and the seriousness of judgment. Can it be that, despite all our expressions of consternation in the face of evil and innocent suffering, we are all too prepared to trivialize the mystery of evil? Have we accepted only the gentleness and love of God and Jesus, and quietly set aside the word of judgment? ‘How can God be so concerned with our weaknesses?’ we say. ‘We are only human!’ Yet as we contemplate the sufferings of the Son, we see more clearly the seriousness of sin, and how it needs to be fully atoned if it is to be overcome. Before the image of the suffering Lord, evil can no longer be trivialized. To us too, he says: ‘Do not weep for me, weep for yourselves . . . if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?’”

“Amid the decay of ideologies,” writes Ratzinger by way of conclusion, “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.” (FP)

Pope Offers His Suffering for Sake of Gods Plan

Way-of-the-Cross Meditations Focus on Christ's Self-Giving in Eucharist

ROME, MARCH 26, 2005 (Zenit.org).- John Paul II offered his own "Via Crucis" through television link to the Stations of the Cross in the Colosseum on Good Friday night.

The thousands who followed the ceremony in at the ancient imperial landmark were able to see the Pope on large screens, seated in his private chapel. During the last station, he held a crucifix in his hands.

"I also offer my sufferings so that God's plan will be realized and his word spread among peoples," said the Holy Father in a brief message addressed to those present, read on his behalf by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, vicar for the Rome Diocese.

The cardinal, who is also president of the Italian bishops' conference, presided in the Pope's name and carried the cross in the first and last stations.

"I am also close to all those who, at this time, are being tried with suffering. I pray for each one of them," said the Pontiff in his message. It marked the first time he missed the ceremony in his 26-year pontificate.

In the images of the Holy Father, broadcast by the Vatican Television Center, he had his back to the camera as he faced the altar. Near the altar, a television transmitted images of the Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum.

The meditations and prayers, written on this occasion by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, were focused on Christ's self-giving in the Eucharist.

In a petition to Christ, the cardinal said: "Help us grow in love and veneration for your Eucharistic mystery -- to make you, the Bread of heaven, the source of our life." The text was read in Italian in the Colosseum.

Some of the passages were examinations of conscience for the whole Church, as in the ninth station, with this question:

"Should we not also think of how much Christ suffers in his own Church? How often is the holy sacrament of his Presence abused, how often must he enter empty and evil hearts! What little faith is present behind so many theories, so many empty words!

"How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to him! How much pride, how much self-complacency! What little respect we pay to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where he waits for us, ready to raise us up whenever we fall! All this is present in his Passion."

In the seventh station, commenting on Christianity, Cardinal Ratzinger said: "But we can also think, in more recent times, of how a Christianity which has grown weary of faith has abandoned the Lord: the great ideologies, and the banal existence of those who no longer believing in anything, who simply drift through life, have built a new and worse paganism, which in its attempt to do away with God once and for all, have ended up doing away with man. And so man lies fallen in the dust."

One understands, the cardinal said in the third station, how our "arrogance that makes us think that we ourselves can create human beings, has turned man into a kind of merchandise, to be bought and sold, or stored to provide parts for experimentation. In doing this, we hope to conquer death by our own efforts, yet in reality we are profoundly debasing human dignity."

The Stations of the Cross were broadcast by 54 television channels in 39 countries.

Father Cantalamessa,s Good Friday Sermon

True Body, Truly Born of the Virgin Mary

VATICAN CITY, MARCH 25, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the sermon Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the Pontifical Household, gave at the Good Friday service in St. Peter's Basilica.

* * *

True Body, Truly Born of the Virgin Mary Mild
By Father Raniero Cantalamessa

Good Friday of the year 2005, the year of the Eucharist! What light is shed on both these mysteries when we think of the two together! And yet a question arises. If the Eucharist is "the memorial of the Passion," why is it that the Church abstains from celebrating it precisely on Good Friday? (For we are now gathered to take part, not in a Mass, but rather in a liturgy of the Passion in which we will receive the body of Christ consecrated yesterday.)

There is a profound theological reason for this. The one who makes himself present on the altar in every Eucharist is Christ, not dead but risen and alive. And so the Church abstains from celebrating the Eucharist on these two days when we remember Jesus lying dead in the tomb, his soul separated from his body (although not from his divinity).
The fact that we do not celebrate the Eucharist today does not weaken, but rather strengthens, the bond between Good Friday and the Eucharist. The Eucharist is to the death of Christ as the sound and the voice are to the word they carry through the space into the ear of the listeners.

* * *

There is a Latin hymn, as dear as the Adoro Te Devote to Catholic Eucharistic piety: the Ave Verum. It is not possible to find a better way to bring to light the link between the Eucharist and the cross. Written in the 13th century as an accompaniment to the elevation of the Host at Mass, it serves us today equally well as our salutation of Christ raised up on the cross. In no more than five short couplets it brings us such a great load of meaning:

Hail, true Body, truly born
of the Virgin Mary mild.
Truly offered, wracked and torn,
on the Cross for all defiled,
from Whose love-pierced, sacred side
flowed Thy true Blood's saving tide:
be a foretaste sweet to me
in my death's great agony.
O my loving, Gentle One,
Sweetest Jesus, Mary's Son.

The first couplet, "Ave verum corpus natum de Maria Virgine" -- Hail, true body, truly born of the Virgin Mary -- gives the key to understand all the rest. Berengarius of Tours denied that the presence of Christ in the sign of bread was real, saying it was only symbolic. In reaction to this heresy, a new emphasis arose, identifying totally the Eucharistic body and the historical body of Christ. All expressions in the first part of the hymn refer to Christ in the flesh: birth from Mary, passion, death, pierced side. The author stops at that point; he makes no mention of the resurrection, lest this should lead one to think of a glorified, spiritual body, not "real" enough.

* * *

Theology in our day has developed a more balanced vision of the identity between the historical body of Christ born of Mary and his Eucharistic body. The tendency now is to rediscover the sacramental character of Christ's presence, which, however real and substantial, is not material. The basic truth affirmed in the hymn remains however intact. The very Jesus born of Mary, who "went about doing good to all" (Acts 10:38), who died on the cross and rose again on the third day, is really present in the world today, not merely in a vague and spiritual way, or, as some would say, in the "cause" he stood for. The Eucharist is the way Jesus invented to remain forever Emmanuel, God-with-us.

This presence is a guarantee, not only for the Church, but for the entire world. Yet we feel afraid to use the words "God is with us," because they have been used before in an exclusive sense: God is "with us," on our side, meaning not with others, and even "against" those others who are our enemies. But since Christ has come, there is no longer any exclusiveness, everything has become universal. "God in Christ was reconciling the world to himself, not holding men's faults against them" (2 Corinthians 5:19). The whole world, not just a part of it; humankind as a whole, not just one people.

"God is on our side," that is, on the side of humankind, our friend and ally against the powers of evil. God alone personifies the kingdom of good against the kingdom of evil. We need to bear witness to this hope that is in us, rising up against the gloomy wind of pessimism blowing through our society. As the Pope writes in "Novo Millennio Ineunte," "We do not know what the new millennium has in store for us, but we are certain that it is safe in the hands of Christ, the 'King of kings and Lord of lords' (Revelation 19:16)" (John Paul II, "Novo Millennio Ineunte," 35).

* * *

After the initial salutation an invocation follows in the hymn: "Esto nobis praegustatum mortis in examine" -- be a foretaste in my death's great agony. Long ago the martyr Ignatius of Antioch called the Eucharist "the medicine of immortality," that is, the remedy for our mortality (St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians, 20,2). "We will rise, says St. Cyril of Alexandria, because Our Lord Jesus Christ has hidden life within us through his flesh, and has inserted it as the seed of immortality which frees us from all corruption that is now in us" (St. Cyril of Alexandria, On the Gospel of John, IV, 2 - PG 73,581). In the Eucharist we have the "pledge of future glory": "futurae gloriae nobis pignus datur."

Some religious polls have revealed a strange fact: There are, even among believers, some who believe in God but not in a life after death for human beings. Yet how could one think such a thing? The Letter to the Hebrews says that Christ died to win "an eternal redemption" for us (Hebrews 9:12). Redemption not for time only, but eternal. Some object: But no one has ever come back from the beyond to assure us that it exists in fact and is not merely an illusion. That is not true. There is someone who comes back from beyond death every day to give us that certainty and to renew his promises, if we but know how to listen to him. We are on our way to meet the one who comes to meet us every day in the Eucharist to give us a foretaste ("praegustatum!") of the eternal banquet of the kingdom.

We need to cry out this our hope to help ourselves and others to overcome the horror of death and the mood of gloomy pessimism common in our society. So many reasons are put forward for the desperate state of the world: "an anthill crumbling away," "a planet in distress." … Scientists research in ever greater detail the possible scenario for the dissolution of the cosmos. The earth and other planets will grow cold, the sun and the stars will cool down, everything will grow cold. ... Light will fade, there will be more and more black holes, until the universe will be full of gigantic black holes drifting further and further apart ... until eventually the expansion ceases, the contraction begins, and all matter and all energy collapses into a compact mass of infinite density. It will all end in a grand implosion, the "big crunch," and all will have returned to the emptiness, the silence that preceded the big bang 50 billion years ago ...

No one knows whether things will really go that way or some other way, but faith gives us the assurance that, whatever may happen, it will not be the total and final end. God did not reconcile the world to himself only to abandon it to nothingness; he did not promise to remain with us to the end of the world only to go, alone, back to his heaven when that end comes. "I have loved you with an everlasting love," God says in the Bible (Jeremiah 31:3), and God's promises of "everlasting love" are not like ours.

Taking up the same train of thought as the Ave Verum, the author of the Dies Irae raises an agonized cry to Christ that we especially on this day, can make our own: "Recordare, Iesu pie, quod sum causa tuae viae: ne me perdas illa die": Remember, loving Jesus, that I was the reason you went to the cross: don't let me be lost when that day comes. "Quaerens me sedisti lassus, redemisti crucem passus: tantus labor non sit cassus": looking for me, wearied you sat by the well of Sychar, and to redeem me you suffered the cross: Don't let such suffering be wasted.

* * *

The Ave Verum closes with a cry to Christ: "O Iesu dulcis, o Iesu pie." These words evoke for us a tender, wholly evangelical image of Christ: the Jesus "sweet and gentle," merciful and compassionate, who does not break the crushed reed or quench the smoldering wick. The Jesus who one day said, "Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart" (Matthew 11:29).

The Eucharist makes present in the world the one who, by his teaching and by his life, has unmasked and broken forever the system that makes something sacral of violence.

The Eucharist is the sacrament of nonviolence! Thanks to the Eucharist, God's absolute "no" to violence, spoken on the cross, echoes alive down the centuries. And, at the same time, it is God's "yes" to the innocent victims, and it is the place where all the blood spilled on earth joins with the blood of Christ and cries out to God and "pleads more insistently than Abel's" (Hebrews 12:24).

But Christ's meekness is no justification for the violence that is done today to his person, and in fact renders it the queerer, the more odious. It has been said that Christ, by his sacrifice, has put an end to the perverse recourse to the scapegoat, having taken upon himself all of its consequences (See R. Girard, "Des choses cachées depuis la fondation du monde," Grasset, Paris 1978). Sad to say, Christ is once again subjected to that same destiny.

All the resentment pent up in a certain secular line of thinking regarding the link between violence and the sacred is unleashed against him. As usual, when a scapegoat is wanted, all the fury of the attack is directed at the one that seems the weakest. "Weakest," here, in the sense that he can be mocked, derided with impunity, without any risk of retaliation; Christians after all long ago renounced any right to use force in defense of their beliefs.

This is not just a question of the pressure to remove the cross from public places and the crib from Christmas folklore. In an unending stream of novels films and plays, writers manipulate the figure of Christ under cover of imaginary and nonexistent new documents and discoveries. This is becoming a fashion, a literary genre.

There has always been the tendency to clothe Christ in the garb of one's own time or one's own ideology. In the past the issues were at least serious, genuinely human concerns (Jesus the idealist, Jesus the socialist, the revolutionary …). Our time, obsessed as it is with sex, seems unable to portray Jesus in any other way than as a homosexual, or as one who taught that salvation is to be found in uniting with the feminine principle and gave the example by marrying Mary Magdalene. The passion and the crucifixion of Christ? All later inventions of the Church!

It is trading on the vast resonance of the name of Christ and on all that he means to a large part of humankind, to achieve wide publicity at very little cost, or to shock with advertisements which exploit Gospel symbols and images, as the one of the Last Supper. This is literary parasitism!

Yet if in some extreme cases believers react and phone to protest about these things, some people are scandalized and decry it as intolerance and censorship. Intolerance has changed sides in our day, at least in the West: where we used to have religious intolerance, we now have intolerance of religion!

There are who present themselves as champions of science against religion: an astonishing claim, considering the way they treat the science of history! Many drink in their fantasies and utterly absurd stories, imagining them to be true, and even the only truth now freed at last from Church censure and taboo. Someone once said, "When a man no longer believes in God, he is ready to believe anything." The facts show that he was right.

The mystery we are celebrating today prevents us from giving way to a persecution complex and raising up once again walls or bastions between ourselves and modern society. Perhaps we ought simply to imitate our Master and say, "Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing." Forgive them and forgive us, for certainly our own sins, past and present, are also to blame when the name of Christ is held in contempt among the nations.

We could perhaps appeal to these people of our time, not only for our own sake but for theirs as well, saying what Tertullian said to gnostics of his time who denied the humanity of Christ: "Parce unicae spei totius orbis": Do not destroy the only hope of the world (Tertullian, "De carne Christi," 5,3 - CCL 2, p.881).

* * *

The final line of the Ave Verum recalls for us the image of the Mother: "O Iesu, fili Mariae." The Virgin is remembered twice in this short hymn: at the beginning, and at the end. The other exclamations that end the hymn: "O Iesu dulcis, o Iesu pie, all bring to mind the closing words of the Salve Regina: "O clemens, o pia, o dulcis virgo Maria": o clement, o loving, o sweet Virgin Mary.

It is not merely in answer to a devotional need, but also theological, that there is this insistence on the link between Mary and the Eucharist. Christ's birth from Mary, which used to be the principal argument against the Docetists who denied the reality of Christ's body, bears witness now to the truth and the reality of the body of Christ present in the Eucharist.

John Paul II ends his apostolic letter "Mane Nobiscum Domine," referring to the words of this very hymn: "The bread that we receive is the spotless flesh of her Son: 'Ave verum corpus natum de Maria Virgine.' In this year of grace, sustained by Mary, may the Church discover new enthusiasm for her mission and come to acknowledge ever more fully that the Eucharist is the source and the summit of her entire life" ("Mane Nobiscum Domine," 31).

The clearest sign of the unity between the Eucharist and the mystery of the cross, between the year of the Eucharist and Good Friday, is that we can now use the words of the Ave Verum, without changing a syllable, to greet Christ who, in a short while, will be raised on the cross in the sight of us all. And so, humbly I invite all here who know the hymn's Latin text to join with me in proclaiming, with deep gratitude and in the name of all human beings redeemed by Christ:

Ave verum corpus natum de Maria Virgine
Vere passum, immolatum in cruce pro homine
Cuius latus perforatum fluxit aqua et sanguine
Esto nobis praegustatum mortis in examine
O Iesu dulcis, o Iesu pie, o Iesu fili Mariae.

The Shroud of Turin

For those how enjoyed Fr. O'Brien's talk and would like to learn more, as well as for those who were interested but unable to attend, you can visit the shourd online at www.shroud.com .

Cardinal Ratzinger's Meditations for Way of the Cross

At Rome's Colosseum on For Good Friday

VATICAN CITY, MARCH 24, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Here is a Vatican translation of the meditations and prayers that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger prepared for the Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum this Good Friday.

* * *

Meditations and Prayers
By Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger

Presentation

The leitmotiv of the present Way of the Cross appears immediately, in the opening prayer, and again at the Fourteenth Station. It is found in the words spoken by Jesus on Palm Sunday, after entering Jerusalem, in reply to the question of some Greeks who sought to see him: "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).

In this saying, the Lord compares the course of his whole earthly existence to that of a grain of wheat, which only by dying can produce fruit. He interprets his earthly life, his death and resurrection from the standpoint of the Most Holy Eucharist, which recapitulates his entire mystery. He had experienced his death as an act of self-oblation, an act of love, and his body was then transfigured in the new life of the Resurrection. He, the Incarnate Word, now becomes our food, food which leads to true life, life eternal. The Eternal Word -- the power which creates life -- comes down from heaven as the true manna, the bread bestowed upon man in faith and in sacrament. The Way of the Cross is thus a path leading to the heart of the Eucharistic mystery: popular piety and sacramental piety of the Church blend together and become one. The prayer of the Way of the Cross is a path leading to a deep spiritual communion with Jesus; lacking this, our sacramental communion would remain empty. The Way of the Cross is thus a "mystagogical" way.

This vision contrasts with a purely sentimental approach to the Way of the Cross. In the Eighth Station our Lord speaks of this danger to the women of Jerusalem who weep for him. Mere sentiment is never enough; the Way of the Cross ought to be a school of faith, the faith which by its very nature "works through love" (Galatians 5:6). This is not to say that sentiment does not have its proper place. The Fathers considered heartlessness to be the primary vice of the pagans, and they appealed to the vision of Ezekiel, who announced to the People of Israel God's promise to take away their hearts of stone and to give them hearts of flesh (cf. Ezekiel 11:19). In the Way of the Cross we see a God who shares in human sufferings, a God whose love does not remain aloof and distant, but comes into our midst, even enduring death on a cross (cf. Philippians 2:8).

The God who shares our sufferings, the God who became man in order to bear our cross, wants to transform our hearts of stone; he invites us to share in the sufferings of others. He wants to give us a "heart of flesh" which will not remain stony before the suffering of others, but can be touched and led to the love which heals and restores. Here, once again, we return to the words of Jesus about the grain of wheat, which he himself laid down as the fundamental axiom of the Christian life: "He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life" (John 12:25; cf. Matthew 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24 and 17:33: "Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it").

We also see more clearly the meaning of the words which, in the Synoptic Gospels, precede this summation of Christ's message: "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Matthew 16:24). Jesus himself interpreted for us the meaning of the "Way of the Cross"; he taught us how to pray it and follow it: the Way of the Cross is the path of losing ourselves, the path of true love. On this path he has gone before us, on it he teaches us how to pray the Way of the Cross. Once again we come back to the grain of wheat, to the Most Holy Eucharist, in which the fruits of Christ's death and Resurrection are continually made present in our midst. In the Eucharist Jesus walks at our side, as he did with the disciples of Emmaus, making himself ever anew a part of our history.

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Friday's Readings

The Good Friday Readings from the New American Bible presented by the USCCB.

Friday Schedule

Good Friday
March 25

Confessions
1:00 - 3:00 PM

Stations of the Cross
3:00 PM (English) and 6:15 PM (Spanish)

Presentation on the Holy Shroud of Turin
3:30 PM (Heller Auditorium)

Liturgy of the Passion and Death of Our Lord
and Holy Communion
7:30 PM

The Last Supper Discourse (and more)

John 13:12 - 17:26

12 When he had washed their feet, and taken his garments, and resumed his place, he said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.

16 Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him.

17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. 18 I am not speaking of you all; I know whom I have chosen; it is that the scripture may be fulfilled, `He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.'

19 I tell you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he.

20 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives any one whom I send receives me; and he who receives me receives him who sent me."

Jesus Foretells His Betrayal

21 When Jesus had thus spoken, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, "Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me."

22 The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke. 23 One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was lying close to the breast of Jesus; 24 so Simon Peter beckoned to him and said, "Tell us who it is of whom he speaks." 25 So lying thus, close to the breast of Jesus, he said to him, "Lord, who is it?" 26 Jesus answered, "It is he to whom I shall give this morsel when I have dipped it." So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. 27 Then after the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, "What you are going to do, do quickly." 28 Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. 29 Some thought that, because Judas had the money box, Jesus was telling him, "Buy what we need for the feast"; or, that he should give something to the poor. 30 So, after receiving the morsel, he immediately went out; and it was night.

The New Commandment

31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of man glorified, and in him God is glorified; 32 if God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once.

33 Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, `Where I am going you cannot come.'

34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

Jesus Foretells Peter's Denial

36 Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, where are you going?" Jesus answered, "Where I am going you cannot follow me now; but you shall follow afterward." 37 Peter said to him, "Lord, why cannot I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you." 38 Jesus answered, "Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the cock will not crow, till you have denied me three times.

Jesus the Way to the Father

14 1 "Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me.

2 In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. 4 And you know the way where I am going."

5 Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?" 6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; henceforth you know him and have seen him."

8 Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied."

9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, `Show us the Father'? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.

11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me; or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves. 12 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father. 13 Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; 14 if you ask anything in my name, I will do it.

The Promise of the Holy Spirit

15 "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

16 And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you. 18 "I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him."

22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?"

23 Jesus answered him, "If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 He who does not love me does not keep my words; and the word which you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me.

25 "These things I have spoken to you, while I am still with you. 26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

28 You heard me say to you, `I go away, and I will come to you.' If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I go to the Father; for the Father is greater than I. 29 And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place, you may believe.

30 I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me; 31 but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go hence.

Jesus the True Vine

15 1 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

3 You are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.

5 I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.6 If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.

8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.

10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.

11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

12 "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

17 This I command you, to love one another.

The World's Hatred

18 "If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.20 Remember the word that I said to you, `A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.

21 But all this they will do to you on my account, because they do not know him who sent me.22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 He who hates me hates my Father also.

24 If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 It is to fulfil the word that is written in their law, `They hated me without a cause.'

26 But when the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me; 27 and you also are witnesses, because you have been with me from the beginning.

16 1 "I have said all this to you to keep you from falling away.

2 They will put you out of the synagogues; indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. 3 And they will do this because they have not known the Father, nor me.

The Work of the Spirit

4 But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you of them. "I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you.

5 But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, `Where are you going?' 6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. 7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will convince the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more 11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

12 "I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Sorrow Will Turn into Joy

16 "A little while, and you will see me no more; again a little while, and you will see me."

17 Some of his disciples said to one another, "What is this that he says to us, `A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me'; and, `because I go to the Father'?" 18 They said, "What does he mean by `a little while'? We do not know what he means."

19 Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him; so he said to them, "Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, `A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me'?

20 Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.

21 When a woman is in travail she has sorrow, because her hour has come; but when she is delivered of the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a child is born into the world.

22 So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. 23 In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father, he will give it to you in my name.

24 Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

Peace for the Disciples

25 "I have said this to you in figures; the hour is coming when I shall no longer speak to you in figures but tell you plainly of the Father. 26 In that day you will ask in my name; and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; 27 for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from the Father. 28 I came from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and going to the Father."

29 His disciples said, "Ah, now you are speaking plainly, not in any figure! 30 Now we know that you know all things, and need none to question you; by this we believe that you came from God."

31 Jesus answered them, "Do you now believe?

32 The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, every man to his home, and will leave me alone; yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.

33 I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

Jesus Prays for His Disciples

17 1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify thy Son that the Son may glorify thee, 2 since thou hast given him power over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom thou hast given him.

3 And this is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.

4 I glorified thee on earth, having accomplished the work which thou gavest me to do; 5 and now, Father, glorify thou me in thy own presence with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made.

6 "I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world; thine they were, and thou gavest them to me, and they have kept thy word. 7 Now they know that everything that thou hast given me is from thee; 8 for I have given them the words which thou gavest me, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from thee; and they have believed that thou didst send me.

9 I am praying for them; I am not praying for the world but for those whom thou hast given me, for they are thine; 10 all mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them.

11 And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to thee. Holy Father, keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.

12 While I was with them, I kept them in thy name, which thou hast given me; I have guarded them, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled.

13 But now I am coming to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.

14 I have given them thy word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

15 I do not pray that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one.

16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

17 Sanctify them in the truth; thy word is truth.

18 As thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.

19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth.

20 "I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. 22 The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me.

24 Father, I desire that they also, whom thou hast given me, may be with me where I am, to behold my glory which thou hast given me in thy love for me before the foundation of the world.

25 O righteous Father, the world has not known thee, but I have known thee; and these know that thou hast sent me. 26 I made known to them thy name, and I will make it known, that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them."

The Catholic Edition of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1965, 1966 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Meditations on The Way of the Cross

OFFICE FOR THE LITURGICAL CELEBRATIONS
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF 

WAY OF THE CROSS AT THE COLOSSEUM

GOOD FRIDAY 2005

MEDITATIONS AND PRAYERS
BY CARDINAL JOSEPH RATZINGER

(click on the picture at each station to read the meditation for that station)

Thursday's Gospel Reading

John 13: 1 - 15

Jesus Washes the Disciples' Feet

1. Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

2. And during supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, 3. Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, 4. rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. 5. Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded.

6. He came to Simon Peter; and Peter said to him, "Lord, do you wash my feet?" 7. Jesus answered him, "What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward you will understand." 8. Peter said to him, "You shall never wash my feet." Jesus answered him, "If I do not wash you, you have no part in me." 9. Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" 10. Jesus said to him, "He who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but he is clean all over; and you are clean, but not every one of you." 11. For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, "You are not all clean."

12. When he had washed their feet, and taken his garments, and resumed his place, he said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? 13. You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. 14. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. 15. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.

The Catholic Edition of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1965, 1966 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.