VATICAN CITY, MARCH 26, 2004 (Zenit.org).- Meditations for the Stations of the Cross that John Paul II will lead this Good Friday at the Colosseum are written by a Belgian hermit.
The hermit is Father Andrè Louf, born in Leuven in 1929. He entered the Trappist Monastery of Our Lady of Mont-des-Cats in France in 1945.
An abbot at age 33, Father Louf lived through the years of the Second Vatican Council’s renewal of religious life. He sent a message to the Synod of Bishops, held in Rome in 1967, on «Contemplatives and the Crisis of Faith.»
«Not only did he become one of the protagonists of the conciliar ‘aggiornamento’ in the monastery and Trappist Order, but also one of the most authoritative spiritual figures in the Church in our days,» Vatican Radio stated when reporting the news.
«His texts, also translated into Italian, cover essential topics for the living of the faith in the contemporary world,» Vatican Radio added. «Together with commentaries on the Sunday Gospel in many volumes, we find texts on Christian existence, prayer, spiritual fatherhood, the inner life and the life of communion, and humility.»
Editor of editions of the writings of Flemish mystics, Father Louf was abbot of Mont-des-Cats for 35 years. He retired to a hermitage in the south of France, where he spends his time in prayer and study.
