A few months before the Synod on Young People set to take place in October 2018, for the traditional Way of the Cross at Rome’s Colosseum, which will take place on Good Friday, March 30, 2018, Pope Francis asked young people to prepare the meditations of the 14 stations. Fifteen young people will be exploring themes, such as the meaning of justice, the scandal of the Cross, dialogue and confrontation.
The group of young people, said the Director of the Press Office of the Holy See, Greg Burke, in a statement published on March 8, 2018, is coordinated by Andrea Monda, professor of religion and writer.
Fifteen high school and university students have prepared these texts by dividing the Stations according to «what came from their heart» to read the Way of the Cross, Andrea Monda told Vatican News: «I asked them to to be what they are, not to think that they should write theological texts, not to be conditioned by the fact that it would be read to the world, before the Pope.»
Thus, various themes and sensibilities emerged: «the feeling of the injustice of the condemnation of Jesus, the scandal and the incomprehensible character of this mystery»; «The paradox of the Cross, which only in a dimension of faith is understood as an instrument of salvation and not an absurdity that crushes the sense of justice and humanity.»
The young people also raised points of reflection, notes the professor: the reading of the falls and the bearings of Jesus as a pre-announcement of the Resurrection, also sign of the strength of Jesus who does not give the last word to the death; the reality of the migrants seen in the stripping of Jesus because they too are «stripped of everything, but they do not lose their dignity»; in the mystery of the death of Jesus, the observation that death is «something that we do not want to see, that we discard.»
The message that emerges from the young people’s meditations is the desire to be accompanied on the path of life, without being judged or taken pity, stresses Andrea Monda: «Accompanied by Christ met on the Way of the Cross; who stumbles and suffers, and who, abandoned, left alone, can well understand the life of the adolescent and the young person who has to face the world often without reference points. «
The Way of the Cross, which takes place in the evening, will leave the Coliseum at 9:15 pm. It takes place from inside the Colosseum to the the Palatine Hill.
