Vatican City (CNS) ─ For the first time in his 11-year pontificate, Pope Francis has chosen to write his own meditation for the Good Friday Adoration of the Cross at the Colosseum in Rome, the Vatican Press Directorate has announced.
For the March 29th service, Pope Francis has chosen the theme “Praying with Jesus on the Stations of the Cross,” Press Director Matteo Bruni told reporters on March 26th.
St. John Paul II began the tradition in 1985 of commissioning the writing of meditations from groups of people, including cardinals and other church figures, prominent writers, or young people and journalists. But he himself wrote a memoir for the Colosseum ceremony in Jubilee 2000.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote his 2005 Good Friday meditation less than a month before he was elected Pope Benedict XVI. However, during his pontificate, he commissioned a different person to draft it each year.
The 2023 meditation focused on the theme “A Voice of Peace in a World at War.” Several bishoprics of the Holy See have developed prayers and meditations based on comments made by people suffering from a lack of peace in a meeting with Pope Francis.
Pope Francis has called on Catholics to observe 2024 as a year of prayer in preparation for the Jubilee Year in 2025.
Bruni told reporters that the choice of “prayer with Jesus” as the theme for “The Way of the Cross” meant it would be “an act of meditation and spirituality centered on Jesus.” he said.
Vatican News focuses on current events in this meditation, compared to many previous editions in which migrants, refugees, victims of human trafficking, and people from countries at war have contributed to or inspired the reflections. It was reported that there would be fewer direct references to the issue.
Bruni told reporters that as of March 26, Pope Francis still plans to attend services. However, the weather and the pope’s health will be the deciding factors. Pope Francis, who left the hospital just five days before Good Friday in 2023, did not go to the Colosseum.
