presided by the Pope 
PRESENTATION
The "Way of the Cross of the Holy Father
the evening of Holy Venerdм the faithful of Rome and many pilgrims from all over the world gather with the Holy Father to celebrate the devotion of the Via Crucis. With the ecclesial community of Rome are in communion, through radio and television, millions of men and women of every country.
The appointment of the "Way of the Cross with Pope" и a moment meaningful Holy Week in Rome: the moment of genuine and heartfelt prayer, which the Word of God is essential to the plot, it marks the passing of the "stations", moments of pause to contemplate the agonizing step of the way and saving Gesщ to the place where he offered the sacrifice of their lives. Each
Via Crucis is thematically the way from Jerusalem Gesщ traveled to reach the summit of Mount Calvary. The Viae Cross are numerous, typical of pietа Catholic West. Are erected in the churches and monastic cloisters, arcades are outdoors in Hills, in which characteristic capitals mark the path that leads to shrines and other places of pilgrimage, and almost sanctify the landscape with their crosses and their images evoking the Passion of Our Lord.
The Way of the Cross of the Pope "goes an old Roman road which, starting from the Colosseum, arrives at the foot of the Palatine. The solemn and majestic scenery, rich in history, memories of life and death, bathed by the moonlight, tall and serene in the first full moon of spring, commemorated underlines the gravity of the Hour: The time when the Lamb load of the sins of the world, mild salt and full of love for the place where slain, verserа the blood of the new and everlasting covenant.
An ecumenical event
The Word of God is the plot summary of the Via Crucis. But the Word и heart and meditated upon and revived by human lips.
in recent years in the "Way of the Cross of the Pope" meditations on the Word has now been dictated by the Holy Father, now drawn from the pages of the Church Fathers, now being handled by writers in the laity, to theologians, to experts contemplative.
In 1994 they were dictated by His Holiness Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople and Ecumenical Patriarch: in those meditations avvertм the poetic wisdom of the Christian, the high spiritualitа of the Byzantine Church. At that Venerdм Santo, in the ancient streets of Rome, Pope John Paul II and Bartholomew I, the Church of Peter and Andrew Church, found themselves united in meditation the passion of their one Lord and Savior.
In 1995, the meditations of the Stations of the Cross have been entrusted to a woman, Sister Minke de Vries, a nun of the Protestant community of Grandchamp, Switzerland, France. Sister Minke had no authority to represent by the churches of the Reformation. Nevertheless, the invitation is addressed to you, such as invitation to Bartholomew I, a gesture of great ecumenical significance: the ecclesial community of Rome, presided over by his bishop, John Paul II, meditates on the Lord's Passion with lyrics that flowed from the heart a daughter of the Reformation.
Ciт и possible for the great love of the Reformation to the mystery of the Cross, because it dominates the love of Christ crucified la pietа della Chiesa evangelica, i suoi corali, le sue espressioni liturgiche. И possibile perchй la comunitа di Grandchamp и tesa alla riscoperta di alcuni grandi valori della tradizione cristiana, tra cui la vita monastica; perchй и animata dalla passione per l'unitа della Chiesa, in attesa orante che agli occhi del mondo si mostri la bellezza della tunica inconsutile del suo Signore e del suo Sposo.
Le meditazioni di suor Minke sono espressione di attenzione amorosa a Gesщ, contemplazione del suo cuore "gonfio di sofferenza", ascolto delle sue parole, dei suoi silenzi, del suo forte grido di morente: "grido di desolazione estrema, angoscia profonda dell'uomo in preda ai tormenti della morte, abbandonato in itself ", they are digging in the soul of Gesщ, in its infinite ability to give himself unreservedly, to take upon Sй the" evils of which our world suffers violence, scorn, hatred and contempt " ; are participatory review in the light of Christ's Passion, the unit of labor in our time, its fratricidal wars, the implacable hatred, destruction of nature and, above all, the offense continued to the dignity of man created in the image of God, are observing the delicate feelings of the "Mother of Sorrows" at the hour of the passion of the Son, it shall "lived all the suffering, but beyond, at the Cross," his heart overflowed with tenderness и from consolazione ineffabile di un amore che le rivela un'altra maternitа: 'Madre, ecco tuo figlio '"; sono, infine, proclamazione della piщ sicura speranza: la Madre sa che "il chicco di grano deposto nella terra" sta "per risorgere alla vita nuova ed eterna".
