A Ukrainian and a Russian woman carry the Cross together, but instead of the disputed meditation on the pain of “peoples” we read an invitation to pray in silence for peace. Cardinal Krajewski, sent by Francis to Ukraine, on his knees in front of a mass grave in Borodyanka: “There are no tears, no words”
VATICAN CITY – «Faced with death, silence is more eloquent than words. Let us therefore pause in prayerful silence. May each one pray in his own heart for the peace of the world “. Thirteenth station, Jesus dies. The intended meditation is not read, Francis listens to the invitation that replaces her and prays in silence with his head bowedfrom the Palatine Hill witnesses the Via Crucis while thousands of torches light up the Colosseum e Ukrainian Irina and her Russian friend Albina they hold the Cross together, their hands clinging to the vertical axis touch: they are left.
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A sign of peace that had been contested
by the Ukrainian ambassador to the Holy See, the published text considered “ambiguous” and “even offensive” even by the Greek-Catholic archbishop of Kiev. Ukrainian Catholic online media and national television have decided not to broadcast the Via Crucis of the Pope. The Holy See had not replied to the requests for modification of the text “written by the families”. Among other things, he wondered about the two peoples and “how difficult it will be to reconcile us”, he said: “Where are you Lord? We want our first life … Why did you abandon our peoples? ».
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Now it is the Pope who reads the final prayer before the blessing: «Lord, convert our rebellious hearts to your heart so that we learn to follow projects of peace; it leads opponents to shake hands, so that they may enjoy mutual forgiveness; disarms the raised hand of the brother against the brother, so that where there is hatred harmony may flourish ».
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In the afternoon, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, sent to Ukraine by the Pope “as a sign of his presence”, knelt at the edge of a mass grave in Borodyanka, northwest of Kiev, the cassock soiled with earth next to the shovels planted on the edge, a Way of the Cross through the devastation Bucha, Irpin and that town razed to the ground by Russian bombing. Along the streets there are still corpses wrapped in plastic sheets and he bent down to touch the bodies with his hand, a sign of the Cross, a blessing: “We still found many dead and a tomb of at least 80 people, buried without names »He says, his voice broken by emotion. «And the tears fail, the words fail. Luckily there is faith ». The pain of Good Friday: «I know, I know: there will be Resurrection Sunday. And perhaps He will explain everything to us with his love for him, and he will change everything also within us, all this bitterness and this suffering ».
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April 16, 2022 (change April 16, 2022 | 00:19)
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