WAY OF THE CROSS AT THE COLOSSEUM

PRAYER OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS

Palatine Hill
Good Friday, 19 April 2019

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Lord Jesus, help us to see in your Cross all the crosses of the world:

the cross of people hungry for bread and for love;

the cross of people alone and abandoned even by their children and kin;

the cross of people thirsty for justice and for peace;

the cross of people who lack the comfort of faith;

the cross of the elderly who struggle under the weight of years and of loneliness;

the cross of migrants who find doors closed in fear and hearts armoured by political calculations;

the cross of little ones, wounded in their innocence and their purity;

the cross of humanity that wanders in the darkness of uncertainty and in the obscurity of temporary culture;

the cross of families split by betrayal, by the seductions of the evil one or by homicidal levity and selfishness;

the cross of consecrated people who tirelessly seek to bring your light into the world and feel rejected, derided and humiliated;

the cross of consecrated people who, along the way, have forgotten their first love;

the cross of your children who, while believing in you and seeking to live according to your word, find themselves marginalized and rejected even by their families and their peers;

the cross of our weaknesses, of our hypocrisy, of our betrayals, of our sins and of our many broken promises;

the cross of your Church that, faithful to your Gospel, struggles to spread your love even among the baptized themselves;

the cross of the Church, your Bride, that feels constantly assailed from within and without;

the cross of our common home that is gravely withering before our selfish eyes, blinded by greed and by power.

Lord Jesus, revive in us the hope of resurrection and of your definitive victory over all evil and all death. Amen!