#PopeFrancis "O Lord Jesus, the Son of God, innocent victim of our redemption...forgive our sins and our guilt" #ViaCrucis FULL TEXT + Video

A crowd of about 20,000 gathered in the evening of April 14, 2017, for the traditional Via Crucis(Way of the Cross) with Pope Francis near the Colosseum in Rome.  The texts of this year’s meditations for the Stations of the Cross were prepared by Anne-Marie Pelletier.  The entire 35 page booklet in Italian can be found here: 

http://ift.tt/2oXyx3V

Below is a working translation of Pope Francis’ prayer at the end of the Via Crucis:

O Christ, left alone and even betrayed and sold out by your own people.
O Christ, judged by sinners, delivered by leaders.
O Christ, in anguished flesh, crowned with thorns and clothed in purple. O Christ, scourged and nailed horribly.
O Christ, pierced by the lance that pierced Your heart.
O Christ, dead and buried, You Who are the God of life and existence.
O Christ, our only Savior, we come back to you again this year with eyes downcast with shame and with a heart full of hope:

Of shame, for all the images of devastation, destruction and shipwreck that have become common in our lives;

Shame, for the innocent blood that day shed of women, children, immigrants and people persecuted for the color of their skin or because of their ethnic and social belonging and for their faith in you;

Shame for the times we too, like Judas and Peter, sold, betrayed and left you alone to die for our sins, cowards running away from our responsibilities;

Shame for our silence before injustice; by our hand in laziness and greed; for our loud voice in defending our interests and our shy one, in speaking for another’s; for our quick feet, on the path of evil and our paralysis;

Shame for all the times that we Bishops, priests, consecrated men and women we have scandalized and hurt Your Body, the Church; and we have forgotten our first love, our first enthusiasm and our total availability, leaving our hearts and our consecration to rust.

The sure hope that our names are etched in Your heart and that we are placed in the apple of Your eye;
Hope that your Cross turns our hearts hardened in heart of flesh able to dream, to forgive and to love; [and] transforms this dark night of the Cross in the meteoric rise of your Resurrection;

Hope that Your truth is not based on our own;

\The hope that the group of men and women faithful to your Cross continues and will continue, to remain faithful like the flavor of yeast and as the light that opens up new horizons in the body of our wounded humanity;

\Hope that your church will try to be the voice crying in the desert of humanity to prepare the way for Your triumphant return, when you come to judge the living and the dead;
The hope that good will win in spite of its apparent defeat!

O Lord Jesus, the Son of God, innocent victim of our redemption, before thy royal banner, your mystery of death and glory, before your scaffold, we kneel, ashamed and hopeful, and ask that You wash the blood with the water which flowed from your Heart pierced; to forgive our sins and our guilt;

We ask you to remember our brothers cut off by violence, indifference and war;

We ask you to break the chains that hold us prisoners in our selfishness, in our voluntary blindness and in the futility of our worldly calculations.

O Christ, we ask you to teach us to never be ashamed of Your Cross, not to exploit it, but to honor and worship [it], because with it, You have shown us the monstrosity of our sins, the greatness of Your Love, injustice of our judgments and the power of Your Love. Amen
[Pope Francis words ZENIT Working Translation by Deborah Castellano Lubov]

from Catholic News World http://ift.tt/2pkuHBS