GOOD FRIDAY: CONFESSION, THE LORD'S PASSION, WAY OF THE CROSS

VATICAN CITY, APR 2, 1999 (VIS) - As is by now customary on Good Friday, the Holy Father heard the confessions of some faithful in St. Peter's Basilica, starting at noon.

At 5 p.m. the Holy Father presided at the Lord's Passion in St. Peter's Basilica. During the Liturgy of the Word the Gospel of St. John was read, followed by a homily given by the Preacher of the Pontifical Household, Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M. Cap. The liturgy continued with the Prayers of the Faithful and Veneration of the Cross, and ended with communion.

At 9:15 p.m., the Pope led the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum. This year's meditations on the fourteen stations were written by the Italian poet, Mario Luzi.

At the end, John Paul II addressed the faithful present in off-the-cuff remarks: "'In manus tuas Domine, commendo spiritum meum', 'Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.' These words are Christ's last cry on the Cross. ... Today we wish to put them on the lips of all those people who have lived in the twentieth century, in this second millennium, because these words, this cry of Christ who suffers, his last words are not a conclusion, they are a beginning. This means an opening to the future."

In the prepared text, the Pope referred to the works of Isaiah in the Song of the Suffering Servant, which are, he said, "a true 'Gospel of the Cross.'" These words "resound in our hearts this evening at the end of the Way of the Cross, here at the Colosseum, an eloquent reminder of the suffering and martyrdom of many believers who paid with their blood for their faithfulness to the Gospel."

"Christ is 'despised and rejected' in those reviled and killed in the war in Kosovo and wherever the culture of death triumphs; the Messiah is 'crushed for our sins' in the victims of hatred and evil in every time and place. Peoples divided and struck by incomprehension and indifference seem at times to have 'gone astray like sheep'."

"Yet on the horizon of this scene of suffering and death, hope shines forth for humanity. ... In the night of sorrow and abandonment, the Cross is a torch which keeps alive the expectation of the new day of the resurrection."

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