4:46 AM
Jo-Anne Rowney
Last night the mood of WYD shifted. Last night wasn't about joy and celebration, it was about suffering, the pain and hurt in the world.
14 vivid stations of the cross lined the route between Plaza de Cibeles and Colon, pilgrims arrived hours before hand waiting in the heat of the sun, scorched and tired in dedication to seeing the cross pass by en route.
Between each Station the bearers of the cross changed over, representing different people from countries where there is particular suffering in the community.
Groups carrying included Iraqis, immigrants, unemployed, recovering drug addicts and people from Rwanda and Burundi.
Each station involved a stop for a meditation. These included prayers for the defence of human life, for peace in the Holy Land and areas where there is conflict, for the victims of natural disasters, for the unemployed, for those who suffer racial discrimination or religious persecution, for those with alcohol or drug addictions, and for the victims of sexual abuse.
Pope Benedict XVI also focused his address on suffering. At the end of the liturgy he said that everyone knows or has experience suffering. He urged youth to focus on Christ's suffering - out of love for us, and to imitate this by committing themselves to help the suffering of others.
The Pope said that meditating on Christ’s Passion and death should make Christians ask: “What can we do for him?”
He added: “Christ’s Passion urges us to take upon our own shoulders the sufferings of the world, in the certainty that God is not distant or far removed from man and his troubles." He reminded us that Christ became human himself, enduring suffering and death.
The Pope prayed that this love would “increase your joy and encourage you to go in search of those less fortunate. You are open to the idea of sharing your lives with others, so be sure not to pass by on the other side” of the road “in the face of human suffering, for it is here that God expects you to give of your very best: your capacity for love and compassion.”
He continued: “The different forms of suffering that have unfolded before our eyes in the course of this Way of the Cross are the Lord’s ways of summoning us to spend our lives, following in his footsteps and becoming signs of his consolation and salvation."
The Pope said that the harsh wood of the Cross is a sign of the self-giving love that will give eternal life to all who ask.
“The Cross was not a sign of failure, but an expression of self-giving love,” the pope said. The cross “teaches us to love what God loves and in the way that he loves. This is the good news that gives hope to the world,” he said.
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