The most important moment of Good Friday was the Stations of the Cross. In the Roman Colosseum. It was a great experience for him – recalls Archbishop Mokrzycki. – Because he was walking in the arena of martyrs who died for the faith. Sometimes he said that it was a place sanctified by the blood of the first Christians. The Pope chose the main theme and the one who was preparing the text of the reflections. They were poets, philosophers, laymen and clergy, from different parts of the world. At the end, he himself gave a short speech. Monsignor Paweł Ptasznik says that John Paul II sometimes did not prepare this speech at all. On Good Friday it was different, sometimes he said that he would not write anything – he recalls. – And during the Stations of the Cross he simply improvised. These were very short, personal speeches. This has been the case several times. Among other things, in 2002, when John Paul II asked: “May the Lord inspire us with deep silence and deep hope to wait until the moment when women find an empty tomb”. A year earlier, he had spoken of the challenge of believing in the Cross of the Son of God, of taking and accepting the humiliation and punishment “which was destined for slaves and which led Jesus to glory”. He said it from the heart – recalls Archbishop Mokrzycki. – He felt the mystery of the cross like no one else. And, he knew because he experienced it himself, that without the cross there is no full life. He said of Christ’s passion that it is very emotional for him. He spoke of an hour of love and glory. And, he wished us to be willing and able to draw from it. “May the mystery of the Stations of the Cross of the Son of God”- he said – “be an inexhaustible source of hope for all. May it comfort and strengthen us also when our hour comes. “The cross for him was a torch “in the night of suffering and straying”. A torch that “sustains the expectation of a new day of resurrection.”
With the consent of Archbishop Mieczysław Mokrzycki – “Place for everyone”
Znak Publishing House, Kraków 2013.
