Prayer of Pope Francis on Good Friday
O Christ, abandoned and betrayed even by your own, and sold for next to nothing. O Christ, judged by sinners, handed over by the leaders. O Christ, tortured in the flesh, crowned with thorns and clothed in purple. O Christ, slapped and beaten, and nailed in excruciating pain to the Cross. O Christ, pierced by the lance that opened your heart. O Christ, dead and buried, you who are the God of life and existence. O Christ, our only Savior, we return to you this year with eyes lowered in shame, and with hearts filled with hope: Shame for all the images of devastation, destruction and wreckage that have become a normal part of our lives; Shame for the innocent blood that is shed: of women, children, migrants and those who are persecuted because of the color of their skin or their ethnicity and social standing, or because of their faith in You; Shame for the many times that, like Judas and Peter, we have sold you and betrayed you and left you alone to die for our sins, fleeing like cowards from our responsibilities; Shame for our silence before injustices; for our hands that have been lazy in giving, and greedy in grabbing and conquering; for the shrill voices we use to defend our own interests and the timid ones we use to speak out for others; for our feet that are quick to follow the path of evil and paralyzed in following the path of good; Shame for all the times that we bishops, priests, and consecrated men and women have scandalized and wounded your body, the Church; for having forgotten our first love, our initial enthusiasm and total availability, allowing our hearts and our consecration to rust. So much shame Lord, but our hearts are also longing with trustful hope, knowing that you will not treat us according to our merits but solely according to the abundance of Your mercy; that our betrayals do not diminish the immensity of your love; that your maternal and paternal heart does not forget us because of the hardness of our own; The certain hope that our names are written in your heart and that we are reflected in the pupils of your eyes; The hope that your Cross will transform our hardened hearts into hearts of flesh that are able to dream, to forgive and to love; that it will transform this dark night of your cross into the brilliant dawn of your Resurrection; The hope that your faithfulness is not based on our own; The hope that the ranks of men and women who are faithful to your Cross will continue to live in fidelity like leaven that gives flavor, and like light that reveals new horizons in the body of our wounded humanity; The hope that your Church will seek to be the voice that cries out in the wilderness for humanity, preparing the way for your triumphant return, when you will come to judge the living and the dead; The hope that good will be victorious despite its apparent defeat! Oh Lord Jesus, Son of God, innocent victim of our ransom, before your royal banner, before the mystery of your death and glory, before your scaffold, we kneel in shame and, with hope, and we ask that you bathe us in the blood and water that flowed from your lacerated heart; to forgive our sins and our guilt; We ask you to remember our brethren who are destroyed by violence, indifference and war; We ask you to break the chains that keep us imprisoned in our selfishness, in our willful blindness, and in the vanity of our worldly calculations. Oh Christ, we ask you to teach us never to be ashamed of your Cross, not to exploit it but to honor and adore it, for by it You have shown us the monstrosity of our sins, the greatness of your love, the injustice of our judgments, and the power of your mercy. Amen. (Good Friday Prayer by Pope Francis 2017)
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Today’s Blessing Prayer: Holy Saturday greetings and blessings to all! I hope you had a blessed and holy Good Friday. I hope you got to spend a little time in prayer. The liturgy of Good Friday is so simple it is one of my favorite days to just sit in a church or a chapel and be. I had the great privilege of preaching at the service yesterday and I have to say that being a Passionist there is no greater gift than to proclaim the Good Word on Good Friday!
Holy Saturday is a time of waiting. My prayer of blessing today is that your Holy Saturday may be rich in the warmth of the sun, that it may be a day when you can hope for all the goodness that Easter is. And may you be blessed with the new life of joy that will enliven the journey of your life in new and faith filled ways! Enjoy your Holy Saturday everyone and please know you are in my prayers throughout this day and always! Peace in Christ's Passion...Fr. Paul Today’s Prayer: Loving God as we wait today make ready our hearts that they may be inflamed with your presence. Enkindle in them the fire of your love. Grace our souls with the song of your hope, a song, and a tune that will never stop. Strengthen us with patience, strengthen us with energy, gift us with wisdom and enliven us with joy. We make this prayer as your faith filled people embraced by your love and dancing to the rhythm of the song of hope! Amen!
Last year at the close of this Good Friday night's annual Way of the Cross at the Colosseum the Pope kept his custom of offering a self-written prayer.
Please take a moment to pray with and for Pope Francis... O Cross of Christ, symbol of divine love and of human injustice, icon of the supreme sacrifice for love and of boundless selfishness even unto madness, instrument of death and the way of resurrection, sign of obedience and emblem of betrayal, the gallows of persecution and the banner of victory. O Cross of Christ, today too we see you raised up in our sisters and brothers killed, burned alive, throats slit and decapitated by barbarous blades amid cowardly silence. O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in the faces of children, of women and people, worn out and fearful, who flee from war and violence and who often only find death and many Pilates who wash their hands. O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in those filled with knowledge and not with the spirit, scholars of death and not of life, who instead of teaching mercy and life, threaten with punishment and death, and who condemn the just. O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in unfaithful ministers who, instead of stripping themselves of their own vain ambitions, divest even the innocent of their dignity. O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in the hardened hearts of those who easily judge others, with hearts ready to condemn even to the point of stoning, without ever recognizing their own sins and faults. O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in expressions of fundamentalism and in terrorist acts committed by followers of some religions which profane the name of God and which use the holy name to justify their unprecedented violence. O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in those who wish to remove you from public places and exclude you from public life, in the name of a pagan laicism ["secularism"] or that equality you yourself taught us. O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in the powerful and in arms dealers who feed the cauldron of war with the innocent blood of our brothers and sisters. O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in traitors who, for thirty pieces of silver, would consign anyone to death. O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in thieves and corrupt officials who, instead of safeguarding the common good and morals, sell themselves in the despicable market-place of immorality. O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in the foolish who build warehouses to store up treasures that perish, leaving Lazarus to die of hunger at their doorsteps. O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in the destroyers of our “common home”, who by their selfishness ruin the future of coming generations. O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in the elderly who have been abandoned by their families, in the disabled and in children starving and cast-off by our egotistical and hypocritical society. O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas which have become insatiable cemeteries, reflections of our indifferent and anesthetized conscience. O Cross of Christ, image of love without end and way of the Resurrection, today too we see you in noble and upright persons who do good without seeking praise or admiration from others. O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in ministers who are faithful and humble, who illuminate the darkness of our lives like candles that burn freely in order to brighten the lives of the least among us. O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in the faces of consecrated women and men – good Samaritans – who have left everything to bind up, in evangelical silence, the wounds of poverty and injustice. O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in the merciful who have found in mercy the greatest expression of justice and faith. O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in simple men and women who live their faith joyfully day in and day out, in filial observance of your commandments. O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in the contrite, who in the depths of the misery of their sins, are able to cry out: Lord, remember me in your kingdom! O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in the blessed and the saints who know how to cross the dark night of faith without ever losing trust in you and without claiming to understand your mysterious silence. O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in families that live their vocation of married life in fidelity and fruitfulness. O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in volunteers who generously assist those in need and the downtrodden. O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in those persecuted for their faith who, amid their suffering, continue to offer an authentic witness to Jesus and the Gospel. O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in those who dream, those with the heart of a child, who work to make the world a better place, ever more human and just. In you, Holy Cross, we see God who loves even to the end, and we see the hatred of those who want to dominate, that hatred which blinds the minds and hearts of those who prefer darkness to light. O Cross of Christ, Arc of Noah that saved humanity from the flood of sin, save us from evil and from the Evil One. O Throne of David and seal of the divine and eternal Covenant, awaken us from the seduction of vanity! O cry of love, inspire in us a desire for God, for goodness and for light. O Cross of Christ, teach us that the rising of the sun is more powerful than the darkness of night. O Cross of Christ, teach us that the apparent victory of evil vanishes before the empty tomb and before the certainty of the Resurrection and the love of God which nothing can defeat, obscure or weaken. Amen! (Prayer Written by Pope Francis – Good Friday March 25, 2016) Today’s Blessing Prayer: Good Friday greetings and blessings to all!
My prayer of blessing today is simply that somehow today you are touch by the magnanimous love of God. That you are blessed with the grace to believe in God’s love. A love that is ground in our friendship with Jesus because there is no greater love than to lay down your life for your friends, Jesus laid down his life today for us, his friends. I send my prayers and I ask God's blessings upon all of you and your loved ones. May the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ be always in our hearts! Peace in Christ's Passion today and always...Fr. Paul Today’s Prayers: Today I offer you two simple little prayers to guide you through this day. The first comes from our Passionist tradition it is a simple prayer we utter each day - "May the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ be always in our hearts!"
The second prayer was write by the great Jesuit theologian Fr. Karl Rahner, S.J. - "The Cross of My Lord, Be my Standard, Be my Comfort, Be the Answer to all dark questions, The Light of all nights, The Sign that You have chosen us, The mysterious and sure Sign that we are Yours for eternity. Amen." Today’s Blessing Prayer: Holy Thursday greetings and blessings to everyone! I hope you will be able to get to at least some of the services over the next three days if not for the whole service perhaps just for a short visit so that you might stay in touch with the holiness, blessing and grace of these days. Please make a visit or spend some time in prayer. Take a little break for the busyness of life to be touched by God’s grace!
My prayer of blessing for all of you today is that the infinite tenderness of God might touch your life and that you will be blessed over these most holy days with the mercy and joy of the Cross, which springs from the knowledge that we possess an imperishable treasure in perishable earthen vessels. Holy Thursday blessings to all! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul Today’s Prayer: O God, in the fullness of time you revealed your love in Jesus. On this remembrance of the eve of his death, we recall how as a sign of your covenant, Jesus washed the feet of his friends and gave himself as Eucharist.
We pray today that you will give us life through the Eucharist and the gift of your joy to follow Christ in humble service. So that one day we may pass over from this world to your kingdom and enjoy the blessing of eternal joy. Amen! Today’s Blessing Prayer: Greetings and blessings to all on this Spy Wednesday. I hope your day has started well.
I pray today, that your day will be filled with God’s many blessings and that you will take some time to enter into the holiness of these next few days. If not, if you are too busy, please know that as I journey through them you will be held in my prayers. My prayer of blessing today is that God will bless you with the trust, the faith, the hope, the love, the mercy and the joy to never give up on your relationship with God. That you will always know even in the midst of your struggles and the struggles of the world that God is with you and that God will never leave you to face life alone! Have a blessed day. Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul Today’s Prayer: At the name of Jesus every knee must bend in heaven, on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father! Loving God, help us to always be faithful and may the gods of the world not temp us into betraying our friendship with you. Grace us with the strength to always trust in your presence especially when we struggle. Help us to keep hope and joy alive through your word and sacrament! Amen!
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