The Stations of the Cross on Good Friday, led by Pope Francis, will have the youngest protagonists this year. In fact, the children, girls and boys of the Roman parish of the Holy Martyrs of Uganda, the scout group Agesci “Foligno I” and the guests of two family houses in Rome, are the authors of the texts and drawings that comment on the 14 seasons. And they will once again be the ones who read the meditations and accompany the Pope during the rite in St. Peter’s Square.
In their simplicity and concreteness, the meditations written by children and young people for the Stations of the Cross this year presided over by Pope Francis have the power to deeply touch the heart, to move and make one think, to wish for a more just and happy world for all , to question, to convert.
The many crosses of the world’s children.
The suffering of children is often underestimated. In the introduction to the brochure, the children, addressing Jesus, underline it: “Dear Jesus, you know that we children too have crosses, which are neither lighter nor heavier than those of adults, but are true crosses, that we feel heavy even at night. And only You know it and take them seriously. Only you. ” The crosses are the fear of the dark, loneliness and abandonment, also due to the pandemic, the experience of one’s own limits, the ridicule of others, the feeling of being poorer than peers, the pain for fights in mom and dad’s family. But there are children in the world who also suffer because “they don’t have food, they don’t have an education, they are exploited and forced to go to war.” You, Jesus, are always close to us and never abandon us, the children conclude, “help us every day to carry our crosses as you have carried yours”.
The accusation of an innocent and the lack of courage
Station I: Pontius Pilate condemns Jesus to death. The thought turns to an episode that occurred in a first grade class: a boy, Mark, is accused of stealing a classmate’s snack. Someone knows that he is innocent, but does not intervene to defend him. The narrator is ashamed of this lack of courage; he acted like Pilate and now regrets having chosen the most comfortable path. “Sometimes we only hear the voice of those who do and want evil, while justice is an uphill road, with obstacles and difficulties, but we have Jesus by our side, ready to support and help us.”
Our actions can harm Jesus is loaded with the cross:
II station. The passage from the evangelist Luke describes Jesus being mocked and beaten by those who held him back. Among children, teasing towards one of the group members is not uncommon, to the point of bullying, as in the case of Martina, who has difficulty reading aloud in class. “Perhaps – we read – it was not our intention to make fun of her, however, how much pain we cause her with our laughter! (…) The persecution is not a distant memory of two thousand years ago: sometimes certain actions of ours they can judge, hurt and trample on a brother or sister. “
The experience of failure
In station III. Jesus falls for the first time, the Lord is accused of our sins, appears beaten and humiliated. The experience that accompanies this stage is that of a child who is always good at school and who, for once, receives a failure: “I thought it was nothing,” he says, “I felt the weight of an unexpected failure, I was alone. and no one consoled me. But that moment made me grow (…). Today I know that every day we falter and may fall, but Jesus is always there to hold our hand.
The love of mothers
Station IV: Jesus meets his Mother. The chosen reading is that of the wedding at Cana, with the relationship between the Son and his mother at the center. It is a sign for children to think of their own mother and the love that accompanies them at all times. Also specifically “in soccer training, in English class and in catechesis on Sunday mornings.” Meditation speaks of the little ones’ need for love and may help parents to be better. “If I have a problem, a question or just bad thoughts, she is always available to listen to me with her smile.”
A gesture of welcoming: seeing Jesus in the face of the other person
5th station: The Cyrenean helps Jesus to carry the cross. There are many opportunities to help someone, but the testimony described here is the gesture of care given to a foreigner of the same age. Having just arrived in the neighborhood, he watches the other children play soccer, but he doesn’t have the courage to introduce himself. A boy in the group saw him and was the first to approach him and invite him to join them. Walid has been one of my best friends since that day, “he says,” as well as our team’s goalkeeper. Only when we recognize a brother in a person “are we opening our hearts to Jesus”.
Sometimes it takes little to feel less alone
“Truly I tell you that everything you did to one of these smallest brothers of mine, you did to me”, the words of Jesus taken from the Gospel of Matthew introduce us to the sixth station: A woman wipes the face of Jesus. Even children, in their daily activities, go through difficult or sad times and need someone to comfort them. Like after losing an important soccer game in which they wanted to show all their skills. “While I was taking a shower I was sad and discouraged, but when I came out of the changing room I met my friend: he had been waiting for me with an orange soda in hand.” In his company, defeat “became a less bitter memory.”
Losing something thinking of those most in need
Jesus falls the second time: seventh station. The meditation recounts the experience of a fourth grader. The end-of-year play is being prepared and he wants the leading role at all costs. Instead, the teacher chose John, a rather isolated classmate. After the initial anger, the child understands and rejoices. In fact, since then Giovanni has been more integrated into the class. He comments: “My disappointment has served to help someone else, the teacher’s choice has given someone who really needed it an opportunity.”
Help the brother who made a mistake
Eighth station: Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem. In the Gospel of Luke we read that when Jesus saw them he told them: “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not cry for me, but cry for yourselves and for your children. This is the starting point to say that” To correct a brother is an act difficult but necessary. “This was experienced by two brothers who had lied to their mother by assuring her that they had done their homework that afternoon, when in fact they had been playing all the time. The next day, one of them said that he did not feel well and did not He went to school. The other one goes to school, but when he gets home he talks to his brother: “We were wrong to lie to Mom and he was wrong to pretend his stomach hurt. I suggested that he do his homework right away so I can help him catch up. Once finished, we spent the rest of the afternoon playing. ”
Loneliness caused by the pandemic
Jesus falls the third time, we are in the ninth station. The Gospel passage is that of the grain of wheat that dies and thus produces much fruit. The Covid-19 pandemic enters the scene with all its consequences even in the smallest. The predominant feeling is loneliness: they no longer go to visit their grandparents, school is closed, their friends and colleagues are missing. “The sadness of loneliness sometimes becomes unbearable,” confesses a young woman, “we feel ‘abandoned’ by everyone, unable to continue smiling. Like Jesus, we find ourselves collapsing on the ground.
The joy that giving gives
10th station: Jesus is stripped of his clothes. Here too it is a girl who narrates: she has a collection of dolls in her room that she treasures. One day he learned that the parish was collecting toys for refugee children from Kosovo. Choose among the dolls some of the oldest to which she has less affection and prepare a box. Then he says: “At night, however, I had the feeling that I had not done enough. Before going to sleep the box was full of dolls and the shelves were empty.” Getting rid of the superfluous, he concludes, lightens the soul and giving makes happy.
A Christmas lived at the service of poor
“On Christmas day with the scouts we went to Rome, to the Missionary Sisters of Charity, to distribute lunch to those in need, giving up the holiday with the family.” It is not a small sacrifice that is described in the meditation on the 11th station: Jesus nailed to the cross. But one of the boys confided: “On the way home I thought of the faces of the people I had served, their smiles and their stories … The idea of having brought those people a moment of serenity had made that Christmas was unforgettable. ” Serving others with love “is the teaching that Jesus gives us on the cross.”
Jesus forgives the sinner who turns
Twelfth station: Jesus dies on the cross. The example of Jesus forgiving the evil received makes children reflect on the evil present in the world, for example, on the mafias that even kill children. How is it possible to forgive similar situations? They write: “Jesus, by dying on the cross, gave salvation to all. He did not come to call the just, but sinners who have the humility and the courage to convert.”
They took my grandfather and I never saw him again
Everything has been fulfilled, 13th station: The body of Jesus is taken down from the cross. During this time, many children suffered the sudden disappearance of their grandparents. One of them recounted: “Some men who looked like astronauts got out of the ambulance, covered in suits, gloves, masks and visors, and took my grandfather, who had been struggling to breathe for several days. It was the last time I saw him.” The suffering also comes from the impossibility of being close to his grandfather and encouraging him: “I prayed for him every day, to be able to accompany him on his last earthly journey.”
Thank you Jesus because you taught me to love
Fourteenth station, the last: the body of Jesus is placed in the tomb. The proposed meditation is Sara’s thanksgiving, age twelve, to Jesus. I want to thank you, he writes, because “you have taught me to overcome all suffering by entrusting myself to you; to love others as my brothers; to fall and rise again (…). Today, thanks to your gesture of love infinite, I know that death is not the end of everything.
If you don’t become like children …
In the last prayer of the Via Crucis, the adults speak again. Jesus pointed to children as an example when he described the characteristics necessary to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The first request is, therefore, the help to be able “to be like them, small, in need of everything, open to life.” Next, all the children of the world are entrusted to the Lord, so that they “grow in age, wisdom and grace” and, finally, pray for their parents and educators, “so that they always feel united to You in the delivery of the life and love “.
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