FROM MEDITATIONS AND PRAYERS LED BY THE HOLY FATHER POPE BENEDICT XVI ON GOOD FRIDAY 2006
COMPOSED BY Archbishop ANGELO COMASTRI Vicar General of His Holiness for Vatican City President of the Fabric of Saint Peter's
We have lost our sense of sin!
Today a slick campaign of propaganda
Is spreading an inane apologia of evil,
A senseless cult of Satan,
A mindless desire for transgression,
A dishonest and frivolous freedom,
Exalting impulsiveness, immorality and selfishness
As if they were new heights of sophistication.a
Lord Jesus,
Open our eyes:
Let us see the filth around us
And recognize it for what it is,
So that a single tear of sorrow
Can restore us to purity of heart
And the breadth of true freedom.
Open our eyes, Lord, Jesus!
Surely God is deeply pained
By the attack on the family.
Today we seem to be witnessing
A kind of anti-Genesis,
A counter-plan, a diabolical pride
Aimed at eliminating the family.
There is a move to reinvent mankind,
To modify the very grammar of life
As planned and willed by God.
But, to take Gods place, without being God,
Is insane arrogance,
A risky and dangerous venture.
May Christs fall open our eyes
To see once more the beautiful face,
The true face, the holy face of the family.
The face of the family
which all of us need.
Lord Jesus,
Purity has everywhere fallen victim
To a calculated conspiracy of silence: an impure silence!
People have even come to believe
A complete lie:
That purity is somehow the enemy of love.
But the opposite is true, O Lord!
Purity is necessary
As a condition for love:
A love that is true, a love that is faithful.
In any event, Lord,
If we cannot be the master of ourselves?
How can we give ourselves to others?
Everything seems over,
The wicked seem to triumph,
And evil appears more powerful than good.
But faith enables us to see afar,
it makes us glimpse the break of a new day
On the other side of this day.
Faith promises us that the final word
belongs to God: to God alone!
