http://www.totus2us.com/podcasts/stations-of-the-cross/ en-us ℗ & © 2012 Totus2us.com Way of the Cross - Meditations and prayers by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) at the Colosseum, Rome, Good Friday 2005. Totus2us Way of the Cross - Meditations and prayers by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) at the Colosseum, Rome, Good Friday 2005 (8 days before the death of Pope John Paul II). Music: Triduum - Contemporary Sacred Music by David Bevan and Neil Wright - sung by the Holy Redeemer Choir, London. Listen to and read much more on Totus2us.com which is dedicated to Our Lady. The motto of Blessed John Paul II was to Mary: Totus Tuus - All Yours. Way of the Cross - Meditations and prayers by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) at the Colosseum, Rome, Good Friday 2005 (8 days before the death of Pope John Paul II). Music: Triduum - Contemporary Sacred Music by David Bevan and Neil Wright - sung by the Holy Redeemer Choir, London. Listen to and read much more on Totus2us.com which is dedicated to Our Lady. The motto of Blessed John Paul II was to Mary: Totus Tuus - All Yours. www.Totus2us.com totus2us.com@googlemail.com no Totus2us.com 4th station: Jesus meets his Mother - BXVI Meditation: "On the Way of the Cross of Jesus, there is also Mary, his Mother. During his public life she had had to step aside, to make space for the birth of Jesus’ new family, the family of his disciples. She had also had to hear his words: “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?... Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother” (Mt 12:48-50). Now we see that she is the Mother of Jesus, not only in her body, but in her heart. Before even she had conceived him in her body, she conceived him in her heart, thanks to her obedience. She had been told: “Behold, you are to conceive a son ... He will be great ... the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David” (Lk 1:31). Yet, shortly after, she had heard from the mouth of the elderly Simeon other words: “A sword will pierce your own soul too” (Lk 2:35). She then recalled the words of the prophets, words like these: “Harshly dealt with, he bore it humbly, he never opened his mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter” (Is 54:7). Now all this becomes reality. In her heart she had always guarded the words the angel had spoken to her when it had all begun: “Do not be afraid, Mary” (Lk 1:30). The disciples fled, she did not flee. She stayed there, with the courage of a mother, with the fidelity of a mother, with the goodness of a mother, and with her faith, which resisted in the obscurity: “Blessed is she who believed” (Lk 1:45). “But the Son of Man, when he comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Lk 18:8). Yes, in that moment Jesus knew: he will find faith. In that hour, this is his great consolation." BXVI Prayer: "Holy Mary, Mother of the Lord, you remained faithful when the disciples fled. Just as you believed when the angel announced to you what was incredible – that you were going to become the mother of the Most High - so too you believed at the hour of his greatest humiliation. Thus it was that, at the hour of the cross, at the hour of the darkest night of the world, you became Mother of believers, Mother of the Church. We pray to you: teach us to believe, and help us so that our faith may become the courage to serve and the gesture of a love which comes to help and knows how to share in suffering." Music: Triduum - Contemporary Sacred Music by David Bevan and Neil Wright. Visit Totus2us.com for much more. Blessed John Paul II's motto was to Mary: Totus Tuus - All Yours. 4th station: Jesus meets his Mother - BXVI Meditation: "On the Way of the Cross of Jesus, there is also Mary, his Mother. During his public life she had had to step aside, to make space for the birth of Jesus’ new family, the family of his disciples. She had also had to hear his words: “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?... Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother” (Mt 12:48-50). Now we see that she is the Mother of Jesus, not only in her body, but in her heart. Before even she had conceived him in her body, she conceived him in her heart, thanks to her obedience. She had been told: “Behold, you are to conceive a son ... He will be great ... the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David” (Lk 1:31). Yet, shortly after, she had heard from the mouth of the elderly Simeon other words: “A sword will pierce your own soul too” (Lk 2:35). She then recalled the words of the prophets, words like these: “Harshly dealt with, he bore it humbly, he never opened his mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter” (Is 54:7). Now all this becomes reality. In her heart she had always guarded the words the angel had spoken to her when it had all begun: “Do not be afraid, Mary” (Lk 1:30). The disciples fled, she did not flee. She stayed there, with the courage of a mother, with the fidelity of a mother, with the goodness of a mother, and with her faith, which resisted in the obscurity: “Blessed is she who believed” (Lk 1:45). “But the Son of Man, when he comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Lk 18:8). Yes, in that moment Jesus knew: he will find faith. In that hour, this is his great consolation." BXVI Prayer: "Holy Mary, Mother of the Lord, you remained faithful when the disciples fled. Just as you believed when the angel announced to you what was incredible – that you were going to become the mother of the Most High - so too you believed at the hour of his greatest humiliation. Thus it was that, at the hour of the cross, at the hour of the darkest night of the world, you became Mother of believers, Mother of the Church. We pray to you: teach us to believe, and help us so that our faith may become the courage to serve and the gesture of a love which comes to help and knows how to share in suffering." Music: Triduum - Contemporary Sacred Music by David Bevan and Neil Wright. Visit Totus2us.com for much more. Blessed John Paul II's motto was to Mary: Totus Tuus - All Yours. Mon, 26 Mar 2012 10:40:00 GMT 6:45 Catholic, prayer, Stations, Cross, Jesus, Ratzinger, Pope, Benedict XVI, God, peace, love Totus2us.com 3rd station: Jesus falls for the first time - BXVI Meditation: "Man has fallen, and he falls always anew: how many times he becomes a caricature of himself, no longer the image of God, but something that makes a mockery of the Creator. Is not the image of man par excellence the man who, going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, was attacked by robbers who stripped him and left him half-dead, bleeding beside the road? The fall of Jesus beneath the Cross is not only the fall of the man Jesus already exhausted by the scourging. Something more profound emerges here, as Paul says in the Letter to the Philippians: “His state was divine, yet he did not cling to his equality with God but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave, and became as men are ... He was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross” (Phil 2:6-8). In the fall of Jesus beneath the weight of the Cross, the entire course of his life appears: his voluntary abasement, to lift us up out of our pride. And at the same time, the nature of our pride emerges: the arrogance with which we want to emancipate ourselves from God and be nothing other than ourselves, with which we believe we do not need eternal love, but with which we want to shape our lives on our own. In this rebellion against truth, in this attempt to be our own god, to be creators and judges of ourselves, we fall headlong and end up by destroying ourselves. The abasement of Jesus is the surpassing of our pride: by his abasement he raises us up. Let us let him raise us up. Let us cast off our self-sufficiency, our false illusions of autonomy, and instead learn from him, from the one who abased himself, to find our true grandeur, abasing ourselves and turning to God and to our downtrodden brothers and sisters." BXVI Prayer: "Lord Jesus, the weight of the cross made you fall to the ground. The weight of our sin, the weight of our arrogance, brought you down. But your fall is not the sign of a tragedy, it is not the pure and simple weakness of the one trampled upon. You wanted to come among us who, through our arrogance, were laid low. The arrogance to think that we can produce man has meant that men have become a kind of commodity, to be bought and sold, which are like a reservoir of material for our experiments, with which we hope to overcome death by ourselves, whereas, in truth, we are doing nothing other than debasing the dignity of man ever more profoundly. Lord, help us because we have fallen. Help us to abandon our destructive arrogance and, by learning from your humility, be raised anew." Music: Triduum - Contemporary Sacred Music by David Bevan and Neil Wright. Visit Totus2us.com for much more. Blessed John Paul II's motto was to Mary: Totus Tuus - All Yours. 3rd station: Jesus falls for the first time - BXVI Meditation: "Man has fallen, and he falls always anew: how many times he becomes a caricature of himself, no longer the image of God, but something that makes a mockery of the Creator. Is not the image of man par excellence the man who, going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, was attacked by robbers who stripped him and left him half-dead, bleeding beside the road? The fall of Jesus beneath the Cross is not only the fall of the man Jesus already exhausted by the scourging. Something more profound emerges here, as Paul says in the Letter to the Philippians: “His state was divine, yet he did not cling to his equality with God but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave, and became as men are ... He was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross” (Phil 2:6-8). In the fall of Jesus beneath the weight of the Cross, the entire course of his life appears: his voluntary abasement, to lift us up out of our pride. And at the same time, the nature of our pride emerges: the arrogance with which we want to emancipate ourselves from God and be nothing other than ourselves, with which we believe we do not need eternal love, but with which we want to shape our lives on our own. In this rebellion against truth, in this attempt to be our own god, to be creators and judges of ourselves, we fall headlong and end up by destroying ourselves. The abasement of Jesus is the surpassing of our pride: by his abasement he raises us up. Let us let him raise us up. Let us cast off our self-sufficiency, our false illusions of autonomy, and instead learn from him, from the one who abased himself, to find our true grandeur, abasing ourselves and turning to God and to our downtrodden brothers and sisters." BXVI Prayer: "Lord Jesus, the weight of the cross made you fall to the ground. The weight of our sin, the weight of our arrogance, brought you down. But your fall is not the sign of a tragedy, it is not the pure and simple weakness of the one trampled upon. You wanted to come among us who, through our arrogance, were laid low. The arrogance to think that we can produce man has meant that men have become a kind of commodity, to be bought and sold, which are like a reservoir of material for our experiments, with which we hope to overcome death by ourselves, whereas, in truth, we are doing nothing other than debasing the dignity of man ever more profoundly. Lord, help us because we have fallen. Help us to abandon our destructive arrogance and, by learning from your humility, be raised anew." Music: Triduum - Contemporary Sacred Music by David Bevan and Neil Wright. Visit Totus2us.com for much more. Blessed John Paul II's motto was to Mary: Totus Tuus - All Yours. Sun, 25 Mar 2012 10:40:00 GMT 6:38 Catholic, prayer, Stations, Cross, Jesus, Ratzinger, Pope, Benedict XVI, God, peace, love Totus2us.com 2nd station: Jesus takes up his Cross - BXVI Meditation: "Jesus, condemned as an imposter king, is mocked, but in this very mockery cruelly emerges the truth. How many times the signs of power, carried by the powerful of this world, are an insult to truth, to justice and to the dignity of man! How many times their rituals and their grand words are in truth nothing but pompous lies, a caricature of the task required by their office, that of putting themselves at the service of the good! Jesus, the one who is mocked and wears the crown of suffering, is precisely for this the true King. His sceptre is justice (cf Ps 45:7). The price of justice is suffering in this world: he, the true King, does not reign by way of violence, but by way of a love which suffers for us and with us. He takes the Cross on Himself, our cross, the weight of being men, the weight of the world. And this is how he goes before us and shows us how to find the path to true life." BXVI Prayer: "Lord, you let yourself be mocked and insulted. Help us not to join with those who mock those who suffer and those who are weak. Help us to recognise your face in those who are humiliated and marginalised. Help us not to be discouraged in front of the contempt of this world, when obedience to your will is ridiculed. You carried the cross and have invited us to follow you on this path (cf Mt 10:38). Help us to accept the cross, not to flee from it, not to complain and not to let our hearts be battered in front of life's hardships. Help us to travel the path of love and, by obeying its demands, to reach true joy." Music: Triduum - Contemporary Sacred Music by David Bevan and Neil Wright. Visit Totus2us.com for much more. Blessed John Paul II's motto was to Mary: Totus Tuus - All Yours. 2nd station: Jesus takes up his Cross - BXVI Meditation: "Jesus, condemned as an imposter king, is mocked, but in this very mockery cruelly emerges the truth. How many times the signs of power, carried by the powerful of this world, are an insult to truth, to justice and to the dignity of man! How many times their rituals and their grand words are in truth nothing but pompous lies, a caricature of the task required by their office, that of putting themselves at the service of the good! Jesus, the one who is mocked and wears the crown of suffering, is precisely for this the true King. His sceptre is justice (cf Ps 45:7). The price of justice is suffering in this world: he, the true King, does not reign by way of violence, but by way of a love which suffers for us and with us. He takes the Cross on Himself, our cross, the weight of being men, the weight of the world. And this is how he goes before us and shows us how to find the path to true life." BXVI Prayer: "Lord, you let yourself be mocked and insulted. Help us not to join with those who mock those who suffer and those who are weak. Help us to recognise your face in those who are humiliated and marginalised. Help us not to be discouraged in front of the contempt of this world, when obedience to your will is ridiculed. You carried the cross and have invited us to follow you on this path (cf Mt 10:38). Help us to accept the cross, not to flee from it, not to complain and not to let our hearts be battered in front of life's hardships. Help us to travel the path of love and, by obeying its demands, to reach true joy." Music: Triduum - Contemporary Sacred Music by David Bevan and Neil Wright. Visit Totus2us.com for much more. Blessed John Paul II's motto was to Mary: Totus Tuus - All Yours. Sat, 24 Mar 2012 10:40:00 GMT 5:28 Catholic, prayer, Stations, Cross, Jesus, Ratzinger, Pope, Benedict XVI, God, peace, love Totus2us.com 1st station: Jesus is condemned to death - BXVI Meditation: "The Judge of the world, who will come again one day to judge us all, stands there, annihilated, dishonoured and defenceless before the earthly judge. Pilate is not utterly evil. He knows that this condemned man is innocent; he looks for a way to free him. But his heart is divided. And in the end he lets his own position, his own self-interest, prevail over what is right. Nor are the men who shout out and demand the death of Jesus utterly evil. Many of them, on the day of Pentecost, will feel “cut to the heart” (Acts 2:37), when Peter says to them: “Jesus the Nazarene was a man commended to you by God ... you took and had crucified by men outside the Law” (Acts 2:22.). But at that moment they are influenced by the crowd. They shout because the others are shouting, and as the others are shouting. And in this way, justice is trampled underfoot by weakness, cowardice, for fear of the diktat of the dominant mentality. The quiet voice of conscience is suffocated by the cries of the crowd. Indecision, concern for human respect, give force to evil." BXVI Prayer: "Lord, you were condemned to death because fear of the gaze of others suffocated the voice of conscience. It has always been like this throughout history, that the innocent have been maltreated, condemned and killed. How many times have we ourselves preferred success to truth, our reputation to justice? Give force in our lives to the quiet voice of our conscience, to your voice. Look at me as you looked at Peter after his denial. Let your gaze penetrate our hearts and indicate the direction to our lives. To those who on Good Friday had shouted out against you, on the day of Pentecost their hearts were stirred by you and converted. And in this way you gave hope to us all. Give us, ever anew, the grace of conversion." Music: Triduum - Contemporary Sacred Music by David Bevan and Neil Wright. Visit Totus2us.com for much more. Blessed John Paul II's motto was to Mary: Totus Tuus - All Yours. 1st station: Jesus is condemned to death - BXVI Meditation: "The Judge of the world, who will come again one day to judge us all, stands there, annihilated, dishonoured and defenceless before the earthly judge. Pilate is not utterly evil. He knows that this condemned man is innocent; he looks for a way to free him. But his heart is divided. And in the end he lets his own position, his own self-interest, prevail over what is right. Nor are the men who shout out and demand the death of Jesus utterly evil. Many of them, on the day of Pentecost, will feel “cut to the heart” (Acts 2:37), when Peter says to them: “Jesus the Nazarene was a man commended to you by God ... you took and had crucified by men outside the Law” (Acts 2:22.). But at that moment they are influenced by the crowd. They shout because the others are shouting, and as the others are shouting. And in this way, justice is trampled underfoot by weakness, cowardice, for fear of the diktat of the dominant mentality. The quiet voice of conscience is suffocated by the cries of the crowd. Indecision, concern for human respect, give force to evil." BXVI Prayer: "Lord, you were condemned to death because fear of the gaze of others suffocated the voice of conscience. It has always been like this throughout history, that the innocent have been maltreated, condemned and killed. How many times have we ourselves preferred success to truth, our reputation to justice? Give force in our lives to the quiet voice of our conscience, to your voice. Look at me as you looked at Peter after his denial. Let your gaze penetrate our hearts and indicate the direction to our lives. To those who on Good Friday had shouted out against you, on the day of Pentecost their hearts were stirred by you and converted. And in this way you gave hope to us all. Give us, ever anew, the grace of conversion." Music: Triduum - Contemporary Sacred Music by David Bevan and Neil Wright. Visit Totus2us.com for much more. Blessed John Paul II's motto was to Mary: Totus Tuus - All Yours. Fri, 23 Mar 2012 10:40:00 GMT 5:42 Catholic, prayer, Stations, Cross, Jesus, Ratzinger, Pope, Benedict XVI, God, peace, love