On Good Friday, a liturgy of the Lord's Passion was celebrated in St. Peter's Basilica, presided over as a delegate of Pope Francis prefect of the east Churches Dicastery Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti. US Vice president J.D. Vance was present with his wife Usha and 3 children.
For the first time, specified a high-ranking typical of the U.S. authorities attended this service at the Vatican. The Vice president is simply a practicing Catholic.
The homily was given by Pope home preacher Father Roberto Pasolini, who said, “On Good Friday the Church stops in adoration and contemplates not the defeat of God, but his mysterious triumph in paradoxical form, this cross.”
"In our times, so rich in fresh intelligences—artificial, computational, predictable—the mystery of Christ's torture and death offers us a different kind of intelligence: the intelligence of a cross that does not calculate, but loves, does not optimize, but sacrifices itself," he stressed.
He then explained: “This is not artificial intelligence, but profoundly rational due to the fact that it is completely open to God and to others.”
"In a planet where it seems that algorithms propose to us what to want, what to think and even what to be, the cross returns to us the freedom of genuine choice, based not on performance, but on love," said Father Pasolini.
"In moments where our lives halt due to a painful abrupt event, a severe illness, a crisis in relationships we can besides effort to trust on God with confidence," he noted.
He explained: “When pain, fatigue, loneliness, or fear comes, we have the temptation to shut up, to stiffen ourselves, to pretend to be same - sufficient. But it is here that the space opens up to a more actual love, which does not impose itself, but allows itself to help.”
As he pointed out, for this to be possible, “we must quit pride, but besides any illusion that we can save ourselves.” It should, he stated, accept the request not as a weakness to be hidden, but as a fact to be accepted.
Pasolini's father has expressed his opinion that in these times, "the myth-marked consequence and the magic idol of individualism" it is hard to admit defeat, and in moments of weakness, people "press their teeth in the hope of a fast exit from a situation felt exclusively as a prison."
He emphasized: “We Christians choose the way of the cross as the only possible direction of our lives.”
This year's Cross Road in Colosseum will be led by Cardinal Baldassare Reina. The pope, who was recovering from a severe illness, wrote his reflections. Thousands of believers attend the service.
This is the second in a row of the Cross without Francis. Last year, his absence from the Vatican explained that he must defend wellness from another events of the large Week. Now the pope regains his strength after more than 5 weeks in infirmary due to severe pneumonia.
Source: PAP 
