VATICAN - Benedict XVI at the General Audience: “ Today's liturgy for Wednesday of Holy Week already introduces us into the dramatic atmosphere of the coming days, steeped in the memory of the Passion and death of Christ ”

Vatican City (Fides Service) - “ As the Lenten journey which began with Ash Wednesday nears its end, today's liturgy for Wednesday of Holy Week already introduces us into the dramatic atmosphere of the coming days, steeped in the memory of the Passion and death of Christ”. This was how Pope Benedict XVI began his teaching during the General Audience this morning in which he reflected in the Easter Triduum which begins tomorrow Holy Thursday . “ During the Chrism Mass, the Pope said - which can be considered the prelude to the Sacred Triduum, the diocesan Bishop and his closest collaborators, the priests, surrounded by the People of God, renew the promises they made on the day of priestly Ordination. Year after year, this is an intense moment of ecclesial communion that highlights the gift of the ministerial priesthood which Christ bequeathed to his Church on the eve of his death on the Cross. And for every priest it is a moving moment in this vigil of the Passion in which the Lord gave himself to us, gave us the Sacrament of the Eucharist, gave us the priesthood. It is a day that touches all our hearts. The Oils for the celebration of the Sacraments are then blessed: the Oil of the Catechumens, the Oil of the Sick and the Holy Chrism. In the evening, entering the Easter Triduum, the Christian community relives what happened at the Last Supper in the Mass of the Lord's Supper. In the Upper Room, the Redeemer wanted to anticipate the sacrifice of his life in the Sacrament of the bread and wine changed into his Body and Blood: he anticipated his death, he freely gave his life, he offered the definitive gift of himself to humanity. With the washing of the feet, the gesture with which, having loved his own, he loved them to the end is repeated (cf. Jn 13: 1), and he bequeathed this act of humility to his disciples as their "badge": love unto death. After the Mass of the Lord's Supper, the liturgy invites the faithful to pause in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, reliving Jesus' agony in Gethsemane. And we see that the disciples fell asleep, leaving their Lord on his own. Today too, we, his disciples, are often asleep. On this holy night of Gethsemane, let us be vigilant, not wanting to leave the Lord on his own at this time; thus, we can better understand the mystery of Holy Thursday, which embraces the supreme, threefold gift of the ministry of the Priesthood, the Eucharist and the new Commandment of Love (agape)."
The Pope spoke about Good Friday , which commemorates the events between Christ's condemnation to death and his Crucifixion". "It is a day of penance, fasting and prayer, of participation in the Lord's Passion. At the prescribed hour, the Christian Assembly, with the help of the Word of God and liturgical actions, renews the history of human infidelity to the divine plan, which was nonetheless brought about exactly in this way; and it listens once again to the moving narrative of the Lord's sorrowful Passion. The Assembly then addresses to the Heavenly Father a long "prayer of the faithful" which embraces all the needs of the Church and of the world. Subsequently, the community adores the Cross and receives the Eucharist, consuming the sacred species reserved from the Mass of the Lord's Supper on the previous day. In commenting on Good Friday, St John Chrysostom observes: "First, the Cross stood for contempt, but today it is something venerable; before it was the symbol of condemnation, today it is the hope of salvation. It has truly become a source of infinite good; it has freed us from error, it has dispelled our shadows, it has reconciled us with God, it has transformed us from being enemies of God to being members of his family, from being strangers to being his neighbours: this Cross is the destruction of enmity, the source of peace, the casket of our treasure" (cf. De Cruce et Latrone I, 1, 4). To relive the Redeemer's Passion more intensely, the Christian tradition has developed many manifestations of popular piety, including the well-known Good Friday processions with the evocative rites, repeated each year. However, there is one pious practice, the "Way of the Cross", which offers us throughout the year the possibility of impressing the mystery of the Cross ever more deeply on our minds, of accompanying Christ along this path and thus being inwardly conformed to him. We could say that the Way of the Cross teaches us, in the words of St Leo the Great, to "look at the Crucified Jesus with the eyes of the heart, to recognise in his flesh our own" (Talk 15, on the Lord's Passion). Precisely in this lies the true Christian wisdom which we want to learn by taking the Way of the Cross on Good Friday at the Colosseum.”.
Then Holy Saturday, “the day when the liturgy is hushed, the day of great silence, and Christians are invited to preserve interior recollection, often difficult to encourage in our day, in order to be better prepared for the Easter Vigil”. (P.R.) (Agenzia Fides 4/4/2007 - righe 51, parole 778)