Please… Europe

World crosses will join the cross lit in the heart of the Colosseum for the Way of the Cross with Pope Francis on Good Friday. Also Europe’s crosses will be there. For the Church and for the Catholics of the Old Continent it’s yet another momentous occasion to reflect on a story already written and yet to be written. In all European countries the cross is erected in its nudity, to transmit the message of an infinite gift and of complete free bestowal, which crossed all borders and touched the consciences of individuals and peoples across the centuries. Perhaps this message has grown weaker in our continent not because the crosses on the hills of the East, in the fields of the Eest and in southern Mediterranean shores have gone rusty, but because symbols thrive if they pulsate in the heart of man, if they communicate an eternal message, intensely thought and lived.Pope Francis’ intense and passionate reference to urban peripheries reminds us that the cross is to be found at the intersection of suffering and hope, in the faces of the poorest, of the forlorn, marginalized by cultures and societies. But perhaps it underlies also another message for Europe. There is a periphery of the soul of Europe that deserves greater attention and love. This invisible reality within mankind suffers no less that the reality perceivable on the outskirts of urban centers. Also rich, middle-class Europe, recall the young Lebanese in their reflections for this year’s Way of the Cross "bows to realities that seek to expel God from human life, such as the blind secularism that suffocates the values of faith and morals in the name of an alleged defence of man".Benedict XVI would not have proposed the Year of Faith and would not have called upon the faithful to revive Gospel proclamation had he not been aware of a lost humanity, fruit of its refusal of God.To be found especially in a sometimes presumptuous Europe.Pope Francis picks up the baton and gives new impetus with a tone and a language that we need to learn fully, in order to grasp the intensity of its truth, goodness and beauty.Our continent is invited to stop standing in judgment. Instead, it should start sharing world peoples’ expectations, anxieties and hopes, just like the Church of the Way of the Cross, which in humbleness is part and parcel of the history of humanity. The young Lebanese, in their reflection at the Colosseum, remind us that the cross "can nail us to our chair, but it cannot prevent us from dreaming; it can obscure our vision, but it cannot touch our conscience; it can deafen our ears, but it cannot prevent us from listening; it can bind our tongue but it cannot suppress our thirst for truth".Will old and tired Europe accept these "lay" reflections of non-European youths, or will presumption once more confine it at the periphery of world history? Pope Francis welcomes it with his smile and his invitation: "please…" Europe, recover your true self.