Writer of Vatican's Way of Cross reflections awed over responsibility

Published: 2007-04-05

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- It's not every day a person gets a call from the Vatican, and most people would be bowled over when it happens. The late Mario Luzi, who as a prolific Italian poet shouldn't have been at a loss for words, was "flabbergasted" when the Vatican called him up saying Pope John Paul II wanted him to pen the meditations for the pope's 1999 Good Friday Way of the Cross, an event watched each year by millions of people around the world. Msgr. Gianfranco Ravasi was shocked this year when the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, telephoned him to say that Pope Benedict XVI wanted him to compose the Good Friday reflections. The 2007 stations are drawn directly from the Gospel of Luke, whereas last year's followed the traditional Catholic set that includes events not in the Bible such as St. Veronica wiping Jesus' face. The monsignor told the Catholic newspaper Avvenire he never thought such a papal invitation would come his way and that "the same sense of astonishment" felt by his poet friend, Luzi, "would hit me next."

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