Here’s a short video about yesterday’s Way of the Cross led by Pope Benedict XVI at the Colosseum in Rome.

“The anguish of the passion of the Lord Jesus cannot fail to move to pity even the most hardened hearts,” the Pope said at the conclusion of the Via Crucis, Zenit news service reported, “as it constitutes the climax of the revelation of God’s love for each of us.”

“Throughout the course of the millennia, a great multitude of men and women have been drawn deeply into this mystery, and they have followed him, making in their turn, like him and with his help, a gift to others of their own lives,” the Holy Father continued. “They are the saints and the martyrs, many of whom remain unknown to us.

“Even in our own time, how many people, in the silence of their daily lives, unite their sufferings with those of the Crucified One and become apostles of a true spiritual and social renewal!”

“Let us pause this evening to contemplate his disfigured face,” Benedict urged. “It is the face of the Man of sorrows, who took upon himself the burden of all our mortal anguish. His face is reflected in that of every person who is humiliated and offended, sick and suffering, alone, abandoned and despised.

“Pouring out his blood, he has rescued us from the slavery of death; he has broken the solitude of our tears; he has entered into our every grief and our every anxiety.”