On the way in Lent. In the places of crucifixion

Reflections by Luigi Testa* On the second Friday of Lent

(In Jerusalem in the Holy Sepulcher) On the right, immediately, a small arch gives access to a climb of lysis steps that is immediately more steep. The stone, the marble, hides and keep, but you are going up to the place of the crucifixion, and then you immediately understand that it would not have been right to go up without effort.

Here, the important thing is not the altar - beautiful, sumptuous, Florentine gift of the doctors - but the large rectangle, perimeter of white marble, traced on the floor. You realize it when, in the afternoon, the friars - every day for centuries - travel the places of the basilica in processions, and there you see that the marble on the ground is uncertain, traveling all the perimeter. "It was nine in the morning when they crucified him" (Mk 15:25).

There was no marble; Perhaps the earth was still humid for the breeze of the morning of March, or perhaps it was only stone, still cold, icy, for the ice of the night. This is not the bed of green grass (CT 1:16) that you wanted for us, to be together, to look at us in the eyes and smile.

Now only this land on which they spread you to nail you to the cross hurts you. Tomorrow everything will bloom from your blood, but, now, forgive us, sir.

* Luigi Testa is the author of legal texts and writes in some national newspapers. "Via crucis of a gay boy"(Castelvecchi, 2024) is his first spiritual book, his other reflections are also published onGionata.org.