By Hannah Brockhaus
Vatican City, Apr 18, 2025 / 13:29 pm
Embracing the “intelligence of the cross” over artificial intelligence, Father Roberto Pasolini, OFM Cap, delivered a powerful message at the Vatican on Good Friday.
During the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion in St. Peter’s Basilica, Father Pasolini highlighted the importance of choosing self-giving love in relationship with God and others, rather than relying on calculated algorithms and efficiencies.
He emphasized that the intelligence of the cross is deeply relational, open to God and others, restoring the freedom of authentic choice based on love rather than efficiency.
In a world filled with artificial intelligence and predictive technologies, the message of Christ’s passion offers a different kind of intelligence that focuses on love and selflessness.
Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti led the liturgy in place of Pope Francis, who continues to recover from illness. Father Pasolini’s homily stressed the importance of surrendering one’s life and suffering to God, transforming challenges into paths of salvation.
Embark on a path that remains open to anyone who is willing to trust the Father to the fullest, allowing themselves to be guided by His will even in the darkest passages.
“Jesus reveals to us that it is not strength that saves the world but the weakness of a love that holds nothing back,” the preacher added. “The time in which we live, marked by the myth of performance and seduced by the idol of individualism, struggles to recognize moments of defeat or passivity as possible places of fulfillment.”
Indeed, when suffering hits us, we tend to feel inadequate and out of place. We try to endure, gritting our teeth, but “the last words of the crucified Jesus offer us another interpretation: They show us how much life can flow from those moments when, with nothing left to do, there actually remains the most beautiful thing to accomplish: to finally give of ourselves.”
The Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion on April 18 opened in silence, as Gugerotti processed to the altar to lie prostrate before the crucifix for one minute. The service proceeded with readings from Scripture, including the sung proclamation of the Passion account from the Gospel of St. John.
During veneration of the holy cross, first, a crucifix was carried down the main aisle of the Vatican basilica while the choir chanted three times in Latin, “Ecce lignum Crucis, in quo sales Mundi pependit,” which means, “This is the wood of the cross, on which hung the Savior of the world.” Together, the choir and congregation responded in Latin: “Come, let us worship.”
Afterward, some people in attendance at the liturgy approached the cross to make a sign of veneration, which was followed by the reproaches and a hymn.
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