Gianfranco Ravasi: Author of This Year's Via Crucis

Earlier this week, the Vatican announced that Msgr. Gianfranco Ravasi, prefect of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, will write the meditations for Good Friday's Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) this year.  Pope Benedict XVI will preside at the Via Crucis on April 6 in the Roman Colosseum.  Msgr. Ravasi is also professor of Biblical exegesis at the Faculty of Theology of Northern Italy in Milan, and a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission. 

A short article from Free Republic says he was born in 1946 and ordained in the Diocese of Milan in 1966.  He has written more than 50 books on biblical and scientific arguments, and he writes for the Italian Catholic newspaper . Avennire.  Msgr. Ravasi's bibliography is available from the Biblioteca Ambrosiana website.  An author search for his name on AbeBooks.com provides a list of 265 copies of his various books in several languages.  However, little of his writing is readily available in English.

Here are links to a few of his writings that I found available online in English translation:

The Master in the Bible, Part I: The Old Testament Parable of Teaching, from the Acts of the International Seminar on "Jesus the Master", October 14-24, 1996.

The Master in the Bible, Part II: Jesus, Divine Master.

The Master in the Bible, Part III: The Teaching Church.

From Childhood a Face Began to Reveal Itself - from "And Who Do You Say That I Am", Tertium Millennium, July, 1997, in preparation for the Jubilee Year of 2000.

The Prayer "Coloured Alphabet of Hope" - from "The Year of Jesus Christ: Witnesses and Images", Tertium Millennium, December, 1997, in preparation for the Jubilee Year of 2000.