\n| I began my journey up the steps on my knees believing I could go up them quickly, but the group in front of me moved slowly. At first, I was annoyed; my knees hurt a lot, especially because of my extensive arthritis. But as I slowly moved up each step, I could feel a change; I felt a transformation happening within me as I ascended the stairs. The hardness and annoyance in my heart softened, torn in the humble act of walking on my knees as I contemplated God\u2019s love, mercy, and forgiveness, won for us by Jesus\u2019s victory over death on the Cross.<\/p>\n In my mind\u2019s eye, I began to picture Jesus walking up these very steps to meet Pilate knowing he was facing certain death\u2014a humiliating death\u2014yet he accepted the Father\u2019s will for him to save a fallen humanity. My long painful journey up those stairs in a certain sense allowed me to spiritually accompany our Lord on his journey to Pilate. His was a journey of radical love, even for his enemies in the face of death.<\/p>\n As I approached the top of the stairs, I asked myself, could I drink from the same bitter cup? Could I love others in the face of persecution, insult, or by being ignored as a beloved child of God? Lent is a time to spiritually walk the Sacred Steps with Jesus, journeying with him step by step, opening our hearts to enter the mystery of God\u2019s love for us, and our love for God and each other.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just before the start of Lent I was in Rome on a pilgrimage. One of the churches I visited was the Pontificio Santuario della Scala Santa. It is more commonly known as Scala Santa or, in English, the Holy Stairs. Tradition tells us the staircase in the church is from Pilate\u2019s palace in Jerusalem and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2133,"featured_media":383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[32,34,33],"class_list":["post-336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs","tag-deacon-andy","tag-deacon-andy-reflects-on-climbing-the-holy-stairs-in-rome","tag-holy-stairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/centerfordiaconalformation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/centerfordiaconalformation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/centerfordiaconalformation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/centerfordiaconalformation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2133"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/centerfordiaconalformation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/centerfordiaconalformation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":380,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/centerfordiaconalformation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336\/revisions\/380"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/centerfordiaconalformation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/centerfordiaconalformation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/centerfordiaconalformation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/centerfordiaconalformation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |