{"id":14338,"date":"2025-07-24T10:31:43","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T14:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/notstrictlyspiritual.com\/?p=14338"},"modified":"2025-08-04T07:58:32","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T11:58:32","slug":"staircase-to-heaven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/notstrictlyspiritual.com\/life-lines\/staircase-to-heaven\/","title":{"rendered":"Staircase to heaven"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"h425420-p1\" class=\"permalinkable\">I have been blessed to go on numerous visits to the beautiful city of Rome, and each time I visited, I ran the gauntlet of typical tourist and pilgrim attractions in an effort to expand my understanding of the city and the people and to grow in my commitment to the faith. And yet, I never made my way to the Holy Stairs, known as \u201cLa Scala Santa,\u201d which are said to be the very stairs Jesus climbed when he went before Pontius Pilate and was sentenced to death. It is believed that St. Helena (Constantine\u2019s mother) brought the stairs from Jerusalem to Rome in 326.<\/p>\n<p id=\"h425420-p2\" class=\"permalinkable\">Despite my deep and abiding faith, something in me prickled when I tried to convince myself that this could be the real deal. I couldn\u2019t bring myself to go, that is until my most recent \u2014 and fifth \u2014 visit to the Eternal City. The Holy Stairs were on the itinerary of the pilgrimage I was leading through Italy. When we arrived at the site, I fully intended to stand by and let the other pilgrims proceed, and then my husband, Dennis, volunteered to go first when no one else stepped forward. I immediately joined him, as did our son, Noah.<\/p>\n<p id=\"h425420-p3\" class=\"permalinkable\">It is customary to climb the 28 steps on your knees while praying, which is what we did. As the three of us began, all on the same step as we inched our way up, I prayed for all those intentions I had brought with me from people back home and for my family and friends. As we continued, sometimes waiting for those ahead who were having more difficulty navigating the ascent, I began expanding my prayers to include all those who were before and behind me on the stairs, and finally, as my knees started to ache and I felt a twinge in my back, my prayers seemed to encompass the whole world, and there was a feeling of incredible love for all those on the stairs with me. It was for me a version of what Trappist monk Tho\u00admas Merton described in his \u201cFourth and Walnut moment,\u201d when he stood on a street corner in Kentucky and saw those around him shining like the sun.<\/p>\n<p id=\"h425420-p4\" class=\"permalinkable\">I was deeply moved, not because I suddenly believed without a doubt in the veracity of the claim that the stairs are<em> the<\/em> stairs, but because none of that mattered anymore. What mattered was that we climbed those stairs out of faith, bound together by a common purpose with our interior prayers swirling around the silence.<\/p>\n<p id=\"h425420-p5\" class=\"permalinkable\">That night, as our pilgrimage group gathered for dinner, we began talking about our favorite parts of the day, which, as you might expect on a pilgrimage through Italy, was jam-packed with important spiritual sites. I was so happy to hear numerous people say that the Holy Stairs were the highlight. And that is the blessing and beauty of pilgrimage.<\/p>\n<p id=\"h425420-p6\" class=\"permalinkable\">We often think we understand the meaning of the word \u201cpilgrimage,\u201d until we find ourselves in the midst of an actual pilgrim journey with things not going exactly as planned, or on a staircase we had no intention of climbing and discover transcendence and transformation where we least expect it. That is often the case when we are willing to embrace the journey before us rather than the image we\u2019ve created in our minds. To be a pilgrim is not to sit in a caf\u00e9 and sip espresso, although that\u2019s lovely; it is to walk the path of those who came before us in hopes that as we do so we will be changed.<\/p>\n<p id=\"h425420-p7\" class=\"permalinkable\"><a href=\"https:\/\/marknepo.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Author Mark Nepo<\/a> writes: \u201cTo journey without being changed is to be a nomad. To change without journeying is to be a chameleon. To journey and to be transformed by the journey is to be a pilgrim.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"h425420-p8\" class=\"permalinkable\">We do not have to travel far to take up the pilgrim journey. Our very lives can become a pilgrimage, if we can, as St. Catherine of Siena said, recognize that \u201call the way to heaven is heaven.\u201d God is in our every breath, our every step. All that\u2019s required is our attention and intention.<\/p>\n<p id=\"h425420-p9\" class=\"permalinkable\"><em>Mary DeTurris Poust is leading two September retreats in the region: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pyramidlife.org\/schedule\/228\/stillpoint-2025\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Stillpoint at Pyramid Life Center<\/a> on Sept. 5-7, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.atonementfriars.org\/event\/the-journey-is-the-goal-learning-to-see-our-life-as-a-pilgrimage\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Journey Is the Goal at Graymoor Retreat Center<\/a> on Sept. 19-21. For more information, click <a href=\"https:\/\/notstrictlyspiritual.com\/events\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">HERE<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>This column originally appeared in <a href=\"https:\/\/evangelist.org\/news\/2025\/jul\/23\/staircase-to-heaven\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the July 24, 2025 issue<\/a> of The Evangelist.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have been blessed to go on numerous visits to the beautiful city of Rome, and each time I visited, I ran the gauntlet of typical tourist and pilgrim attractions [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14339,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[121],"tags":[819,10,332,54,13,84,14,96],"class_list":["post-14338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-lines","tag-holy-stairs","tag-italy","tag-italy-pilgrimage","tag-journey","tag-pilgrimage","tag-prayer","tag-rome","tag-spiritual-journey"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Staircase to heaven &#8211; 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