In the footsteps of Christ
What does it mean that Christ became Man?
It being Christmas, here is a piece I wrote about what it meant to me to realise that Christ was a man, as I walked up the stairs he took to meet Pilate.
This year has been one of unintended revelation for me, as it has been for the staff, supporters, and readers of LifeSiteNews. In the summer, we saw a palace coup which failed to reputationally assassinate John Henry Westen. This unpleasantness also seems to have been an attempt on the life of LifeSite itself.
A beastly business whose fallout resulted in my presence onstage at a hastily reconvened Rome Life Forum.
I have a wife, and so am used to being used. I was in the army reserve, and so am used to dressing up and doing my duty. Marshalled by a woman from LifeSiteNews on very good terms with my wife, I was posted to Rome as Master of Ceremonies.
From the speaker’s point of view, the MC is a sort of well-dressed brute who cuts you off just as you are revving up for the second hour of your speech.
To the audience, the MC is the swine who deprives you of the microphone when you decide to deliver a speech of your own in place of a question.
To me, this was a duty – that of balancing the interests of everyone present. I came to Rome to do this duty as best I could and hoped not to blunder into some accidental disgrace.
The scene was set, and I was in it long enough to be bemused by the lack of rotten tomato feedback. Looking back, perhaps this was because the real action took place offstage, with a plot twist that revealed the majesty and awesome wonder at the center of Christmastime.
Rome is full of majestic buildings and the Scala Sancta is housed in one which is relatively modest. John Henry led us out on a rosary tour which took us there.
I was not prepared for what happened that day. I daresay no one could be.
When in Rome you get used to swanning in and out of impressive doors – such as the Holy Door of the Apostolic Palace – and so I drifted over the threshold with an eye on the signs saying, “No photos.” An attendant shushed us as we shuffled toward the wooden steps, which have been laid over the stone staircase removed here from Jerusalem.
Christ walked up this staircase to Pontius Pilate. Blood spots revealed by glass portholes show the route He took back down.
As you edge closer, something shifts. It is time and the Presence – in the present.
Of course God is always here – everywhere – but it can be quite discomfiting to be suddenly aware of Him. The stage and the scenery vanish in that instant. There is Him, and He is everything. We know this, of course, but it is quite something to realize that God was a man, and He was once where you are, right now.
The momentum of the moment arrested time. Here I was following the footsteps of Christ Himself. You go up the Holy Stairs on your knees, which is not only a sign of reverence but the best way to deal with the weight that hits you.
This is a place like no other. It has a door and walls, is painted beautifully, and is chock full of pilgrims and tourists. Yet here time stops around the still point: He who makes sense of all mankind, before and after Him.
It was as if a bell jar had descended over the murmur of prayers and the hiss and thrum of traffic outside. There was nothing here but Everything, and at the center of all was silence.
Peace in this predicament is disturbing: this is the route Christ took to His condemnation by man. This is the path God chose to redeem men like me, offering His only Son to pay with His bloody Passion for our sins.
All time is present in Christ, and all times indicate Him. For most, Christmas is the time above all in which Christ is present in our lives. To follow Christ’s path as best we can is to find Him again and again, closer each time, until you wonder you might feel His breath at your ear.
I understood that I had never before realized what it meant that Christ was a man, was and is God, and walked among us. I have read the Word and I go to Mass, I read about the teachings of the Church and try to understand its luminous metaphysics.
None of this prepared me for the simple, sudden shock. He is real. He is.
The experience I struggle to describe is awe. I have seen so many portraits of the crucifixion of our Lord, but on that staircase the portrait and the subject combined in a profound understanding beyond words. I do not really know what to make of it, if I am honest, but I know that it has changed me in a way that will not change back.
This year I saw what I thought I had seen before, and found something I believed but never knew was really there. It is the Word made flesh, the stunning and sometimes terrible fact that God came to earth in order to save us from ourselves.
I am glad there were no photos allowed as I expect my mouth made a gaping “O” to mark this eureka moment.
It can be bemusing to find you have approached God by accident, and not only for what this makes of all your best intentions. In my case the happy shock that Christ was one of us for a time was surprising because it was a surprise.
Despite all I thought I knew, I did not really know Him as I now do. I realize this Christmas that to seek the presence of God is to beseech Him for an answer, and the answer is the gift that says I am, and I am with you, now and forever.
May God bless you all this Christmas.
Paul Harvey The Man and the Birds –
The man I’m telling you about was not a scrooge. He was kind, decent, and generous to his family and upright with others. He just didn’t believe in all of that incarnation stuff told at Christmas time. He just couldn’t swallow the Jesus story of God coming to earth as a man. He told his wife, “I’m just not going with you to church this Christmas Eve.”
As he stayed home the snow began to fall. He watched the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then returned to his fireside chair to read. Soon he heard a thudding sound. Then another, and then another.
At first he thought someone was throwing snowballs against the window. But when he went to the front door, he saw a flock of birds huddled outside miserably in the snow. They were seeking shelter. He couldn’t let the poor creatures just lie there and freeze, so he went to the barn that would provide them a warm shelter. All he needed to do was to direct the birds into the barn. Quickly he opened the barn doors wide and turned on a light so the birds would know and see the way into the barn.
But the birds simply did not come in. He enticed them but they ignored him. He ran to the house and returned with breadcrumbs to lead them to the lighted open doorway of the warm barn. To his dismay, the birds ignored him and the crumbs and remained in the freezing snow. He then tried to catch some of them but could not. He waved his arms and tried shooing them into the barn. Instead, they scattered away from him and the warm welcome barn.
He finally realized that they were afraid and avoided him. Then he thought, “If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me. I do not want to hurt them but I have come to help them. But how?” He then thought to himself, “If only I could become a bird and mingle with them and speak their language.
They would not fear me. Then I could show them and have them follow me to the way of life and safety to the safe warm barn. If only I could become one of them so they could see, and hear, and understand.” At that moment the church bells began to ring. He stood there listening to the bells ringing the glad tidings of Christmas. Then as he looked at the birds and listened to the bells ringing, he slowly nodded and knelt in the snow to pray, “Lord, now I understand the true meaning of Christmas.”
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Christ is the humility of God embodied in human nature; the Eternal Love humbling itself, clothing itself in the garb of meekness and gentleness, to win and serve and save us.
And for thanks we nailed Him to the cross, and in His agony he looked down at us - denying him, abandoning him, and betraying him - and in the greatest act of love in history, He said, 'Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing.'
He shed tears for those that shed His blood. Jesus was God and man in one person, tortured to utmost agony and crying for us while dying for us, so that, far beyond the eve of Adam's sin, God and man might reconcile and be happy together again.
It is for these reasons that no one else holds or has held the place in the heart of the world which Jesus holds. While other gods may have been as devoutly worshipped, no other man has been so devoutly loved. —Bridged Quotes from Various Authors
Merry Christmas, Frank! Thank you for sharing your meditation on the stairs. I was in Rome this past summer, and everything you say hits home.