The steps he sought were not inside the peach-coated palace, which in the olden days housed the Holy Father.
When you go outside, cross the street to your left. So the receptionist by the door of the Palatium Apostolicum Lateranense told him when he asked her for directions to the sacred stairs.
He thanked the clerk, turned around and walked into the cool Roman afternoon.
Not many roamed the grass and cobblestone piazza. Perhaps, he thought, the oriental hawkers of selfie sticks and other tourist wares preferred trade amid wide-open spaces.
Beside the former home of the popes loomed Rome’s colossal cathedral, the Archibasilica Sanctissimi Salvatoris et Sanctorum Iohannes Baptistae et Evangelistae in Laterano.
Away in the west, vast crowds crossed the Tiber river to the Basilica Sancti Petri, site of most papal rites. They dwarfed, as he supposed they always will, the stream of pilgrims and tourists flowing up the Lateran.
He counted a benediction, and more.
Nothing for him like the quiet gaze of the Most Holy Savior’s archbasilica. Nothing like the welcome of its facade topped by moving sculptures of the elect, which made the mind farsighted. Nothing like the pleasure of wandering the premises, drinking in bas-reliefs of angels, frescoes of prophets and statues of apostles, hoping, because he wrote, for a smile from Saint John the Evangelist who interceded especially for those who wielded the pen.
The designation, commonly understood, meant gospel writer, and distinguished his favorite saint from the cathedral’s other co-patron, Saint John the Baptist.
Etymologically parsed, evangelist meant angel who bears good news. Taken this way, the title applied somehow to the lady at the reception desk, who taught him the way to the holy treads. It held true, for the vendors, whose choice of market spot in time of continental economic crisis reflected more than just the desire for quick profits. The homeless in the square were angels, too, for in their seeming helplessness they also held the message that man need not be an agent of evil just to get back at a world that has marginalized them, that hope for relief and help from fellow man can be more stubborn than seasons of bitter days.
* * *
He turned left, towards the Piazza di Porta San Giovanni, crossed the street and approached the small, salmon-colored building where the sacred stairs were enshrined, entering through the central, arched doorway.
The stairs of 28 treads ran in one direction up a well. At its foot was a tableau, of the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate showing Jesus Christ to the mob after he had him scourged, that reminded the visitor of the significance of the Scala Sancta.
During his Passion, Jesus Christ climbed these stairs going to and from Pilate. The Empress Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine and angel to the ages in the relics she retrieved brought these steps over following a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in A.D. 326.
No other visitor was around when he arrived. He ascended the stairs, which were protected by a layer of wood, as pilgrims were taught to, prayerfully and on their knees.
On the first tread, he spotted a round gap covered with glass, one of a few that could be found on the stairs. He kissed it, and wiped it with his black beanie cap, thereby obtaining a relic he could keep.
The gaps overlaid portions of the stairs on which, nearly two thousand years ago, drops of the Most Precious Blood had fallen.
On the ceiling and walls were paintings depicting the Passion. The central artwork faced the pilgrim from the top of the landing, and showed the Crucified bequeathing his Mother to Saint John the Evangelist. The angels who mined the gospel for meaning said it was at this moment that the Blessed Virgin Mary became Mother of the Church, represented by the beloved disciple who took her to his home. One angel said the Evangelist’s gospel was pretty much a prelude to one last gift, the gift of a mother in heaven.
To the right of the cross was a chamber where he saw a black-clad priest listening to a penitent. All sins were forgiven here, at the foot of the Cross, marked by drops of the Precious Blood, in the sacrament where everyone who wanted to start life afresh heard anew the merciful good news: Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.