Scala Sancta

THE SCALA SANCTA

I shall never forget the summer of 1962!

I spent the university summer vacation touring Italy and especially discovering the Eternal City of Rome.

Whilst there, I read Ronald Bainton's book "Here I Stand". It is a biography of Martin Luther.

As I read the opening chapters concerning Luther's visit to Rome in 1510 A.D., I found myself being transported back through the centuries.

-0-0-0-

For some years, Luther had been experiencing a growing unease with the teachings of the church whereby he never felt worthy enough to be a monk, let alone an ordinary Christian.

In order to try and put himself right with God, he had undertaken various religious exercises. He had fasted, sometimes for three days without a crumb. He had spent more time in prayer than he was required to do. He had cast off his night time blankets and almost frozen to death.

As he himself writes, "I was a good monk, and kept the rule of my order so strictly that I may say that if ever a monk got to heaven by his mockery it was I". And he concludes, "If I had kept on any longer, I should have killed myself with vigils, prayers, readings and other works".

Alas, all these religious exercises were to no avail, since he still felt unworthy. They failed to bring him that inner peace and assurance that he was loved by God, for which he so earnestly strove. He still felt that the divine ledger was not evenly balanced.

If he could not balance the divine ledger through his own efforts, perhaps others could help him?

And help was available through the saints.

Whilst the Roman Catholic Church took an individualistic view of sin, it took a corporate view of goodness. Whilst sins must be accounted for one by one, goodness could be pooled. And there was a considerable pool of goodness which had been accumulated through the saints who had had more than they needed to balance the ledger.

This surplus of goodness of the saints provided a vast treasury, which the church taught, could be transferred to those whose accounts were in arrears. Transfer from this accumulated account was made possible through the church, and in particular, through the Pope. Such transfers of goodness were known as indulgences.

During the decade in which Luther was born, the Pope had declared that the effect of indulgences was extended to include those whose souls were in purgatory.

There were special places where the availability of the goodness of the saints was more accessible than others. Thus the church associated the dispensing of the merits of the saints with visitation upon the relics of saints.

Popes frequently specified precisely how much benefit could be derived from viewing each holy bone. For instance, every relic of the saints in Halle was endowed by Pope Leo X with an indulgence of a reduction of 4,000 years in purgatory.

The greatest store house of these relics was in the Eternal City of Rome itself.

For instance, in the crypt of St. Callistius, 40 Popes were buried and 76,000 martyrs. Rome also had a piece of Moses' burning bush and 3,000 particles of the Holy Innocents. It had the portrait of Christ on a napkin of St. Veronica and the chains of St.Paul. It had the scissors with which Emperor Domitian clipped the hair of John the Baptist and a coin paid to Judas Iscariot conveying an indulgence of 1,400 years. It has also had the entire bodies of St. Peter

and St. Paul, though these had been divided to distribute the benefits among churches.

Imagine my excitement when I found myself standing in front the Scala Sancta in Rome. These were, allegedly, the very steps that had stood in front of Pontius Pilate's palace. These were the very steps that Martin Luther had climbed up on his first visit to Rome. As I looked at them I recalled that he had climbed up on his hands and knees kissing each step and reciting the Lord's Prayer in the hope of delivering a soul out of purgatory. When he reached the top, legend records that he said "The just shall live by faith".

-0-0-0-

Luther was to come to the same conclusion as St. Paul had come to when he says that "a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ".

Luther had tried all the recommended religious exercises and availed himself of the surplus of goodness of the saints, but all to no avail.

Slowly, but surely, he had come to the conclusion that he could not earn favours from God. That God could not be bought or manipulated by human kind, even with the connivance of the church.

And this was something that St. Paul had to wrestle with in his letter to the Christians at Galatia. The church there contained many Christians who were formerly Jews. As Jews, they had been brought up to believe that one could earn special favours from God through the keeping of the law. But Paul points out: "by works of the law shall no one be justified".

Jesus himself tried time and time again to say the same kind of thing to the Scribes and Pharisees: "For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven".

-0-0-0-

This is a message that you and I need to hear time and time again as we face our Scala Sancta and think we must climb up the steps of good works in order to earn favour from God.

The love of God is not something that can be earned through good works and the undertaking of religious exercises, nor is it something which can be bought by generous donations to the church or charities. All the good works we may do, all the religious exercises we may practice and all the money we may give away, can never influence the heart and mind of God. His love remains at all times free and undeserving and once we have discovered and experienced that great theological truth, we can begin to relax and bathe in His beauty and splendour, and above all enjoy life, instead of going round with long faces beating our breasts.

Now, that is not to say that we should not practice good works.

Perhaps I can use a simple illustration to show what I mean.

A parent who loves a child will initially give it a reward to encourage it to be good. In the same way as I give my puppy Toby chocolate drops to encourage him to be good - though alas with little success.

Slowly the parent withdraws those favours in the expectation that the child will be good automatically in response to the parents love. Because the child feels loved and wanted it will spontaneously want to please its parents, not for what it may get in return but for love's sake.

In the same way, because we feel loved and wanted by God, we should automatically want to live lives that are pleasing to God, not for what we may get in return, but for love's sake.

-0-0-0-

So whenever I recall my visit to the Scala Sancta, it reminds me that I do not have to struggle and climb those steps of good works in order to earn the love of God.

For his love for me is constant, unlike my love for Him, and cannot be earned, bought or manipulated by any human effort on my part.

As St. Paul reminds us, "man is not justified by the works of the Lord, but through faith in Jesus Christ", to whom now be all honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.