Dear Parishioner,
“Well, I’ll go to the foot of my stairs!” I laughed when I heard
Polly, my housekeeper, say this, and it brought back a thousand
memories. You younger parishioners reading this letter will
probably never have heard this saying, but it was common enough when I
was young, and my mother used it often. I remember when I used to
upset my Uncle Dai, which I often did, he would say to me, “May the
Lord drop his clog on you”. Even at that tender age, I thought
this expression a bit daft, but those were times when expletives were
more gentle and wholesome than they are today.
But, coming back to the foot of my stairs. When Polly made that
remark, which I hadn’t heard for very many years, I was transported
immediately to the foot of my stairs, not the stairs in the Presbytery
here in Llandudno, but the stairs of 29 Coronation Estate, Holywell,
and in my mind I climbed them. Looking up, I saw the statue of
the Sacred Heart on the windowsill at the top of the stairs. And
from the landing, I passed into my bedroom, with its ancient bed, my
father’s army coat spread upon it, for we couldn’t afford any new
blankets, and costly eiderdowns, as duvets were then called, were out
of the question. I looked out of the window, where winter frosts
and ice used to form on the inside, onto the woodlands and hills where
I spent my whole summer holidays, climbing trees, making dens, and
damming up the “Little River”, as we called the meagre stream that
meandered through the valley.
Those carefree days were the foot of the stairs of my life. And
every child, without exception, has his our own stairs to climb.
If you think about it, you need two feet to climb stairs, not just one:
the spiritual as well as the material. You have to climb the
stairs with both of them to get to your appointed top and to make a
success of your unique life. You have to grow up physically and
you have to grow up spiritually as well.
The Church seems acutely aware of this. She stood us at the foot
of the stairs on Ash Wednesday and bade us look up, see and
climb. Look up, see and climb to the Risen Christ, framed in the
light and glory of God and showing us his exposed and wounded Heart;
the Sacred Heart framed in the landing window was only a
reminder. It is the Christ of Easter who stands at the top of our
stairs, the same Christ who stood before those astonished disciples on
that Easter Sunday evening.
And even though we have already celebrated Easter with all the
solemnity and joy we could muster, the Church once again puts us to
stand at the foot of the stairs and challenges us further. The
Easter season will ultimately culminate in the celebration of the
Lord’s Ascension, the return of the Lord to where he had always been,
at the right hand of the Father’s glory, the destination assigned to
each and every one of us. We are destined to climb to the heights
of heaven.
When God met Jacob, the patriarch of the Jewish People and father of
the twelve tribes, he set a vision before him of a great ladder, a
staircase reaching into the very heavens. There were angels going
up and coming down it. Jesus referred to this ladder in his
conversation with Nicodemus, as recorded by St John in chapter 3 of his
Gospel. In Christ, Jacob’s vision comes true. Jesus is the
only one to have come down that staircase and the first one to go up
it. “No one” he says “ has ascended into heaven except the one
who descended from heaven, the Son of Man”.
Jesus is that ladder. He is the “Way”. “No one
can come to the Father”, he repeatedly reminds us , “except by
Me”. Without him we must remain at the foot of the stairs.
So, in this Easter Season of the Church’s year, we are put where Jacob
was put, at the foot of this staircase. Every day there is
another step to climb. St Paul tells us that, as we climb, we
should live as if we have already reached the top. He tells us to
keep our minds firmly fixed on where Christ is, seated at the right
hand of the Father; not on the things of this world but on a higher
plane altogether.
Polly quoted the old saying exactly. She didn’t say, “Well, I
will go to the foot of the stairs” but, “I will go to the foot of my
stairs”. My stairs. The ladder that is set before each and
every one of us is unique, though its destination is ultimately the
same; its foot rests in the particular circumstances of our childhood;
its rungs and the fall between the rungs are designed precisely
according to each individual’s ability; the angels we meet on the
ascent are different for each one of us. For some the ladder is
steep and the rungs deeply spaced; for others it is an easier
climb. But the harder the climb the greater the reward: Christ’s
own stairway passed through temptation, rejection and crucifixion
before reaching the glory at the top.
God bless you,
Fr Antony Jones