Catholicism by Kathleen Sellers

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I was a little girl, no more than seven or eight, when my mother took me to climb The Steps for the first time. I was the third generation of women in my family to participate in this tradition, and I was eager to follow in the footsteps, literally, of my grandmother, a devoted Catholic woman who had passed long before I was born. This was a day I had been looking forward to, and I remember it was crisp, though daffodils added their hopeful blooms to the gray damp of that Good Friday afternoon.  "Of course it would be gray today," I thought, "the whole world should be sad that Jesus suffered and died."  That's why we were at The Steps, to remember that occasion, marking it one rosary bead and Hail Mary at a time, as we climbed the 85 steps to the doors of Immaculata Church, in the Mount Adams neighborhood of Cincinnati. 

 

Each year, save one, since the Church opened its doors in 1860, Catholics have been going on pilgrimage there on Good Friday. Like Jesus carried his cross to Calvary, the hill where he was crucified, Catholics carry their rosaries up the hill of Mount Adams, the hill upon which Immaculata stands, overlooking the city of Cincinnati.  

 

Whether or not you are familiar with this Catholic tradition, if you have driven north through Cincinnati from Kentucky, you have probably seen this Church, standing watch on the northeast hill, framing the city's skyline. At night, it's illuminated, a beacon of light for all to see.  

 

Starting at midnight each Good Friday, and lasting a full twenty-four hours, Catholics from all over the region will pray their way to the top of the steps. In the years I participated in this tradition, I've met friends and strangers, some from as far away as Tennessee, who have descended on Mount Adams to participate in this collective spiritual practice. By noon on Good Friday, rain or shine, a line of pilgrims will usually be looping from the base of the steps, down and around the block. While most devotees join this line on St. Gregory Street, a committed few may join by way of the very start of The Steps, near the Ohio River, at the base of Mount Adams itself.  Whichever path they take, all pilgrims climb the same way: with each step, a new bead of the rosary is grasped and another prayer is recited, "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee...." This contemplative practice is mirrored in the slow shuffle of feet, the groups of bowed heads, and ripple of the crowd as hundreds of people snake up the hillside, looking from a distance like a river of faithful flowing against the pull of gravity.  

 

Throughout my childhood, this local pilgrimage marked the end of my Lenten journey, those 40 days of fasting and penance, like Jesus spent in the desert, which were meant to prepare Catholics spiritually for the holiest day of the year, Easter, when Jesus Christ is believed to have been raised from the dead.  Seeing those hundreds, even thousands of other faithful people, gathered together for this final journey of faith, was a physical reminder each year that for all my individual struggle during Lent, I was struggling in solidarity with others, friends and strangers alike.  I was not alone.

 

Not so, last year.

 

2020 was the first time since Immaculata was built that pilgrims were not welcomed to The Steps on Good Friday.  Churches everywhere were closed because of COVID-19, and newly-implemented social distancing protocols meant even this outdoor pilgrimage risked novel contagion. So began a year of collective struggle--struggle for justice, struggle for healing, struggle to get through one more day of social isolation. In many ways, it's felt as though Lent 2020 never ended. We have just endured, each in our own deserts of spiritual and social isolation, yearning for transformation but unsure of when, or if, it might come. But, no more.

 

Today, not two weeks from Good Friday 2021, Immaculata announced pilgrims will be welcome to return to The Steps this year.  Yes, it will be different--there will be safety measures in place, measures we've all grown accustomed to--but more importantly, I hope that we will be different.  Kinder, more patient, more grateful for the blessings in our lives.

 

I know the pandemic is not yet over. I know that this year of penance in the desert will continue, likely well beyond Good Friday 2021. But as I climb The Steps in a few weeks, I will be thinking a lot more about those hopeful daffodils than the gray skies that have been looming all year.  There's a lot to be grateful for; having the chance to be a pilgrim again, praying together in our struggles, is just one of them.