Quest of Hope(168)
At dawn, Heinrich exchanged his own clothing for a shirt and breeches made of unscraped leather worn hair-side against his own skin. Thin sandals were bound to his feet and a threadbare, woollen, hooded cape hung atop his shoulders. Anoush escorted him quickly through the church’s dormant gardens and hurried him toward the sanctuary. She paused outside the door as the bells of prime rang, waiting patiently to present him with a gift. She smiled. “The sun is just right!”
Santa Maria in Domnica was a simple rectangle some thirty-five paces long and twenty-two wide. It had been built of gray stone blocks nearly four hundred years prior to Heinrich’s arrival. Its modest exterior belied a nave of rare beauty, for the stones of the interior walls were alternating pastels of pink and gray, some further graced by borders of blue or gold. It was designed like a small basilica in that it had a broad nave separated from side aisles by ten columned archways that rose to form the outer wall of a second story. The rear western wall was built as a large, semi-circular apse which contained the altar.
“Come, Heinrich, my boy. Enter with me. I should be pleased, however, if you would drop your eye to the floor until I ask you to raise it.” She was giddy as a young girl on May Day morn.
Heinrich had about enough of head-bending, and the hair itching at his skin was making him irritable. He obliged the tittering woman, nonetheless, and let her lead him like a blind man down the center aisle toward the altar.
The woman positioned him carefully and took a deep breath. “Now, Heinrich, look up!”
Heinrich lifted his head and as he did his mouth dropped open. His throat immediately swelled and tears formed. The morning sun of the new year was pouring through the windows of the wall behind him and splashing its light across a glittering mosaic that filled the concave apse. Shimmering before him were the colors of the Creation: green and blue, red, gold, and white. But there was more. It was a mosaic like none other in all Christendom, for in the concave hollow of the apse it displayed the Virgin and the Holy Child surrounded by angels and seated in a garden of flowers! “Flowers! Mein Gott… ‘tis Emma’s garden!” he cried.
Slowly, Heinrich moved closer. The vault was bordered by strips of gold and flowers of blue and red. To one side stood Moses, on the other, Elijah, both with flowers at their feet. Above the arch sat the Christ on a rainbow “Ach, a rainbow!” exclaimed Heinrich. “And look … are they the apostles approaching him from either side?”
Anoush was weeping for joy. “Ja, good Heinrich.” She had sensed something special about the melancholy pilgrim from the moment she had first seen him. The way his spirit rose to the beauty of the mosaic affirmed her hopes. She was sure that he, like her, might understand what such light and color said about the true heart of the God they served.
The stoop-shouldered sister and the shaggy German stood silently before the glory of the ancient display until Don Vincenzo grumbled his way into the nave. “To work!” he commanded. The two hesitated, then, with sighs and obedient nods, they parted. Sister Anoush bade Heinrich a reluctant farewell and scurried to her beloved children. For his part, Heinrich pulled his lingering eye away from the enchanting vision and followed Vincenzo to the bakehouse in the garden behind the church. He began his first day of penance with his hand deep in dough.
After ringing the bells of midnight matins, Heinrich took the Norse sea captain’s necklace from the bottom of his satchel and began the quarter hour jaunt to the Palace of St. John Lateran. St. John’s, or St. Giovanni as the Romans called it, was known as the “Mother and Head of All Churches in the City and the World.” The first basilica built in Rome, it was the official church of the early Roman Christians. The infants of these ancient Christian families had been baptized beneath the waters of its black tub for centuries.
In the palace attached to the basilica, the pope maintained his residence as his predecessors had done for nearly a thousand years before. And on the second story of the eastern end of the massive complex was the pope’s private chapel, the Sancta Sanctorum, the Holy of Holies.
That dark night, Pope Innocent III prayed in the Sancta Sanctorum while, unbeknownst to him, Heinrich of Weyer stood trembling in a nearby courtyard. The pope had recently excommunicated Lord Otto, his original choice for emperor of the Germans. Surrounded by relics such as the thorny crown of the Christ, nails from the cross, and, as some had sworn, the very heads of Saints Peter and Paul, Innocent now prayed earnestly for his new choice for emperor, the child, Friederich II.
Heinrich fidgeted with the Norseman’s simple, silver necklace while he followed directions to the Scala Santa. The Holy Stairs once led to Pilate’s judgment hall in Jerusalem; it was the very same stairway that Jesus had tread upon on the way to his trial before his crucifixion. Removed to Rome some eight hundred years before, they now brought comfort and assurance to the many souls wishing to follow in their Savior’s steps. Penitents through the ages had climbed the deep-set, twenty-eight marble stairs upon their knees, pausing at each to pray or recite an Ave or Pater Noster. Some fortunate few would be greeted with a holy kiss by the pope himself, to whose residence this stairway climbed.