To encourage us in our journey.
Holy Week seems like an appropriate time to begin reading Dante’s “Divine Comedy.” Many consider this if not the greatest work in Western literature, then certainly one of the greatest.
Some words over time lose their formal and lofty clothing and become dressed in frivolous and flippant dress. This has happened to the word “awesome,” which originally meant something so imposing, it generated fear. It now means, “super,” or “great.” This change of clothing has also happened to the word “comedy.” This word now means a funny novel, play, or movie. It originally meant something that does not start well, but that ends well.
Sandy and I, as are many Christians, are in the darker chapters of our divine comedy. We know the Light, the Person that is Light, and we know that Light is our guide and companion, but our circumstances are dark and often filled with sadness. The two of us are stumbling up our dark hills in two different paths, but the Person who is Light is at the end of the trails we are on. That doesn’t make the trails any less painful or any less filled with anguish, sorrow, or a sense of loss. It does, however, make it bearable. Because we know our comedy will end well.
Dante begins his comedy in a dark woodland where he sees the light at the top of a mountain. He is prevented from scaling this mountain by three fearsome animals that represent all the sins that beset humanity: the first beast is that of incontinence, where “incontinence” means lack of restraint; the second beast represent violence and bestiality; the third beast represents fraud. The seven deadly sins are contained within the three rubrics that name these beasts.
Dante soon recognizes that he is guilty of the sin of acedia. This is a sin that is rarely if ever discussed in the American church. It is the sin of spiritual apathy, or slothfulness. Dante realizes that he did not fervently live the life of grace.
In Dante’s journey, he will, with the guide of Virgil, sink through the various circles of the Inferno into ever deeper darkness, discovering as awful as these circles are, that people are there because they chose to be. He will then climb through the circular trails up the shadowy hills of Purgatory into ever increasing light, the pathway of those whose sins are forgiven, but who must be purified before they can enter heaven. Virgil, who is a pagan, must leave Dante, and return to Limbo. Dante will then traverse the spheres of heaven until he experiences the complete glory of God. Along the way, he encounters the love of his life often, the beautiful Beatrice (in Italian, Bee-ah-TRICH-ee) who represents Divine Love.
As this long an extended poem ends in glory, the promise of Easter is that after many of us make our way through the dark hills and through the shadow valleys of life, glory awaits us. Our role is to allow that Light to fill us and to guide us and illuminate our travels.